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"Howdy folks, I've recently found myself in a position where I am developing a SAS offering, and the company I work for wants to investigate IP options." I'm j
by paulhauggis 12y ago
"Howdy folks, I've recently found myself in a position where I am developing a SAS offering, and the company I work for wants to investigate IP options."
I'm just curious, do you want to stay employed at your current job? If you open-sourced your SASS offering and 10 competitors popped up in the next few months and you were fired (because your company went out of business), would you be okay with this?
Not open-sourcing your software gives you what little competitive advantage you have in this world. Especially against large corporations. It's becoming easier and easier to start a software company these days, and large companies have more money and man-power than you.
If you are trying to make a profit, why would you just hand over all of your ideas and software to a competitor? It really doesn't make any sense to me.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoSo much of success doesn't depend on the code or the idea. Its product-market fit, time to market and such things. As engineers we wish that clever code or a good idea were all it took. So often they don't really matter at all.
- jgmmo 12y agoSo is this an argument that potentially being at the 'right-place right-time' is all that's needed, not necessarily the IP?
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoSure. And its a crap shoot even then. Multiple startups are essentially based on the same observation, with more or less equivalent solutions. Then its ALL about marketing.
- jgmmo 12y agoI hear ya. Whats it worth to me. I'm just wondering what grey area exists, is it all or nothing (quit for my morals, vs helping them to file the patent and just hope it gets used only defensively, etc.)