

Ask YC: Should I open source my product or not? (did you?) - xenoterracide
http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-source-it-or-not.html

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witten
I run a subscription personal wiki service (<http://luminotes.com>), and I
open sourced the software that runs it from the start.. Mostly because I was
sick of working on proprietary software for a living. And then two interesting
things happened. First, people started signing up for paid subscriptions. And
second, no one made a competing service from my source code (yet).

I think in general people overestimate the value of their source code. There
are so many other things that you can bring to a business that any copy-cats
wouldn't necessarily have (e.g. your knowledge of the source code, your vision
for the product, etc). So don't flatter yourself into thinking that as soon as
you release the source, a dozen competitors will spring up using your
software. And even if they do, you'll still likely out-compete them.

So like making any business decision, weigh the advantages and disadvantages
of open sourcing and make a decision based on those. But don't make the common
mistake of overestimating the disadvantages.

~~~
xenoterracide
I guess my biggest concern involves cases like mysql. I recently read
estimated 1/1000 users pay. Their primary revenue is support. If my primary
revenue is service and I give the software away, then everyone can provide the
service.

~~~
gwniobombux
I think it's okay not to opensource, since you're not distributing software
but offering a service. Free software is about sharing and a sense of
community. Running a piece of software on your machine, you should be free to
inspect and modify the source, sharing your modifications back. These freedoms
don't seem to apply in such a strict sense to web services.

