
Ask HN: Is it a good practice to provide open-source version of your paid app? - pmestha
Hello hackers,<p>I am Prasanna, the founder of PrivJs (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;privjs.com) - Internet&#x27;s first open-core software marketplace.<p>While building a few products, I was wondering if it could be a good practice to release a chunk of my paid software to the open-source community? Will that have any adverse effects on the product? Or will it benefit overall?<p>-Prasanna
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artembugara
I think it will not harm. Usually, because people who cannot pay - will not.
People/companies who need high quality products and/or have expensive labour
will choose a paid plan.

For Example, Elasticsearch. So popular, fully open-sourced. Still, Elastic
sells fully managed clusters. And, many companies choose Enterprise license.

If you want smaller example. 2 month prior the beta launch of NewsCatcherAPI
([https://newscatcherapi.com](https://newscatcherapi.com)) I decided to open
source some code we've done
([https://github.com/kotartemiy/newscatcher](https://github.com/kotartemiy/newscatcher)).
We ended up having 300 people fro beta sign-up. Then, 700 pre-launch.

So, I attracted lots of developers who already liked the field via open-
sourcing

Edit: grammar

~~~
stingraycharles
You’re correct, but I want to emphasize a point from your comment:
ElasticSearch only earns a lot of money because they have a very good
monetization strategy for their managed clusters.

Open sourcing your product absolutely _requires_ that you have a proper
monetization strategy in mind, it should not be an afterthought. I’ve seen too
many startups fail because they were not able to capitalize on the momentum
they have gotten with their opensource version; projects such as rethinkdb
come to mind.

Once you have a solid plan, by all means, release an open source version. But
remember, once that cat is out of the bag, it’s hard to put it back in.

~~~
artembugara
Agree

------
JohnStrangeII
It will substantially harm sales of B2C products, but it may make sense for
B2B products that require support and training and aren't based on any
substantial know how/trade secrets. In that case releasing as open source
might even be beneficial. A good trade off is to release libraries as open
source but keep parts of your final product (e.g. GUI) proprietary.

Even in the B2B market successful open source companies often use dual
licenses and release the open source version as a sort of crippleware by
keeping essential libraries and tools proprietary or under very restrictive
open source licenses.

~~~
fr2null
I think Kong* does this rather well. They have a usable open source product
that has a lot of the core functionality and it more than enough for small
businesses and hobbyists. They also provide enterprise support and a
enterprise products which includes functions that are typically used by
enterprises (like fine grained auth).

* [https://konghq.com/](https://konghq.com/)

------
0XAFFE
If I would ever would launch a product, I would choose AGPL for the open
source side and provide a commercial license for those who need it. This has
the advantage over MIT/Apache that if someone wants to build a business
arround your free software, they have to provide their changes to everyone.

I discovered this for pgmodeler[1] and found it a very good way to monetize
the development of the application.

[1]
[https://github.com/pgmodeler/pgmodeler](https://github.com/pgmodeler/pgmodeler)

~~~
exabrial
I think a better option would be "Source Available" rather than AGPL. AGPL
isn't tested in courts, but the _last_ thing a company would want is all of
their source being forced open because they used demo'd some tool internally.
A "source available" option allows a company to review your code or even solve
their own problems, but without risk of being sued by a third party.

~~~
cercatrova
That's the point. Companies will choose the commercial license, then, out of
fear of getting sued. If they want to review the code and demo it, they can
look at the git repository or use a hosted demo version by the author. In this
case, there are no fewer capabilities than with closed-source software.

------
orlandohill
If you want to open all of your product's code, then you might want to use a
public-private licensing model. [https://indieopensource.com/public-
private/users](https://indieopensource.com/public-private/users)

Have a look at the Parity Public License and the Prosperity Public License.
[https://paritylicense.com/](https://paritylicense.com/)
[https://prosperitylicense.com/](https://prosperitylicense.com/)

Those two licenses allow others to read, modify and redistribute your code.
Parity requires that users open source their code, while Prosperity only
allows non-commercial usage. If a potential customer doesn't want to be
restricted by the public license you choose, they can instead buy a private
license.

Also see License Zero's private license.
[https://licensezero.com/licenses/private](https://licensezero.com/licenses/private)

~~~
cercatrova
Note that the Prosperity, Parity and Licenze Zero licenses are not open source
due to the restrictions they place on certain types of users, such as other
businesses. This may be fine for one's usecase or as a business, but one must
know that they are not in fact truly open source.

~~~
andreareina
I’m not seeing where Parity discriminates against certain users, groups, or
fields of endeavor. Clause 9 of the open source definition[1] seems a close
thing, but the same reasoning for A/GPL applies.

[1] [https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd-
annotated)

------
gremlinsinc
It shouldn't if you model it right. A lot of companies do very well with 'open
core', which is sort of this. I think there's other successful ones as well.

For instance laravel has a hosted invoicing app: InvoiceNinja, but it's open
source too, as in you can host it yourself, just it doesn't have any of the
multi-tenant stuff baked in.

------
maficious
You might check out Aseprite. It's a a software which binaries are paid, but
source code is free and you can just conpile a program for free if you want.

~~~
hh3k0
Aseprite came to mind for me, too. Then again, Aseprite is aimed at artists
rather than programmers. I'd argue that most people who use it don't want to
go through the hassle of compiling it themselves – compiling software can be a
daunting task. I have the feeling that a similar business model ("free on
github if you're willing to put a little work into it, paid in stores if you
prefer comfort") wouldn't work as well as it does for Aseprite if the software
would be aimed at programmers.

~~~
maficious
True, this may have worked for Aseprite only because of the fact that the
program was made for artists. So their sales haven't been hurt.

------
aasasd
Well, I've been a user of a couple closed-source apps that have apparently
fallen by the wayside and don't get any development anymore. Meanwhile, the
open-source ecosystem doesn't have good native alternatives specifically in
those areas.

So personally I'd like it if authors at least made provisions for open-
sourcing their apps in their will, or in the ‘life moved on’ plan.

