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If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

blog.makezine.com

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Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#21

Post by bluespace »

zcid wrote: post #18
bluespace wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the legal side of things, the code might be being built with an company internal tool-chain, and comercial compilers, so it would be a bunch of work to even get it ready for a public release. All of this reinventing of the wheel probably limits nice fixes for common bugs over the years.

Compiler issues shouldn't hold you back. Release it anyway. If someone is interested enough, they will more than likely be willing to work with what they can get. Let the burden of correcting the code fall on them.

While that sounds good in theory, when customers are involved, you want to make sure that you have your best foot forward. So filling up forums with complaints is never a good thing.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#23

Post by aacook »

I killed a product/project that I had paying customers for in order to move in a new direction... and to be honest it was an incredible relief. I'm guessing that if I threw it up on github I'd never be able to move on and let go. Part of killing something is moving on.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#24

Post by eekfuh »

I did that late last year with one of my WebOS apps. I don't have the time to keep it updated and the rev went from ~$700 a month to ~$200 so I MIT'd it on GitHub then announced it on twitter. So far a few forks, but no one has really taken and ran with it.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#25

Post by rick888 »

daleharvey wrote: post #12
bugsy wrote: post #8

So... rather than make not enough to pay the bills, now you make nothing yet have a giant support burden.

because you release something as open source does not mean you are any way responsible for maintaining it

That won't stop people from expecting it and emailing you about it.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#26

Post by jjs »

neuroelectronic wrote: post #17

The upside from a corporate standpoint is that this will be more technical debt that the OSS community has to deal with, which can help you compete with them.

That assumes that people would adopt a code dump that's net-negative in value. More likely, they'd salvage just the good parts.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#27

Post by kwis »

blantonl wrote: post #5

There are three reasons why organizations and people don't open source their failed projects. * Intellectual property issues * Pride * Pride Don't underestimate the power of emotion, especially when it involves failure.

There's another reason: support.

There are a lot of people who believe they're entitled to support for any code you release. Even if explicitly noted in a 72 point font that it's totally unsupported.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#28

Post by nitrogen »

rick888 wrote: post #25
daleharvey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because you release something as open source does not mean you are any way responsible for maintaining it

That won't stop people from expecting it and emailing you about it.

So create a filter that deletes and/or autoresponds to all inquiries to the project's support e-mail address.

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#29

Post by nitrogen »

ghaff wrote: post #2

One reason that "just open source it" isn't as easy as it sounds is that there tend to be a lot of IP restrictions, patenting and licensing encumbrances, NDAs, etc. that would take effort to identify much less resolve. When companies, like Sun, open sources various software, it took considerable effort to nail down all the problems and remove the parts that weren't there's to open source--which in the case of a devic…

I'm guessing that failed startups don't release their code because their investors see it as an asset to be liquidated to recover some of the investment. Can anybody with failed startup experience comment on this possibility?

Re: If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It

#30

Post by jdub »

vrsmn wrote: post #6

It would be amazing if Palm Inc. released the BeOS source code, after a few years without using it. I think it could have changed the history of personal computers OS. Fortunately we still have Haiku OS, but it will take some time until get stable.

Sadly, BeOS was stuck on the "Palm Source" side, which was hoovered up by ACCESS, most likely never to be seen again. They were even jerky enough to poke and prod at Haiku over IP issues.
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