Should we or shouldn't we make our projects open source ?

Anything that doesn't fit the other categories
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Making your project open source was good or bad for it ?

Yes it had benefits.
7
88%
No, was no help / It was a downside.
0
No votes
I don't have any free projects.
1
13%
 
Total votes: 8

Pietry
Senior Member
Posts: 328
Joined: 04 Dec 2007, 07:25
Location: Bucharest
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Should we or shouldn't we make our projects open source ?

Post by Pietry » 26 Aug 2008, 06:45

When I first started the work on DSHub ( something like February 2007 ), one of the biggest dilemmas was whether to make it open source or not. The point of being free or not was not in the question since the dc community was never about the money.
My initial reasons for making DSHub were self learning and hopefully helping other people. I think I managed in the end to at least partially satisfy my both goals.
My main concern of not releasing DSHub as open source were : If my software has a big success, then perhaps I will see a lot of script kiddie clones just changing the name and about box and claiming to be their own. That would have been a real pain for my pride.
Then, when I joined dcdev, arne told me something that made me think, was something like if your program is a hit, then everyone will know who made it and you will get all the credit, and otherwise, if your program is bad, then you won't get any credit anyway whether it's closed source or not.
Also, such event that I was talking earlier, the kiddie clone, is quite impossible on a large scale. Even if such a clone were made, only that respective and little others would actually use it. People will eventually trust the most important source that is updated, that has some actual changes and who was the first. It would be a hell of a work to make another project just by changing name and about box and have it to be as known as the original. People aren't that stupid, they can tell if something like this happens.
After this little dilemma, I released the source for DSHub, and I can honestly say that it has brought nothing but advantages. Shortly after this moment I met MAGY , who came to me one day and said something like "hey, I got your software over the net and since it has no GUI I made one for it, wanna see ? ". That was the first moment when I truly felt that my project was becoming something more than a simple play.
Ever since, people ask me about the source, I get some patches, ideas for code change , improvements and so forth.
Since I'm a student in computer engineering, I showed the project to one of my teachers, and he invited me to work on it on a full stage at the university. He also helped with code and ideas. I also presented the project on a software convention for projects at my university ( pics soon :P ). If my project was a greedy selfish closed source this would have never happen, nobody could of helped.
Now, the software works better then ever, my eternal problems were solved with the help of all the great people who involved and I would like to thank them all this way.
So I say go for it and make your project open source.
Just someone

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