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Does open-source mean free? Should I open-source my startup?

2 points by baristaGeek 4y ago

dalke 4y ago
Don't open source your startup. > Developers want to be in control. They want to scrutinize the code of something they’re using to see if the vendor is capturing more private data than they should. Sometimes they want a self-hosted option. If you’re somehow manipulating code from your users, being open-source will definitely build trust with your audience. That is not my experience. A lot of people use Visual C++ and JetBrains, even though those packages are not available in source form. They'll also use the VS Code binary, even thought it contains telemetry, instead of FOSS derivates like VSCodium. > You’ll also be more capital-efficient as an open-source startup. You will get free code contributions. You will get more product visibility and feedback. That's the dream sold 20 years ago to promote open source. Again, in my experience it's so rare as to be laughable. Everyone points to Red Hat because they are one of the handful of successful ones. [1] The moment you view FOSS in economic terms (rather than the freedom terms of free software), that's when you need to look at the wider economic picture. Distributing free/open source software at no cost means your income will very likely be smaller. Yes, "a lot of open-source projects would struggle to monetize even if they were closed-source" as the article says, but the thing is it's even harder to monetize something which is open source. Customer want not just the product, but the assurance that you will be around for a while, to provide updates, fixes, support, and the like. If you have a good income stream, you can provide those assurances. Having the source is nice, in an abstract sense, because it provides a sort of code escrow should you decide to stop the product, and it prevents the vendor from jacking up the prices after it's integrated in internal processes. But few clients really want to become the maintainer of someone else's code base. [1] Wikipedia tells me GitLab is open core, not fully open source like Sourcehut. https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq/ https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq/ tells me Confluent is also only open core, and not fully open source.

2 points by baristaGeek 4y ago

Don't open source your startup. > Developers want to be in control. They want to scrutinize the code of something they’re using to see if the vendor is capturing more private data than they should. Sometimes they want a self-hosted option. If you’re somehow manipulating code from your users, being open-source will definitely build trust with your audience. That is not my experience. A lot of people use Visual C++ and JetBrains, even though those packages are not available in source form. They'll also use the VS Code binary, even thought it contains telemetry, instead of FOSS derivates like VSCodium. > You’ll also be more capital-efficient as an open-source startup. You will get free code contributions. You will get more product visibility and feedback. That's the dream sold 20 years ago to promote open source. Again, in my experience it's so rare as to be laughable. Everyone points to Red Hat because they are one of the handful of successful ones. [1] The moment you view FOSS in economic terms (rather than the freedom terms of free software), that's when you need to look at the wider economic picture. Distributing free/open source software at no cost means your income will very likely be smaller. Yes, "a lot of open-source projects would struggle to monetize even if they were closed-source" as the article says, but the thing is it's even harder to monetize something which is open source. Customer want not just the product, but the assurance that you will be around for a while, to provide updates, fixes, support, and the like. If you have a good income stream, you can provide those assurances. Having the source is nice, in an abstract sense, because it provides a sort of code escrow should you decide to stop the product, and it prevents the vendor from jacking up the prices after it's integrated in internal processes. But few clients really want to become the maintainer of someone else's code base. [1] Wikipedia tells me GitLab is open core, not fully open source like Sourcehut. https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq/ https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq/ tells me Confluent is also only open core, and not fully open source.