[ubuntu-us-ma] Interesting concern about open-sourcing a website

[Brian DeLacey]

A lot depends on how they ultimately license their software/project and what
they want to (personally / professionally) get out of their efforts.

Depending on how they license it, a third party might indeed be able to take
the code and just use it for their own benefit or they might not. The issues
involved in choosing between licenses can be challenging and complicated.
It's certainly a significant decision (e.g. as with GPL2 vs GPL3 and
Linux<http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-146510.html>)
in the life of any project - website or otherwise.

Since the code creator presumably knows the code best, they might offer
fee-based software services to people who adopt it and have the license
encapsulate that plan. On the other hand, if companies use their code and
just obliterate the original work that's probably not so good ...

By going open source they may be making a contribution to others, while also
potentially scaling their own project efforts to pick up improvements/ideas
from other people.

Brian


On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:31 AM, Danny Piccirillo <
danny.piccirillo at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> I was talking to someone about open sourcing a project of theirs
> http://stocks29.homelinux.net:4000/ (cross between reddit and twitter)
> I wasn't sure how to address his concern about the possibility of someone
> using his code and killing his site. A site like reddit that already has a
> brand that he can't compete with could take his code and use it, or perhaps
> some aspiring entreprenuers with capital from VCs could "take the open
> source code, improve it, and put more money into marketing [...], pull
> contacts in the media [...], and leave [him] with no avenue for profit
>
> I've never heard of anything like this happening, but i'm also not sure what (if anything)
> guarantees that it won't. Anybody have an answer to this?
>
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