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Tailscale has raised $160M

(tailscale.com)
655 points louis-paul | 5 comments | 08 Apr 25 10:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.155s | source
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elAhmo ◴[08 Apr 25 14:09 UTC] No.43621983[source]▶
When I saw the new round, I was instantly worried about change in direction that will most likely come with this, and effectively drive away regular users from a tool that seems universally loved.

Similar sentiment can be seen in the discussion from three years ago [1] when they raised $100M.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31259950

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braginini ◴[08 Apr 25 14:38 UTC] No.43622328[source]▶
Try netbird which is an open-source alternative to free yourself from worries xD https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird
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arcanemachiner ◴[08 Apr 25 17:22 UTC] No.43624205[source]▶
I've always been on the outside looking in, so I've never used Tailscale or its open-source brethren.

Would this service be comparable to Headscale[0]?

[0] https://github.com/juanfont/headscale

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acheong08 ◴[08 Apr 25 18:51 UTC] No.43625265[source]▶
Headscale is server only. Netbird is the whole stack (basically does the same thing but completely different software/implementation)
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1. bjackman ◴[08 Apr 25 21:49 UTC] No.43626804{3}[source]▶
But the tailscale client is open source too
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2. Imustaskforhelp ◴[09 Apr 25 03:01 UTC] No.43628505[source]▶
Doesn't that also then make tailscale completely open source?
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3. pilif ◴[09 Apr 25 03:08 UTC] No.43628539[source]▶
Not on Windows and iOS. And on the mac, the most useable client isn’t open source either.
4. udev4096 ◴[09 Apr 25 11:44 UTC] No.43631047[source]▶
What? The original coordination server, which is not running headscale, is closed source so yes, they are still a closed source company
5. bjackman ◴[10 Apr 25 21:44 UTC] No.43648329[source]▶
No their "real" backend is proprietary. Headscale is a separate implementation that they also maintain. It's intended for self-hosting your individual Tailnet. I'm assuming if you tried to use it as a corporate VPN you would run into limitations.

Their clients for proprietary OSs are at least partly proprietary too.

To be honest I find this all a very reasonable set of compromises. It means I'm comfortable using their proprietary service without feeling like I'm getting locked into a completely closed ecosystem.