5 ms·

I've been asking myself the same question. The conclusion I'm leaning towards is that the Saas version should, on top of the hosting/maintenance, offer some di

I've been asking myself the same question. The conclusion I'm leaning towards is that the Saas version should, on top of the hosting/maintenance, offer some distinctive features ( it depends of your product, but on an Saas model, your architecture can be more complex than a Backend/Frontend/DB architecture, thus allowing more advanced features ). In my view there is three layers, that could be seen as three steps ( but maybe I'm wrong ) : open source ( great for WOM if well managed, great to harden the software ), enterprise-behind-the-firewall license to make recurring revenue and build a sales pipeline, Saas once the architecture is stable enough to handle hundreds/thousands of customers with acceptable costs of operations. Someone can take your code and set up in competition to you using the OSS version, just changing the logo. But the software is at the end only 30% of a company. What makes a great company is how it evolves with its market to serve and nurture better its customers. Economy is not about selling products, it's about exchange between humans. The real product is in the experience ( the software, the tone, the customer service, the email, the documentation, the ads... every little byte, pixel, sound that your company emits ). A company that steals your OSS and monetize on it without making it a new experience is just like a guy around the corner selling Rolex replicas.

czr80 12y ago
And if they are better at you at the experience side?
themartorana 12y ago
And let's be clear - you can open source license it however you want. So you can, in fact, allow corporations to run their own installs while still disallowing those companies from reselling the software.
- hoodoof 12y ago
  Is there a well-known license that has that baked in?
- icebraining 12y ago
  You can license it that way, yes. It wouldn't be considered open source as defined by the OSI[1], though, so some people might feel it's somewhat deceitful to call it so; I would. [1] http://opensource.org/ http://opensource.org/
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  That is one of those "free as in beer, not as in freedom" strategies. :)
- rmc 12y ago
  disallowing those companies from reselling the software. No licence that is recognised as open source/free software by the Open Source Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, or the Debian Project, etc would allow that restriction. You would have to write your own licence for that, and you may call it "open source" if you like, but that would be misleading and you'd almost certainly get called out for it.
  - themartorana 12y ago
    Anyone that wants to "call you out" for making source code available, for free, to what was a closed-source application is petty at best. I get the pedantic nature of calling it "open source," but the idea that OP has to not only make the source available, but also allow others to resell it in order to be a good citizen in the OS community is disappointing to me. Your point is well taken, I just find it unfortunate that people think this way.
    - mindcrime 12y ago
      but the idea that OP has to not only make the source available, but also allow others to resell it in order to be a good citizen in the OS community is disappointing to me. Why? The "freedom to redistribute" stuff has been part of the essence of the "open source" movement about as long as it's had a name, and is also part of the fundamentals of the "free software" ideology as well. Making "source available but you can't resell / redistribute" has pretty much always been seen as occupying a weird "not quite completely commercial, not quite open source" space. I think most people use the term "shared source" for that. Of course, doing "shared source" instead of "open source" doesn't make someone a bad person or anything. But I think it's important to be accurate in how we refer to things, as this distinction really does matter.
    - rakoo 12y ago
      There is a huge difference between an "open source" code and an "available" code. The whole point of open source is that you can reuse, modify and redistribute the modification on the code, so that the community's knowledge in the domain can be globally increased. It's all about improving the way we work as a community. Now, of course, I am free to not want anyone to reuse my code, even if it's publically available. That is just not Open Source. To be clear on the "calling you out", it's not about calling you out because you made your code available only instead of full OSS, it's about calling you out because you made your code available only and you pretended it's OSS. That is just a lie and calling you out on this is perfectly justifiable.

czr80 12y ago

And if they are better at you at the experience side?

themartorana 12y ago

And let's be clear - you can open source license it however you want. So you can, in fact, allow corporations to run their own installs while still disallowing those companies from reselling the software.

hoodoof 12y ago
Is there a well-known license that has that baked in?
icebraining 12y ago
You can license it that way, yes. It wouldn't be considered open source as defined by the OSI[1], though, so some people might feel it's somewhat deceitful to call it so; I would. [1] http://opensource.org/ http://opensource.org/
sarciszewski 12y ago
That is one of those "free as in beer, not as in freedom" strategies. :)
rmc 12y ago
disallowing those companies from reselling the software. No licence that is recognised as open source/free software by the Open Source Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, or the Debian Project, etc would allow that restriction. You would have to write your own licence for that, and you may call it "open source" if you like, but that would be misleading and you'd almost certainly get called out for it.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Anyone that wants to "call you out" for making source code available, for free, to what was a closed-source application is petty at best. I get the pedantic nature of calling it "open source," but the idea that OP has to not only make the source available, but also allow others to resell it in order to be a good citizen in the OS community is disappointing to me. Your point is well taken, I just find it unfortunate that people think this way.
  - mindcrime 12y ago
    but the idea that OP has to not only make the source available, but also allow others to resell it in order to be a good citizen in the OS community is disappointing to me. Why? The "freedom to redistribute" stuff has been part of the essence of the "open source" movement about as long as it's had a name, and is also part of the fundamentals of the "free software" ideology as well. Making "source available but you can't resell / redistribute" has pretty much always been seen as occupying a weird "not quite completely commercial, not quite open source" space. I think most people use the term "shared source" for that. Of course, doing "shared source" instead of "open source" doesn't make someone a bad person or anything. But I think it's important to be accurate in how we refer to things, as this distinction really does matter.
  - rakoo 12y ago
    There is a huge difference between an "open source" code and an "available" code. The whole point of open source is that you can reuse, modify and redistribute the modification on the code, so that the community's knowledge in the domain can be globally increased. It's all about improving the way we work as a community. Now, of course, I am free to not want anyone to reuse my code, even if it's publically available. That is just not Open Source. To be clear on the "calling you out", it's not about calling you out because you made your code available only instead of full OSS, it's about calling you out because you made your code available only and you pretended it's OSS. That is just a lie and calling you out on this is perfectly justifiable.