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49 points theturtletalks | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.199s | source

I'm building an open source Amazon.

In other words, an open source decentralized marketplace. But like Carl Sagan said, to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

So first I had to make open source management systems for every vertical. I'm launching the first one today, Openfront e-commerce, an open source Shopify alternative. Next will be Openfront restaurant, Openfront grocery, and Openfront gym.

And all of these Openfronts will connect to our decentralized marketplace, "the/marketplace", seamlessly. Once we launch other Openfronts, you'll be able to do everything from booking hotels to ordering groceries right from one place with no middle men. The marketplace simply connects to the Openfront just like its built-in storefront does.

Together, we can use open source to disrupt marketplaces and make sure sellers, in every vertical, are never beholden to them.

Marketplace: https://marketplace.openship.org

Openfront platforms: https://openship.org/openfront-ecommerce

Source code: https://github.com/openshiporg/openfront

Demo - Openfront: https://youtu.be/jz0ZZmtBHgo

Demo - Marketplace: https://youtu.be/LM6hRjZIDcs

Part 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32690410

1. alazoral ◴[] No.46266019[source]
It’s not clear to me how this idea, a decentralised place where you can access a lot of different stores, isn’t just the web. There’s a lot of mature alternatives for running web based ecommerce storefronts.

The value of Amazon and other marketplace systems, what I think many would say is their distinguishing factor, is capital L Logistics. It’s the warehouses, the return systems, quality control, customer support, international shipping and importing, inter-warehouse trucking and a network of last mile delivery, all tuned to minimise costs. An open source platform that handles all of that somehow would actually be revolutionary, but even the design of the system would require actual years of user research and mastery of systems that are truly arcane.