4 ms·

We are having a similar discussion for the startup I am working on (Caido.io). We are bootstrap and would like to make a living out of our work. We just don't h

by Sytten 5y ago

We are having a similar discussion for the startup I am working on (Caido.io). We are bootstrap and would like to make a living out of our work. We just don't have the luxury of VC money where we can open source and worry about making money later. Our compromise is that we are open sourcing anything that is not the core of the application for now. If we have enterprise / cloud features down the line, we will open source the core. I would really like to live in a world when open source doesn't necessarily mean gratis or direct copy by a competitor, but I have yet to see that work for desktop applications.

raxxorrax 5y ago
I love open source, but commercial software is completely fine in my opinion. I think the idea that there needs to be a way how open source can be monetized is very damaging to the idea itself. You can do that through support and expertise of course, but can also sell the software itself. You can also open source it later if you are established but you can also choose not to. The advantage of open source is that you may be able to leverage the ingenuity of people outside your company, get them invested in your software. I believe most are in open source to share code with each other, not necessarily to build a business. Most people that make money with open source don't really offer the software, they offer the whole package of a solution that can solve a problem for business customers. But not every form of software can fit into such a scenario.
cinntaile 5y ago
Being able to make a living is more important than open sourcing. Keep in mind that these other open source companies likely took that decision because they thought they would earn more money than keeping it closed source. It's a user funnel.
q-big 5y ago
> I would really like to live in a world when open source doesn't necessarily mean gratis or direct copy by a competitor Open source does not mean "gratis". See for example this historic order form of software offered by the Free Software Foundation: > https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/bull/17/gnu_bulletin_9401_30.html https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/bull/17/gnu_bulletin_940... Open source just implies that by economic principles, the market price for the respective software will soon converge to the marginal cost. Just to give another example how open source software might have a price: start a Kickstarter campaign which will release a software product as open source as soon as, say, 100,000 USD or EUR is reached.
- forgetfulness 5y ago
  > Open source does not mean "gratis". See for example this historic order form of software offered by the Free Software Foundation: That's the example that's been shown for the last 30 years, Richard Stallman making a buck selling copies of Emacs and GCC during a period in the 80s and early 90s, when infrastructure constraints made it cheaper, or feasible in the first place, for the user to order software to be shipped on physical media rather than downloading it from the net. Either there are no more examples of businesses that have lived off selling copies of Free desktop software, or the FSF really doesn't care enough to look for one in the last 20 years.
  - ensignavenger 5y ago
    Other examples of entirely open source projects that have paid, full time developers include all of RedHat, Godot, Blender, Linux, Python, Django... the list is very long.
    - forgetfulness 5y ago
      Yes but we're talking specifically of Software targeted at consumers or niche professionals, what "Independent Software Vendors" sell, it's good that some infrastructure projects get corporate sponsorship and that RedHat funnels some money from its server software business to the Linux desktop, but this is, rather noticeably, not spurring development of Linux desktop applications now, or last year, or in the ten years prior.
- adwn 5y ago
  > Open source does not mean "gratis". See for example this historic order form of software offered by the Free Software Foundation: If the best example in support of your thesis is a "historic order form" (not even a revenue statement!) from 30 years ago, way before the ubiquitous availability of high-speed Internet, then you might want to rethink your position.
  - q-big 5y ago
krapp 5y ago
>I would really like to live in a world when open source doesn't necessarily mean gratis or direct copy by a competitor, but I have yet to see that work for desktop applications. What would open source possibly mean, if not at least the latter? If you're a free software person then competitors being able to directly copy your code for nothing is part of the moral imperative you chose to stand for. Absent that imperative, open source still allows for proprietary sub-licensing. You don't have to open source your code if you don't want to, nor do you have to give it away for free if you do.
- Sytten 5y ago
  For me open source is to give the assurance to users that we are not doing shady things and that no matter what the business does they will continue to be able to use their software.
  - candiddevmike 5y ago
    What assurance does it give? I could "open source" the cmd files of my go app but keep the core libraries proprietary and the only folks who would call me out on it are the ones who understand what I did, everyone else will just see some folders in git and releases filled with binaries that aren't FOSS and think nothing of it. There are numerous examples of open source software doing shady things like telemetry and calling home too. It also doesn't necessarily guarantee future use of the software unless someone is going to step up and maintain it. Keeping software current/compatible is quite onerous, especially for GUI apps.
  - krapp 5y ago
    ... and how do you give users that assurance? By giving them free access to the source code so they can validate it, rewrite it and redistribute it if they want.
blagie 5y ago
Dunno. Recently, I had good luck with AGPL dual-license models. Most competitors wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot-pole. At the same time, we could build a contributor community. It cut off some sales, but build far, far more. I've seen other organizations do well with cloud hosting or support models. There are plenty of open source unicorn companies doing those sorts of things. Highest-margin "price doesn't matter" contracts will generally go to the author of a tool. It really depends on the business plan. I've been pretty successful with both open and closed source models, and in retrospect, I think they wouldn't have worked swapped around. The logic you're giving doesn't really make sense: "We just don't have the luxury of VC money where we can open source and worry about making money later." or "Our compromise is that we are open sourcing anything that is not the core of the application for now. If we have enterprise / cloud features down the line, we will open source the core." Open source has significant business upsides. For example: - If I'm buying from a small startup, open source reduces the risk of what happens when the startup goes under, or if a business goes Oracle and decides to take advantage of me once they have lock-in. - It builds ecosystems, networks, traction, visibility, and distribution. For small companies, those are hard problems. - It allows external contributions. Conversely, on the customer side, if a vendor won't fix a bug, I can. - On the customer side, it gives me transparency into roadmaps and development. Right now, I'm now at a big company, and I generally tend to buy open source. The build-versus-buy decision is purely economic, and economics usually goes towards "buy." Open-source gives most of the advantages of "build." The relative cost/value of those is an analysis that depends on your specific business model. Making the decision otherwise -- pretending open-source is some kind of charity -- is bad business.
- Sytten 5y ago
  Good points, like I said we are still discussing it internally and I like some of the points you made. For now our target customers are individuals that happen to be very good with computers so we can't expect juicy support contracts. That is why we think that if we can pivot to that model (enterprise support) open source would make sense. We try to as transparent as possible in the meantime with public roadmap, open sourcing non critical parts, etc. At the moment we don't want external code contributions to the core so I think our model make sense.
- 5y ago

