Ask HN: Should I open source my product?

3 points·hpen··5 comments

Convince me to open source my product. It's a project management tool called Kanception.io

That's kinda like saying "convince me to buy a minivan".

It's impossible (and futile) to convince someone of anything unless it aligns with their goals.

Equally, advice from people who did things and met _their_ goals will not necessarily be helpful if your goals are different to theirs.

To meet your goals, open sourcing may not be the right thing to do.

So I think you need to reword your question before you will get a useful answer to your situation.

I'll just say it's likely in the best interest of the product. Would need to know more about you, your ambitions, the product to give proper advice.

The place I tell people to start their own learning journey w.r.t this is https://coss.media

Do you think open sourcing will lead to more users? Even vs a free hosted version?

Totally depends on the users, there is no simple yes or no. Also depends on branding, marketing, customera, monetization strategy, and more

I've worked with companies who have gone to far in either direction. It's really more involved than an online forum can provide to answer your question.

Watch the interview between JJ and Sid (from GitLab), Sid goes through a lot of their learnings, very elucidating.

Will check it out. Thank you!

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