Clean-room, AI-assisted, open-source, drop-in replacements for the SaaS giants. Apache-2.0. Self-hosted. No per-seat tax.

OccupySaaS is protest movement written in code.

Story is simple. Many engineers got laid off in tech. But the SaaS platforms they built keep growing and keep charging per seat. So the same industry rent our own work back to us. This project is answer to that. Laid off engineers use AI and public documentation to rebuild those platforms as free open source drop-in replacements. One seat at a time.

Method is clean room. Public docs only, open standards, public SDK behaviour. No leaked code, no decompile, no confidential info from former employer. AI help with build, humans write spec and review every change. Compatible is proven by running vendors own public SDKs against the server. If your existing code dont work unchanged, it is not done.

Two early releases: ZeroAuthy ( Auth0 compatible identity server) and SalesCompel( Salesforce compatible CRM)

They are early, not production ready yet. But the goal is the point.

  • criss_cross@lemmy.world
    121·
    5 days ago

    This is something that my current company is learning the hard way sadly.

    You don’t pay saas companies for a code base. You pay them for maintenance, hosting, and figuring out complexity for you.

    Vibe coded stuff is garbage because the only thought that went into it was a 5 minute “build this for me”.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      7·
      6 days ago

      A lot of that AI will presumably be rented from the companies that persuaded your boss to fire you and use their tools instead. So it’s an odd kind of protest, that starts by paying those companies more money.

      I do like the idea of software engineers collectivizing and prioritizing work on projects that don’t have good enough open-source options, particularly where it targets the nastier companies in the SaaS space. But there’s nothing new about that work; what’s new is that we have a lot of people motivated to take software in a new direction, who miss being able to take pride in the quality of their work, and who may be more receptive to acting collectively than these people have traditionally been. I know whenever I’ve proposed any kind of collective stance at my workplaces I’ve been met with blank stares, silence, and developers nervously looking at their feet. Maybe that can change when more people have recent experience of what happens when you don’t act together.

      If we want to do something new, how about worker-owned cooperatives which actually offer good-quality software and support with ethical terms of use? Build it and sell it to the companies paying for SaaS, and make your software and support deal more attractive than the one they’re being gouged for. The support is particularly important when anyone can dash off some software using AI. Make your company worker-owned, nonprofit and cheap, market it professionally, offer good support and maintenance, and make a living doing it.

    • VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca
      31·
      6 days ago

      Is it a clean room concept if the LLM has sucked up every source code it could find ?

  • krolden@lemmy.ml
    3·
    5 days ago

    There’s a ton of open source idps. The only reason anyone uses entra or Google idp is because they’re already using windows or chrome/android

    I’ve never actually seen anyone using auth0. I assume because they read how much it would cost versus something like authentik or keycloak.

    Also I didn’t see any mention of self hosting this software they’re vibe coding.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    51·
    6 days ago

    I mean in principle, stealing IP from big tech would be great, but do they have to have even the English written by AI? It writes in the most grating tech bro tone I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Can’t be bothered to write all the code, fine, but can you at least write the introduction to your project? Do you even not care about that?

  • bilouba@jlai.lu
    7·
    6 days ago

    People pays for long term maintenance and support. I’m sympathetic to the mouvement and motivation but it’s not going to change much.

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
      1·
      6 days ago

      The main outcome from this is that it forces the companies to not out-source the development/maintenance/support to AI. If they do, they are literally no different from just self-hosting this and asking your own LLM for help, which is going to be cheaper.

      As usual, automation actually reduces the rate of profit in the long run.

      This is probably the most realistic goal of the movement.