by Sytten 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago

I love open source, but commercial software is completely fine in my opinion. I think the idea that there needs to be a way how open source can be monetized is very damaging to the idea itself. You can do that through support and expertise of course, but can also sell the software itself. You can also open source it later if you are established but you can also choose not to. The advantage of open source is that you may be able to leverage the ingenuity of people outside your company, get them invested in your software. I believe most are in open source to share code with each other, not necessarily to build a business. Most people that make money with open source don't really offer the software, they offer the whole package of a solution that can solve a problem for business customers. But not every form of software can fit into such a scenario.

cinntaile 5y ago

Being able to make a living is more important than open sourcing. Keep in mind that these other open source companies likely took that decision because they thought they would earn more money than keeping it closed source. It's a user funnel.

q-big 5y ago

> I would really like to live in a world when open source doesn't necessarily mean gratis or direct copy by a competitor Open source does not mean "gratis". See for example this historic order form of software offered by the Free Software Foundation: > https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/bull/17/gnu_bulletin_9401_30.html https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/bull/17/gnu_bulletin_940... Open source just implies that by economic principles, the market price for the respective software will soon converge to the marginal cost. Just to give another example how open source software might have a price: start a Kickstarter campaign which will release a software product as open source as soon as, say, 100,000 USD or EUR is reached.

