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Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

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Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#71

Post by pnathan »

scrollaway wrote: post #29
tptacek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That objection is a form of entitlement.

No, it's not. Some of us actually believe that the advance of humanity comes from the reuse of its own previous work.

But, it is! The question is, are we as humanity entitled to previous work after $period_or_event?

(I would argue that yes! we are! after... some debatable period or time, and I would argue that not all that can be recovered is worth recovering, but those are strictly subsidiary from the question).

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#72

Post by WhitneyLand »

Work on letting the pettiness go because it will only make your own emotional recovery more difficult. Honestly, it might take years for you to fully recover mentally but cynicism will just prolong it.

If it helps you financially to not open the code because someone may yet still pay or because it saves you time then thats a good choice, don't feel bad one bit about it. But forget people who "should have paid" if it has no relevance now other than to torment you.

You also may have an adjustment period as you go back to working for another company. It's weird because you feel like you've already grown out of that yet will be expected to fit in as a corporate soldier.

I can offer hope you will eventually see an upside in personal growth. You'll realize that you've gained experience and expertise in running a company that's rare and extremely hard to come by any other way.

Good luck on your road to recovery, don't give up.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#73

Post by patrickg »

mindcrime wrote: post #9

Luckily this is one decision I'll never have to make if we ever fail and shutdown. All of our code is Open Source, ASLv2 licensed, and has been from day 0. Well, OK, maybe not a few internal tools and things, but all of our product code is OSS already, on GitHub and ready to go. We consider this a strong selling point to our current prospects, actually. There's no fear of vendor lock-in, they can kick us out tomorrow…

Plus 100 for this. I've (after one year of business) open sourced my software and this was one of the better moves in my 5 years business history.

This opened a lot of doors for me.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#75

Post by zippergz »

danielweber wrote: post #56
Kequc wrote: post #52

I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…

I've sometimes experienced the opposite, where no one wants it when it's free, but put a price tag on it and suddenly they have to have it right now. Long ago I volunteered at a food pantry that "sold" food for $1 a bag, because (against what Econ 101 would say) people didn't act as entitled when they were entering a transaction.

Before I gave up on Craigslist completely, I had multiple experiences where I offered something nice for free, people quickly replied to claim it, and either never showed up to pick it up, or made it a complete pain in the ass (e.g. the people who showed up at my house at 6AM on a Saturday to get a couch, after having agreed to come at 10AM).

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#76

Post by tptacek »

pnathan wrote: post #71
scrollaway wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. Some of us actually believe that the advance of humanity comes from the reuse of its own previous work.

But, it is! The question is, are we as humanity entitled to previous work after $period_or_event? (I would argue that yes! we are! after... some debatable period or time, and I would argue that not all that can be recovered is worth recovering, but those are strictly subsidiary from the question).

Just to be clear: at issue here isn't whether some piece of code scraped from an HTTP response or found without a license on Github should revert to the public domain.

The specific entitlement we are discussing is whether work you produce on your own in private, without ever revealing it to the public, is so encumbered by the entitlement of strangers that you have a duty to furnish it.

That's what people who cajole business owners over open-sourcing their failed projects are asserting.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#77

Post by jpollock »

Kequc wrote: post #52

I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…

I just had to do the same thing, and had a completely different experience.

I sold our stuff on an auction site (TradeMe, the NZ EBay equivalent), with $1 reserve, and applied some of the lessons I've learned from lurking here.

My wife thought I was crazy. She was completely ready with the "I told you so". I argued that we didn't have time to relist it if it didn't sell at the reserve, so $1 it had to be!

Everything sold for more than I expected, dramatically so (frequently more than replacement cost). Even better, when people came to pick up their purchases, they were invariably _happy_ about it!

Going back, I compared my results with those of the same items on the site, my $1 item outsold them.

It helped that ads with pictures, $1 reserve and paid placement got preferential placement.

Things to do:

  1) Put some effort into the copy.
  2) Track down the user's guide.
  3) Track down a product review.
  4) Take pictures - Make sure they are in focus!
  5) Show the label indicating model number clearly.
  6) Answer all questions promptly.  
  7) If people ask for Buy Now price, decline. :)
  8) Pay to be top of the results!
I also learned that 50% of the bids arrived in the last day.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#79

Post by Kequc »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #63
Kequc wrote: post #52

I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…

If someone knocked 50% off a couch, why wouldn't I try to see if they'd knock off 75%? If you're selling a $100 laser printer for $20, then you're clearly not trying to extract the maximum value from it, so why wouldn't I try to see if you'd take $10 for it? It seems like you implied that getting rid of the things in question was more important to you than getting a fair price for it. People simply carried that assum…

The phone wasn't ringing off the hook to carry that assumption further the phone was ringing off the hook when it was free.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#80

Post by dreen »

brador wrote: post #33

There needs to exist a place to simply dump code with no obligations. One of his minor arguments against open sourcing was having to maintain the code base, and i've heard this from others too. With a dumping ground there would be no such obligation.

Well it can always be "accidentally" leaked and blame placed on chinease hackers or something.
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