Ask HN: Should I Open Source Every Product I Build as an Indie Developer?

7 points by tomfox2 150 days ago | 14 comments

I'm an indie developer who has built several free-to-use tool applications that I plan to monetize through advertising once they gain enough users. My dilemma is whether to open source these products now, or wait until they're more established.

gethly 149 days ago |

Definitely not. Disclosing your code makes sense only if you are young and want to have something to show to recruiters in case you are looking for a job as a proof that you know what you are doing. But that is a young man's game. You will gain absolutely nothing by giving the code away. Especially now when bots are scraping the whole internet for data.

dinkleberg 150 days ago |

It depends on what you're building and if you're trying to build a business, or just make a few bucks on the side. If you're trying to build a business, your decision to open source it should be in service of that goal. Is it a developer tool/library with a commercial offering that builds on top of it where open-sourcing it is your main marketing source? If so, then that can be a solid strategy. But if they are just regular tools you're building, then likely there are far better marketing strategies than using open-source.

And that is great to want to give back with open source. But if you're just starting out on your business, then that is a major distraction from the main task at hand.

JohnFen 150 days ago |

> My dilemma is whether to open source these products now, or wait until they're more established.

I find this statement curious because I don't understand why there should be a connection between software being "established" and being open source.

What is your goal here?

tomfox2 150 days ago | |

I always want to contribute something to the community, and I think open source is really cool. As an individual developer, I also hope to gain some attention by open-sourcing my own work.

gus_massa 148 days ago | | |

Perhaps you can open source some side library that you created to use in your project.

> I also hope to gain some attention by open-sourcing my own work.

In the worse case, nobody will notice them. In the best case AWS will host it (and not pay you, because the licence says they can do that.)

mmarian 149 days ago |

I tend to open source my projects when they fail.

brazukadev 150 days ago |

Only if you want to die poor and stressed. That is a lot of free work that most likely won't bring you benefits.

bombcar 150 days ago |

> monetize through advertising

If you open-source, what's preventing someone running a quick copy elsewhere?

tomfox2 150 days ago | |

That's what I'm considering. Once my product becomes relatively mature and gains a certain user base, a simple copy by others shouldn't be able to take my users away.

gardenhedge 150 days ago | | |

You could use 37Signal's new OSassy license: https://osaasy.dev/

"do-whatever-you-want license, but with the commercial rights for SaaS reserved for the copyright holder"

colesantiago 150 days ago |

Just a question, why do you want to open source at all?

tomfox2 150 days ago | |

It's simply because I've been immersed in the open-source community for a long time and have received a lot of help from others' open-source projects. I think open-sourcing my own work is a really cool thing to do. Moreover, I genuinely hope to gain more visibility through open source and access new ideas and opportunities.

adityadeshlahre 150 days ago |

Naah bro, it's hard to monetize open source projects.

tomfox2 150 days ago | |

Yes, I understand. That's precisely why I'm considering not open-sourcing it immediately, but rather doing so after gaining some traction. Alternatively, perhaps I could just open-source some of the tooling components of my product and publish them to NPM.