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I would definitely focus more than anything on figuring out what kind of license you want to do. For example AGPL is probably the most sensible if you want to f
by giancarlostoro 2y ago
I would definitely focus more than anything on figuring out what kind of license you want to do. For example AGPL is probably the most sensible if you want to force anyone making back-end changes to share them back, but it also puts off people like me, who avoid that license like the plague, but when something is AGPL and I only care about using it as-is, that's perfectly fine. The caveat there being you could dual-license it so that if someone doesn't want to contribute back, they just pay for a commercial less restrictive license.
As for the front-end I think MIT or even GPL type of licenses make more sense, since everyone can just view that code anyway.
I would consider what kind of licensing you want to do, I would also consider goals in doing this. One huge benefit of an open source SaaS offering is the freedom to take control of what you're getting out of it in-house, or going straight to the vendor.
Will you be offering migration to and from your SaaS service? These are all key things you need to put front and center. Definitely consider what kind of license you want to use, very important.
The way something is licensed makes a big difference.
.NET and Visual Studio Code are both MIT licensed, which is why any time someone cries about "its microsoft they're just gonna take it proprietary" I point out that the MIT is the least restrictive license you could use aside from just public domain, and it makes their point moot.
As for building a community, definitely make a Discord and a forum, places people can come together and get help publicly, figure out how to get a stackoverflow space for it as well.
- rjzzleep 2y agoWould it make sense to have a license that gives any contributors a full license as long as they have ownership in the company they want to use it with or if that company makes a million in revenue?
- localfirst 2y agomy counter: how would you know if someone is using your AGPL software without paying you and how would you enforce it?
- bossyTeacher 2y agoRequire an api key that calls the mothership regularly
- beachy 2y agoWhich is the first thing the user removes from the code.
- bossyTeacher 2y agoNot sure what "users" are you talking about. Most users are not programmers and most programmers are not experienced or skillful enough to alter binaries like that.
- MarkinK 2y ago> I would consider what kind of licensing you want to do, I would also consider goals in doing this. One huge benefit of an open source SaaS offering is the freedom to take control of what you're getting out of it in-house, or going straight to the vendor. We plan to put both back and front under Apache-2.0. It seems like a good enough way to show that the user won't depend on us. > Will you be offering migration to and from your SaaS service? Yes, we plan to continue offering the cloud for those who don't want to deploy their own solution. > As for building a community, definitely make a Discord and a forum where people can come together and get help publicly, figure out how to get a stackoverflow space for it as well. We're thinking about Discord right now, even started one. That is an interesting idea about Stackoverflow, thank you we'll think about it!
- mook 2y agoAre you okay with Amazon taking your code and setting up their own version of SaaS for it? Not saying it'd make financial sense for them, just that… once you open source it they can do what they want. Also remember that open sourcing something isn't a marketing panacea; you can still struggle to get people interested in it afterwards. It's a useful step if it calms your customers since they don't have to worry as much if you go away, and your value isn't the actual software but support around it or something along those lines.
- MarkinK 2y agoYes, I understand the risk, but I really care about trying something new and risky and getting more users rather than running a slow-growing business. If Amazon steals it from me tomorrow, I think I will celebrate for a week :-)
- abbradar 2y agoI'll add to the MarkinK's reply: the idea is that CRM/ERP target audience: * Requires a considerable amount of integrations, customizations, and other "stuff on top"; * Has huge fears about vendor lock-ins and the possibility of unforeseen migrations/support costs. So yes, the idea is that allowing not only custom deployments, but competitor SaaS businesses built on top of it can raise the market for the added services. Whether that would really work this way or not is a question we'd be dying to know the answer for :D
- localfirst 2y agoisn't most YC open-core products AGPL basically not really open source unless you pay them for it?
- giancarlostoro 2y agoAGPL is open source, the issue is, think of the GPL, and how you have to share code if you release a binary. The AGPL goes a step further, so if you try to run a SaaS with your own custom code on top of the existing codebase, it says you MUST share your code. Hence, you would want to pay for the right to keep your own modifications.
- localfirst 2y agoisn't that basically a non-compete? we can take other peoples code to build an AGPL project but you can't take our code to become a competitor (this would fail the FOSS definition)
- satvikpendem 2y agoHow is it a non-compete? You can take our code, just that if you make any changes, you must share them back to the original codebase.