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True, I misspoke. I meant commercialize it as closed source / proprietary software. But cheers on your work! Beyond your team, does the community contribute to

True, I misspoke. I meant commercialize it as closed source / proprietary software. But cheers on your work! Beyond your team, does the community contribute to your product in meaningful ways?

mindcrime 11y ago
We haven't gotten a lot of community contribution yet, but a group doing some research at a university in Europe wanted to use one of our projects as part of some research they were doing, and they made some contributions in the process. Other than that, there are a few locals who I know personally, that have gotten involved as contributors to the open source projects, but without being part of the company per-se. All of the above, of course, applies very specifically to the code we have written. But here's the thing.. SO much of what we do is based on building on top of, or integrating with, other open source projects, that - by a more inclusive standard - we can say we've received a ton of community contribution. And that goes back to the one of the ideological reasons I mentioned earlier. I would feel like a complete hypocrite to reuse so much work done by others, and release it as part of a proprietary / closed source product - even if the license allows it.
DonaldFisk 11y ago
There's also the option of a shared source licence. This means providing the source code, but only allowing free non-commercial use. Commercial use would then come under a different licence and would have to be paid for. Third party contributors whose work is included in commercial sales would then be given a portion of the revenue from those sales.
- sytse 11y ago
  Only allowing non-commercial use is a serious inhibitor of the popularity of the project. More common is to have a AGPL/GPLv3 license that some companies will pay to get rid of. Alternatively use a business friendly license (MIT Expat) and have open core business model where some features are proprietary (like we at GitLab use).
  - DonaldFisk 11y ago
    A shared source licence still allows commercial use of the software - it just has to be paid for. If it is given away, with or without strings attached, there is no direct way for the developers to be remunerated for their effort. Open source might encourage a few companies to contribute to projects, but that only pays the developers of that software who are employed by those companies. Private individuals, or non-profit institutions, can still use shared source software. A few might be put off if they think it won't help them to find a job, but even they will think twice if companies start paying to use it. Having popular software is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills if you can't charge for it.

True, I misspoke. I meant commercialize it as closed source / proprietary software. But cheers on your work! Beyond your team, does the community contribute to your product in meaningful ways?

mindcrime 11y ago

We haven't gotten a lot of community contribution yet, but a group doing some research at a university in Europe wanted to use one of our projects as part of some research they were doing, and they made some contributions in the process. Other than that, there are a few locals who I know personally, that have gotten involved as contributors to the open source projects, but without being part of the company per-se. All of the above, of course, applies very specifically to the code we have written. But here's the thing.. SO much of what we do is based on building on top of, or integrating with, other open source projects, that - by a more inclusive standard - we can say we've received a ton of community contribution. And that goes back to the one of the ideological reasons I mentioned earlier. I would feel like a complete hypocrite to reuse so much work done by others, and release it as part of a proprietary / closed source product - even if the license allows it.

DonaldFisk 11y ago

There's also the option of a shared source licence. This means providing the source code, but only allowing free non-commercial use. Commercial use would then come under a different licence and would have to be paid for. Third party contributors whose work is included in commercial sales would then be given a portion of the revenue from those sales.

sytse 11y ago
Only allowing non-commercial use is a serious inhibitor of the popularity of the project. More common is to have a AGPL/GPLv3 license that some companies will pay to get rid of. Alternatively use a business friendly license (MIT Expat) and have open core business model where some features are proprietary (like we at GitLab use).
- DonaldFisk 11y ago
  A shared source licence still allows commercial use of the software - it just has to be paid for. If it is given away, with or without strings attached, there is no direct way for the developers to be remunerated for their effort. Open source might encourage a few companies to contribute to projects, but that only pays the developers of that software who are employed by those companies. Private individuals, or non-profit institutions, can still use shared source software. A few might be put off if they think it won't help them to find a job, but even they will think twice if companies start paying to use it. Having popular software is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills if you can't charge for it.