Shutting down a product? Open source it.

That's only an option if you're shuttering the product of your own will. If you're part of a talent acquisition (which is the case with Posterous and Milk), the purchasing company would have to make that call, so you should really address the blog post to them.

It's unlikely any of them would: they just paid a bunch of money and acquired the team plus source, and even if they don't use the acquired source, open-sourcing it is extra work and/or a liability. The team, on the other hand, may still have faint hopes that the company will do something with their product.

In the cases where it's clear that the team's energies will be focused elsewhere the team could try to include it in the terms of the acquisition, but were I in those shoes I'd probably not want to risk souring the upside or acquisition as a whole.

This particularly makes sense for SaaS offerings that are being discontinued. If your product is only available as a service then it is particularly painful when it disappears for those who depend on it. From a business standpoint, open-sourcing is a good way to maintain goodwill and shift the onus of administering the service to those who consume it without leaving them out to dry. All your consumers will have to make a decision on whether the cost of running their own service is worth it, which is a much healthier situation than a bunch of irate customers left with no recourse.

I completely agree in that projects/products which have come to the end of their life cycle should opt at the possibility of open sourcing. But it's not always as simple as that. Some times, the feat of open sourcing something might takes considerable time, both from refactoring, and convincing people who need to be convinced that they shouldn't let the product rot.

Also, I've not actually heard of Copycopter before, and I think it's a bit of a stretch to make the causative link between your announcement of shutting down, to also having AOL and Oink following suit. Correlation does not prove causation. (I've not actually heard of copycopter before).

Completely agree on the OS'ing aspect though. To make a point, when IndexTank got bought by LinkedIn, they Open Sourced it. I was then given the opportunity to look through the code, and it was then that I decided to migrate from IndexTank with immediate effect. Even though other parties were picking up the sources, I was able to make this decision will full disclosure. (And move to Solr).

This is not only good for your customers, but also puts some positive pressure on your competitors. Now they have to compete with an open source tool, so whatever they do, they'll have to provide a service which is at least as good as that. In other words, they'll have to compete more on quality and less on price, which is usually a good thing.

This is where the pivot methods fall short: in the long run, it erodes good will to rely on new services. We should expect that at least funded start-up will provide reasonable "exit" service for customers, and VCs will take that responsibility as part of their bet on the industry at large.