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Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#11

Post by caprock »

Erring on the side of openness is fine as a principle. That doesn't mean the actions to follow the principle won't cost you time and money. Everything has tradeoffs. As a small SaaS business, I don't think public repos would make it very high on my list of priorities.

A good balance can be open sourcing an internal library or two, so you get some of the benefit without the work needed to polish the mass of your core code.

With regard to recruitment, I think the openness is mostly a benefit to employees, because they can point directly at their work product like a portfolio. So it helps recruitment, but it's about them not about your cool problems.

Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#13

Post by davidpolberger »

jajajsjsjjd wrote: post #12

Do you expect to get any tangible benefits to your codebase?

No, it just feels like the right thing to do, and I'm hoping that others could benefit from the work. While I would like to release some libraries under permissive licenses, I really have no plans to shepherd collaborative open source projects (which I think might turn into a huge time sink). Others would obviously be welcome to fork and maintain these projects, but I would prefer for them to simply be read-only versions of what we're using in production.

Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#14

Post by davidpolberger »

Everyone -- thanks for your constructive comments. I think that we'll start off by releasing the libraries under permissive licenses, and see how that goes. Releasing the code of the user-facing products publicly would probably provide little value for others (as the code would not be open source), and there are indeed risks.

Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#15

Post by didgetmaster »

davidpolberger wrote: post #10
ipaddr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he cannot compete on marketing and all other aspects. That single developer can just copy your product if you release code or not. The least important part of your saas is your product. What are you gaining from thr release

A would-be competitor, in a country not respecting intellectual property laws, might get a few customers by launching our product and charging only a fraction of what we charge. However, what will this competitor do when their customers request new features or report bugs? Obviously, we'd be a lot more nimble in responding to such requests, so maybe this shouldn't be such a big concern after all. Also, if this does b…

No. Worst case scenario is that the competitor has more resources than you and can be even more nimble at adding new features and fixing bugs. Because you made all the source code available, you lost all the 'head start' you had against such a competitor.

Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#16

Post by ezekg »

I did it (https://keygen.sh/blog/all-your-licensing-are-belong-to-you/). It's only been a few months, but I've only seen upside. And my enterprise growth has skyrocketed. But if you don't have a definitive reason to do so, e.g. to increase enterprise adoption, then perhaps rethink why it makes sense from a business perspective. You need a goal. Going open source can be your competitive advantage, or it could cause you to lose yours.

Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#17

Post by ActorNightly »

Don't do things in business because they feel good (a.k.a your first 2 points), do them because of right reasons.

Making your source code open should be done only if its use and modification will increase your user base and thus revenue. This can be in the form of "hey free to try for a company but once we build production, we will need to move to paid subscription", or "hey i can use this on my local computer but I want to set it up in the cloud to be accessible publicly, for which I need to use the paid product".

Re: Ask HN: Are there downsides to making all our source code publicly available?

#18

Post by KeithBrink »

ActorNightly wrote: post #17

Don't do things in business because they feel good (a.k.a your first 2 points), do them because of right reasons. Making your source code open should be done only if its use and modification will increase your user base and thus revenue. This can be in the form of "hey free to try for a company but once we build production, we will need to move to paid subscription", or "hey i can use this on my local computer but I…

I disagree, there's nothing wrong with a business owner doing things because it makes them happy.
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