Open sourcing a commercial site

Question

I am building a 'software as a service' website that will be charging users a small monthly fee. I am considering changing the Github repository over from Private to Public. Essentially open sourcing it. Is this suicide? I would like the community to be able to benefit from the code. It is unlikely that I will accept any push request so I'm not going to gain anything in that regard. It is community based, so I think most of the value would be lost by someone self hosting it. It is for a very niche audience so I doubt someone else will start a competing hosting. I would really like the code to be in the open, but not at the expense of my idea of course. How does everyone else feel about this? What is common practice?

Conclusion, I'm keeping it closed for the time being. I may look to open source sometime after launch however.

Answer 1

To be honest, and this is not likely going to be a popular answer, but to myself, I would keep it closed for a period of time.

The reasons for this are simple, establish your foothold in the marketplace, build your userbase, your brand, then it gives you a mechanism to market your product further by selectively or completely open sourcing components of your system.

Answer 2

I say do it for both personal benefit and potential strategic benefit ... afterall, alot of software IS a service

Most open-source projects stand to provide a return in the right circumstances. Don't forget, unless you have a patent or some massive advance that is so complex and unfathomable that nobody can re-implement it .. if they want to they will anyway, so you have little protection staying closed source anyway ... even more interesting is that the open-source equivalent may well overtake your proprietary one if it garners support.

People may send you great ideas you never thought of, or take your codebase in a direction you would not have predicted. Unless you have significant value in terms of IP or strategic position tied up in the source code ... releasing it will probably do more good than harm.

Also, by being first to the open-source arena with your code, you gain control over any resulting community driven development ... if somone reimplemented your functionality and went open source ... could you compete on any front?

I know it is a cliche, but probably for good reason, but read The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the essay Open Source as a Signalling Device - An Economic Analysis which is an interesting read. Michael E. Porter's texts on competition analysis are interesting when held up against the mixed value economics and competitive forces of open source and shows how disruptive open-sourcing a product can be to competitors ... and how it can add value to your market position. Also, whilst counterintuative, it can raise the barriers to a successful entry by competitors.

More food for thought on the advantages and disadvantages of open sourcing:

1. What the DoD thinks of open source
2. Alfred H. Essa "Innovation and strategic advantage: lessons from open source" (warning, journal link)

Answer 3

Since you are not going to accept pushes you might as well hold on get your code stable and then publish it for others to learn and benefit from. You are still building the service, so its not going to attract too many eyeballs either.

From a business point of you, you might want to have a reasonable community around your service before you opensource it. if you are still budding who knows if its taken up by a stronger competitor. If your idea is patented its a different story.

Answer 4

What benefit are you hoping to gain from making the code open source? If you don't want the input of other developers then there are very few advantages and a whole lot of potential disadvantages.

Answer 5

I like to fix flaws wherever I see them, and perhaps I am one of your users. I'd rather send a patch than send a potentially nagging-sounding email any day.