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I am trying to launch my web application while remaining open source. It's a bit crazy, and my gut feeling say it is absolutely crazy. Nonetheless, I am intere
by kiba 16y ago
I am trying to launch my web application while remaining open source. It's a bit crazy, and my gut feeling say it is absolutely crazy.
Nonetheless, I am interested in seeing how can I work with my site being open source and how to make money.
I put my hypothesis is that people don't care much or don't want to set up a web application when they can sign up for a web service that is of low enough barrier. So I am planning to charge 5 bucks a month just to see what happen.
I do not see DRM and anti-piracy technologies as a solution to my problem. If people respect copyright, they would all be running to free products like GIMP instead of purchasing photoshop.
I also have no ethical issue with piracy and pirating. However, let it be clear that contractual copyright is something I absolutely support. However, if there are no expressed agreement between two parties, than it is absolutely ethical to "pirate". If third parties get their hand on copyrighted material that the initial party agree not to distribute, than the third party has not done anything wrong because he didn't agree to anything.
But contractual copyright, like current copyright are not alway or maybe never solutions. If you're going to use copyright, make sure you don't fall into "It ain't fair for people to pirated from me" mindset. That's a dangerous trap and path to your doom on the free market.
I consider copyright truth to be important to the survival of business. An accurate model of the benefit and cost of copyright will make or break an entire industries, corporations, and individuals. Don't assume anything.
- jrockway 16y agoThis model seems to have worked well for RT and Best Practical Solutions. RT is GPL, but they sell support for it and seem to make enough money to have employees and buy e-book readers :) Slashdot is similar. Open source code, but people still click the ads and pay for subscriptions. Given the choice to use a closed web service versus one with all the code available, I'd pay more every time to use the open one.
- kiba 16y agoGiven the choice to use a closed web service versus one with all the code available, I'd pay more every time to use the open one. With some good luck and hard pushing, I should have a terrible web application for hacker news people to critique and ripped to shred. It would also be a chance for you to try my service and see if you're going to pay for it. We'll see, we'll see...
- danilocampos 16y agoI think it's brilliant. You get the benefits of having many more eyes on your code than you might be able to afford early on, which is huge. Besides, there are examples of SaaS working for OSS apps not even invented by the vendor. Hosted SVN and Trac, for example, Github for git, and so on. There's also Magento, an OSS e-commerce product where the model is to give away the software and bill for the consulting to customize it. So it's not crazy to give away your source and find the revenue elsewhere. If you make something good enough for another business to steal, you've got validation and who knows, perhaps a consulting client.
- kiba 16y agoMy wishes and empirical business opportunities doesn't seem to align itself. I want to be like patio11, making money off my customers and generally scale my solution, not offer consulting services to big corporations. Perhaps, I will find a happy medium. If that's not the case, than I'll have to figure out what to do next.
- danilocampos 16y agoJust mentioning some options. My big thrust is that code secrecy and success needn't be mutually exclusive. Consulting is one obvious piece. Hosted version control is the obvious validation of your hope that it's easier to pay a guy $5 to host a web app instead of hosting yourself.