forgetfulness 5y ago
> Open source does not mean "gratis". See for example this historic order form of software offered by the Free Software Foundation: That's the example that's been shown for the last 30 years, Richard Stallman making a buck selling copies of Emacs and GCC during a period in the 80s and early 90s, when infrastructure constraints made it cheaper, or feasible in the first place, for the user to order software to be shipped on physical media rather than downloading it from the net. Either there are no more examples of businesses that have lived off selling copies of Free desktop software, or the FSF really doesn't care enough to look for one in the last 20 years.
- ensignavenger 5y ago
  Other examples of entirely open source projects that have paid, full time developers include all of RedHat, Godot, Blender, Linux, Python, Django... the list is very long.
  - forgetfulness 5y ago
    Yes but we're talking specifically of Software targeted at consumers or niche professionals, what "Independent Software Vendors" sell, it's good that some infrastructure projects get corporate sponsorship and that RedHat funnels some money from its server software business to the Linux desktop, but this is, rather noticeably, not spurring development of Linux desktop applications now, or last year, or in the ten years prior.
adwn 5y ago
> Open source does not mean "gratis". See for example this historic order form of software offered by the Free Software Foundation: If the best example in support of your thesis is a "historic order form" (not even a revenue statement!) from 30 years ago, way before the ubiquitous availability of high-speed Internet, then you might want to rethink your position.
- q-big 5y ago

krapp 5y ago

>I would really like to live in a world when open source doesn't necessarily mean gratis or direct copy by a competitor, but I have yet to see that work for desktop applications. What would open source possibly mean, if not at least the latter? If you're a free software person then competitors being able to directly copy your code for nothing is part of the moral imperative you chose to stand for. Absent that imperative, open source still allows for proprietary sub-licensing. You don't have to open source your code if you don't want to, nor do you have to give it away for free if you do.

Sytten 5y ago
For me open source is to give the assurance to users that we are not doing shady things and that no matter what the business does they will continue to be able to use their software.
- candiddevmike 5y ago
  What assurance does it give? I could "open source" the cmd files of my go app but keep the core libraries proprietary and the only folks who would call me out on it are the ones who understand what I did, everyone else will just see some folders in git and releases filled with binaries that aren't FOSS and think nothing of it. There are numerous examples of open source software doing shady things like telemetry and calling home too. It also doesn't necessarily guarantee future use of the software unless someone is going to step up and maintain it. Keeping software current/compatible is quite onerous, especially for GUI apps.
- krapp 5y ago
  ... and how do you give users that assurance? By giving them free access to the source code so they can validate it, rewrite it and redistribute it if they want.

blagie 5y ago

Dunno. Recently, I had good luck with AGPL dual-license models. Most competitors wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot-pole. At the same time, we could build a contributor community. It cut off some sales, but build far, far more. I've seen other organizations do well with cloud hosting or support models. There are plenty of open source unicorn companies doing those sorts of things. Highest-margin "price doesn't matter" contracts will generally go to the author of a tool. It really depends on the business plan. I've been pretty successful with both open and closed source models, and in retrospect, I think they wouldn't have worked swapped around. The logic you're giving doesn't really make sense: "We just don't have the luxury of VC money where we can open source and worry about making money later." or "Our compromise is that we are open sourcing anything that is not the core of the application for now. If we have enterprise / cloud features down the line, we will open source the core." Open source has significant business upsides. For example: - If I'm buying from a small startup, open source reduces the risk of what happens when the startup goes under, or if a business goes Oracle and decides to take advantage of me once they have lock-in. - It builds ecosystems, networks, traction, visibility, and distribution. For small companies, those are hard problems. - It allows external contributions. Conversely, on the customer side, if a vendor won't fix a bug, I can. - On the customer side, it gives me transparency into roadmaps and development. Right now, I'm now at a big company, and I generally tend to buy open source. The build-versus-buy decision is purely economic, and economics usually goes towards "buy." Open-source gives most of the advantages of "build." The relative cost/value of those is an analysis that depends on your specific business model. Making the decision otherwise -- pretending open-source is some kind of charity -- is bad business.

Sytten 5y ago
Good points, like I said we are still discussing it internally and I like some of the points you made. For now our target customers are individuals that happen to be very good with computers so we can't expect juicy support contracts. That is why we think that if we can pivot to that model (enterprise support) open source would make sense. We try to as transparent as possible in the meantime with public roadmap, open sourcing non critical parts, etc. At the moment we don't want external code contributions to the core so I think our model make sense.
5y ago