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Re:Ask YC: What are the downsides of open source? by tomh on Saturday June 07, 2008 @01:09PM (#211590)
Agreed. You should have a very proven path to generate revenue, outside of licensing, if you go the open source route. Companies who try to go it "halfway" by releasing a core product as OSS and then try to introduce closed-source addons have a tough time getting by on services while they try to prove that the addon is worth the extra cost: ArsDigita had to try this route in order to grow the business, and they burned through $20M before getting sold for pennies on the dollar to Red Hat.

In short, fantastic tools with which to build a business, but as a selling point of a product...once you take the genie out of the bottle, you often find yourself wishing you could put it back in later.

Re:Ask YC: What are the downsides of open source? by tptacek on Saturday June 07, 2008 @05:54PM (#211738)
Phil Greenspun wrote at painful length about what killed ACS, and it certainly wasn't open source.

Now, provide another example of a company that screwed up by "halfway" doing OSS without "proving the addons were worth the cost". I've provided plenty of specific counterexamples.

Re:Ask YC: What are the downsides of open source? by tomh on Saturday June 07, 2008 @11:49PM (#211893)
Ha ha ha, how about Sun open-sourcing Java way too late to be of relevant use to anyone?