

Ask HN: My project was aborted, should I OpenSource it? - jtlebigot

I mean, I do want to give back to the community but I really don&#x27;t want to give code snippets that work out of the box to my formers competitors you see ? 
Well, is it even a valid concern ?
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schrijver
Well since they are _former_ competitors that shouldnt really matter to you,
should it?

In a business sense, open sourcing it can allow you to gain recognition,
visibility and goodwill.

In a personal sense it could offer fulfilment, and in a moral sense, like you
say, you are giving back to the community.

However, be prepared to spend some time in cleaning commenting and documenting
if you really want it to be of use to others..

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zamalek
"to my formers competitors you see?"

Basically you are pissed at them because they won in the market space. That's
a perfectly normal and acceptable perspective to take. The only problem here
is that you have only seen the one set of users that would get your code: your
competitors. If you GPL'd your code they wouldn't be able to legally use it
any way; in most cases.

The other set of users would be the [potential] contributors. They would take
your code, improve it and bring it back into the repository. Eventually that
open source repository would be worth more than anything your competitors
would be able to put together.

Basically, from where I am sitting, open sourcing your code is the best path
to getting revenge (face it, that's what you are after).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth)

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andyhmltn
Why are you worrying about competitors? If you're at a point where you have
stopped working on it and are considering open sourcing it, it should make you
happy that your competitors are using your code haha.

~~~
declandewet
...those pesky competitors, eh Andy.

~~~
andyhmltn
Eh Declan... eh

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declandewet
Unless you have any benefits to gain from not open sourcing it, then open
source it. If you do, contributions from the open source community might just
enlighten you and you'd be a more educated person in terms of how to execute
ideas efficiently.

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obayesshelton
if you wanted to do it you would of already.

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sharemywin
what's it do?

