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Comment by christocracy | Hacker News Reader

I made an open source lib for Cordova (eventually ported to React Native and others). I found I'd gained a number of users with few contributing back, so I forked my own project, closed the source into compiled and encrypted binaries. Now I sell licenses and support, generating ~$20k/month. Innovation has skyrocketed since I've been able to dedicate 100% of my time to the products for the last 2.5 years.

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How do you think it would have been if you stayed with the open project, and just sold support?

Well, what I tell customers is "what you're paying for is support and latest updates.

Customers get access to a private repo for latest updates and priority support for 1 year (yearly maintenance fee = $150/year). ~20% of customers pay the yearly.

Each purchased key is bound to a mobile app id. If customer wants to make 3 apps, they need to purchase 3 keys.

Public repo contains latest stable release; purchased keys unlock product in public repo forever.

iOS lib is free. Only Android lib requires a key to unlock it. This gives users the chance to freely develop iOS first (and hopefully get hooked, like cheap crack ;). Chances are they're going to release an Android version too since most of the earth uses Android.

The Android version is fully operational in DEBUG builds. Key is enforced for RELEASE builds.

can you imagine a not-quite-open-source license that would give you the best of both worlds ?

The model I have seems to work. I don't have any pressure to change anything.

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