4 ms·

Are your paying clients the same people clamouring for open-source?

by FreshCode 16y ago

tomh 16y ago
The above question is very valid - with open-sourcing your code you will have to get into the 'community management' game, especially if you think you'll be taking contributions in the form of code sometime soon. If you customers are already asking for it to be open-sourced, or if you have partners in mind who will support this endeavor, this is a good start. If, on the other hand, you open-source without a good PR push to partners/customers/developers it's like a tree falling in the forest; will anyone be around to listen? We open-sourced from the beginning and then found clients; it was a long haul. We eventually found a toehold in developing countries, and were able to build up client credibility from there. If you already have a plan for using the OSS to sell right away, then maybe this plan is for you.
- robot 16y ago
  I think no serious customer for this technology would require open source, they would be happy to have it in commercial terms. However, non-customers can be a lot of people which would spread the name by word-of-mouth. Also those customers who intend to buy it will get a feeling of what they are getting, instead of you describing a black-box with significant marketing efforts.
  - FreshCode 16y ago
    Unless your product can really benefit from a strong network effect in the open-source community without compromising your competitive edge, I wouldn't do it. However, if you feel the potential to gain traction outweighs the threat of losing an edge (or a paying customer, since they can just use your code), open-source the engine, but hold back on the parts that are unique to your offering and/or make your engine easy to work with (like a GUI, simplified wrappers or builds for different platforms), though this depends on the nature of your product.

4 ms·

Are your paying clients the same people clamouring for open-source?

by FreshCode 16y ago

Are your paying clients the same people clamouring for open-source?

tomh 16y ago
The above question is very valid - with open-sourcing your code you will have to get into the 'community management' game, especially if you think you'll be taking contributions in the form of code sometime soon. If you customers are already asking for it to be open-sourced, or if you have partners in mind who will support this endeavor, this is a good start. If, on the other hand, you open-source without a good PR push to partners/customers/developers it's like a tree falling in the forest; will anyone be around to listen? We open-sourced from the beginning and then found clients; it was a long haul. We eventually found a toehold in developing countries, and were able to build up client credibility from there. If you already have a plan for using the OSS to sell right away, then maybe this plan is for you.
- robot 16y ago
  I think no serious customer for this technology would require open source, they would be happy to have it in commercial terms. However, non-customers can be a lot of people which would spread the name by word-of-mouth. Also those customers who intend to buy it will get a feeling of what they are getting, instead of you describing a black-box with significant marketing efforts.
  - FreshCode 16y ago
    Unless your product can really benefit from a strong network effect in the open-source community without compromising your competitive edge, I wouldn't do it. However, if you feel the potential to gain traction outweighs the threat of losing an edge (or a paying customer, since they can just use your code), open-source the engine, but hold back on the parts that are unique to your offering and/or make your engine easy to work with (like a GUI, simplified wrappers or builds for different platforms), though this depends on the nature of your product.