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You're completely correct in my opinion, but I'd like to add one crucial point: If people are asking/begging for the tool to be open sourced, then they do inde
by mkremer90 12y ago
You're completely correct in my opinion, but I'd like to add one crucial point:
If people are asking/begging for the tool to be open sourced, then they do indeed value it. Otherwise, why would they care if it just withered and died?
They may not have valued it as much as the product was charging for, but that's a different debate entirely. I'm assuming there was some discussion of commercial viability, lowering prices, etc. before they chose to shut down. (You pretty much said this part in your second paragraph, this is the "execution" part.)
- toomuchtodo 12y agoI believe we're in agreement then!
- Flimm 12y agoSome people value an open source product more than a proprietary one. Although in this case, the OP couldn't get enough funding to release it as open source.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoIf someone won't pay for a closed product, and won't pay to open it up, they don't value it at all.
- hueving 12y agoThis completely ignores customers without boatloads of cash laying around. I've worked in educational institutions where there is absolutely no budget to do something. However, people that are genuinely interested in accomplishing something will turn to open source. They have time to contribute back through documentation, bug reports, and even bug fixes. The only thing they don't have is money. That doesn't mean they don't value the project.
- rwallace 12y agoIf you're interested in seeing something open sourced and you have time but not money, consider offering to do some of the requisite cleanup work under NDA.
- sheepmullet 12y ago"If someone won't pay for a closed product, and won't pay to open it up, they don't value it at all." There might be no/little value in the product but some probability of value in the source. For example, for a competitor there is possibly a lot of value in seeing the approaches the software took, the problems the developers ran into, etc. Key word: Possibly. I'd personally just ask to interview the startup owner for 10 hours at say $200/hr but I know some people aren't great at extracting value from a face to face chat.
- Retra 12y agoAh yes, money is the only measure of value in the world... It's a good thing my kids pay me to love them.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoNote that I said, "They don't value it." That doesn't mean it doesn't have any value.
- Retra 12y agoValue is not an objective property of a thing, so I don't see your point. Things have value by the virtue of them being valued, not solely because someone wants to spend money on it.
- Bjartr 12y agoActually there's an entire spectrum of pricing between paying enough to get the owner to agree to give the product or the source to you, and wanting it for free.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoPrice determination is always hard in business, but I'd like to think its a bit easier with software or SaaS products, as you have zero marginal cost (besides server time).
- dethstar 12y ago>If people are asking/begging for the tool to be open sourced, then they do indeed value it. Otherwise, why would they care if it just withered and died? If we are talking about a start up, what about current clients? Maybe your business could not be sustained by the number of clients you had, they do find value in but they can not by themselves sustain your business.
- aragot 12y agoYes it's totally allowed to sell a product under GPL, for example to give it only to the real customers who paid for it. Those are then free to share, but since they know how much it cost them, they may choose not to.