~~~
lenkite
Out of curiosity, which apps are these ?

~~~
aasasd
Disk Order is/was a fast and sleek two-panel file manager for Mac. However
some bugs were never fixed. Releases just stopped, and the company site later
disappeared. The primary alternative, Forklift, is just too slow in the
version three. Double Commander works but doesn't integrate well with native
OS features. (Total Commander remains a distant ideal on non-Windows
platforms. Boy do I miss its speed and comfort.)

Hyperswitch the cmd-tab enhancement is still very usable and is updated,
however the updates seem to be limited to resetting the ‘beta’ time limit. Not
that it needs new features, but I think it does have at least one bug. I'm
also baffled by the author's release model (the time-limited but repeatedly
prolonged ‘beta’) and irked that among the couple dozen apps on this topic
there aren't good open-source ones without some dubious features. Since
Hyperswitch is fully freeware, why not make it open-source so others could fix
problems they run into?

I think there were other ones, but can't remember them right now. Basically,
if an app doesn't bring in plenty of money, why not at least let people make
something better of it.

------
freedomben
If you wanted me to use and pay for your software, you'd need to provide the
source. I have no problem paying for software - in fact when the price is fair
I do so liberally.

However, if a copy of the source doesn't come with my purchase then I am much,
much less likely to buy it. I'm obviously only one user, so take my anecdote
with a grain of salt.

I use a model of "source-included" personally. This way I respect (most of)
the freedom of my users, but not at my own expense.

I don't have a vetted license in mind tho. So far I haven't needed it. Someday
hopefully I will ;-)

 _Side note: make sure you have build instructions for your users tho. I don
't like when I buy software that is source included but then building is
impossible because `make && make install` (or whatever for that platform)
doesn't work and there aren't any instructions. You don't want your buyers to
have remorse.

_*Other side note: Thanks for thinking about this! It's really cool of you to
think about community

------
axegon_
In a word: Depends. Microsoft for instance nailed it perfectly. For many years
billions of devices ran cracked Windows copies and truthfully that didn't
bother individual users in most countries. While illegal, realistically no one
was going to bother with 15 year old Jimmy somewhere in the countryside. But
they kept insisting on it. Until they figured out that locking and blocking
was never going to work. So they adopted the WinRAR approach: "Hey you are
running an unregistered version past your trial. This may have legal
consequences."

But the thing is that while Windows has many alternatives (I'm saying this as
someone who's been using Linux full time since the age of 11), for most people
that really isn't an option: while you can get things like Photoshop to run on
Linux, the experience is anything but optimal. I don't use Photoshop at all(or
any graphics programs). But say my mum who's an artist - she practically has
to use Windows. So in that sense, Microsoft has no benefit in open-sourcing
anything, even though they have been doing that in recent years. I remember
seeing a huge discussion on Twitter last year and several people said that at
some point Microsoft will become a completely open-source company. Personally
I doubt it, but who knows...

Now let's look at another example - Google, and Chrome in particular. As a
browser, Chrome has a million and one alternatives, many of which are very
good. So having an open source alternative is in their best interest - think
of how many browsers [1] use and contribute to the chromium engine - it's a
win-win situation for everyone: Big community, a thousand eyes looking into
it's internals(and undeniably catching security flaws).

Then again, this isn't always applicable. Even more so with javascript and npm
in particular, which has turned everything into an endless rabbit hole of
packages, dependencies and before-after install scripts.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Active](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_\(web_browser\)#Active)

~~~
encom
>Chrome has a million and one alternatives

I think after MS gave up on Edge, we're down to one - Firefox.

~~~
axegon_
No doubt it is the biggest. From the prospective of a Linux user however I'm
not complaining. IMO it outperforms firefox vastly in terms of performance and
all the different chrome-engine based browsers have been incredibly reliable:
Ever since the pandemic started, opera has been my go to for ssh tunneling,
while keeping chromium clean. All I had to do is get used to some different
shortcut keys and the red logo up on top, but that's it. Still, there are
several other engines available but they are still nowhere nearly as polished
as chromium. Hence my statement that this has been a successful, partially
open-sourced product.

------
gumby
If your marketplace is for “open core” licensed code it would make sense for
you to use that model too.

------
rsp1984
It may not harm you on the sales side of things directly, but going open
source will make it easy for your competition to catch up, which might matter
if you find traction with your product.

~~~
exabrial
I think this is intuitive, but are there are real world examples of this?

------
joaogfarias
If you care about the liberty of your users and ethics, you should release the
all code as free software. Information is not property.

You can create your business around service providing rather than using state
legislation to coerce people to not reproduce and alter information they know.

~~~
aasasd
> _Information is not property_

I too have phantom nostalgia and longing for anarchist ideals, but that
statement relates to life about as much as saying that matter and goods are
not property because all molecules of a substance are identical and thus you
could make the same things yourself. ‘You could, but you didn't’, as they say.

> _you should release all code as free software_

In exchange for your complete disregard for the value of the author's time and
effort? Dubious arrangement.

> _rather than using state legislation to coerce people to not reproduce and
> alter information they know_

Perhaps that's actually somewhat similar to when state legislation says you
shouldn't snag matter just because it's lying around? You know, the ‘natural’
and primordial right of capitalist bros that somehow requires police force and
surveillance for it to be implemented.

