

Why Your Next App Should be Open Sourced - Garbage
http://java.dzone.com/articles/why-your-next-app-should-be

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loewenskind
Did not like. About half the things on that list will cause releasing
something to take longer. Every day you delay trying to make your code
"pretty" for other _potential_ developers is a day your competitors gain on
you.

Also the open source benefits are claimed as a fact, i.e. you open source and
this is what you get. But that's not how it works. Have a look at freshmeat,
sourceforge, etc. at all the abandoned projects. If you open source your code
you wont automatically get coders dreaming of making your code better. You
might if you become popular on your own but if you can become popular on your
own do you really need open source?

Is the _potential_ that if you do everything right someone might write
Instapaper integration for you worth the potential that competitors might
harvest the best part of your app and create a product from it that takes all
your sales?

Open source has its place to be sure and I contribute when I can. I just don't
think it's place is "everywhere".

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xentronium
> About half the things on that list will cause releasing something to take
> longer. Every day you delay trying to make your code "pretty" for other
> potential developers is a day your competitors gain on you.

Excuse me? Shouldn't you normally make your code pretty enough for _you_ and
other developers inhouse to support?

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alexro
You don't have to make your code pretty to be a successful company, think
about Microsoft and other huge code factories for instance.

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xentronium
Error ratio per KLOC is actually quite low in Microsoft.

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ryandvm
I've done the open source app thing before. It can be fulfilling on some sort
of karmic level, but unless you happen to crank out the next Apache or Linux,
it is almost certainly not going to be a way for you to make any sort of
living. At best, you'll get to claim it for credit on your résumé.

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j_baker
Who says your app has to be the next Apache or Linux for it to be worth your
time of open sourcing it?

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ryandvm
It depends on what your time is worth. Like I said, you my find it emotionally
gratifying to release your application's source code as open source. In which
case it very well may be "worth it" to you.

However, I'll stand by my point that it is very, very difficult to extract
significant income from the average open source project.

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dstein
I think the "open source everything" movement is misguided. Open source
generally doesn't work well for anything except for very large "community
projects". I've seen it countless times -- one highly skilled coder can often
out-code an entire community by several fold. "Build by committee" results in
a large, slow-evolving codebase that never gets finished. Whereas a web app or
iPhone game need to be built fast, and with a clear vision. In general, open
sourcing it will just slow the project down, and now you have a human resource
problem on your hands, and you need to deal with poorly written code being
patched into your project. It's an overhead that's not worth it when the
project owner can usually code the bug fixes, and features faster than any
outsider can.

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mattmanser
An article from the the heart of the java community promoting writing open
source iPhone apps. Interesting.

