

Creating an Open Source Web App that is also a Startup? - devs1010

I've been kicking around some ideas for a while of some web apps I'd like to build. They mostly relate to social media in such that they would utilize API's of some sites (Twitter, for example) to do data analysis or things along those lines (intending to keep it legit, not "spamware"). Basically, these are things I'd find useful myself to just have to use but that I think could also have potential to be turned into a business at some point. I'm not real gung ho about finding a partner and making a formalized startup, rather I just want to hash out some design docs and start coding, and it'd be nice to work with other developers on this.<p>Since turning it into some mega-successful startup isn't the goal, I'm fine with the app being open source and then maybe potentially branching it off at some point and adding some new features to try to make money with it, and would be fine with other people doing the same. I'm curious if anyone knows of other examples of this or if there are internet communities more geared towards this. It seems a lot of open source projects, at least the ones I've seen, are more geared at providing frameworks and libraries, not real functional web apps. This is great, of course, as these things are essential, but I sometimes wonder if there aren't other possibilities with open source. Thanks for any info to point me in the right direction.
======
spencerelliott
I've actually been somewhat interested in this as well. I've only started
fleshing out an idea and playing with App Engine and Amazon S3. I'm actually
thinking of offering what I've been working on as a SaaS in the future but I
don't know where to start.

I don't want to hijack the topic but I'll be keeping an eye out for any advice
anyone has to offer.

------
aytekin
Wordpress. They have an open source software, and they also have a
Wordpress.com site that serves the same software as a SaaS service.

But I'd say it would be very hard to maintain both an open source project and
a web app at the same time. You should probably focus on one at least at the
beginning.

~~~
devs1010
Thanks, good example. Actually, the goal isn't to maintain it as a running
site at first. An example that comes to mind, since I use it at my work, is
the Jira system, this is a web app that companies buy and run their own copies
of so if you were building something like this as an open source project, you
don't have to worry about setting up a version of the site running live to
gain a user base (at least in th e early stages), I agree that it wouldn't
work to maintain it as a running, public facing web app while its at least in
the early stage of open source development

