Ask HN: Should I Open Source Every Product I Build as an Indie Developer?

[tomfox2]

I'm an indie developer who has built several free-to-use tool applications that I plan to monetize through advertising once they gain enough users. My dilemma is whether to open source these products now, or wait until they're more established.

[gethly]

Definitely not. Disclosing your code makes sense only if you are young and want to have something to show to recruiters in case you are looking for a job as a proof that you know what you are doing. But that is a young man's game. You will gain absolutely nothing by giving the code away. Especially now when bots are scraping the whole internet for data.

[dinkleberg]

It depends on what you're building and if you're trying to build a business, or just make a few bucks on the side. If you're trying to build a business, your decision to open source it should be in service of that goal. Is it a developer tool/library with a commercial offering that builds on top of it where open-sourcing it is your main marketing source? If so, then that can be a solid strategy. But if they are just regular tools you're building, then likely there are far better marketing strategies than using open-source.

And that is great to want to give back with open source. But if you're just starting out on your business, then that is a major distraction from the main task at hand.

[JohnFen]

> My dilemma is whether to open source these products now, or wait until they're more established.

I find this statement curious because I don't understand why there should be a connection between software being "established" and being open source.

What is your goal here?

[tomfox2]

I always want to contribute something to the community, and I think open source is really cool. As an individual developer, I also hope to gain some attention by open-sourcing my own work.

[mmarian]

I tend to open source my projects when they fail.

[brazukadev]

Only if you want to die poor and stressed. That is a lot of free work that most likely won't bring you benefits.

[bombcar]

> monetize through advertising

If you open-source, what's preventing someone running a quick copy elsewhere?

[tomfox2]

That's what I'm considering. Once my product becomes relatively mature and gains a certain user base, a simple copy by others shouldn't be able to take my users away.

[colesantiago]

Just a question, why do you want to open source at all?

[tomfox2]

It's simply because I've been immersed in the open-source community for a long time and have received a lot of help from others' open-source projects. I think open-sourcing my own work is a really cool thing to do. Moreover, I genuinely hope to gain more visibility through open source and access new ideas and opportunities.

[adityadeshlahre]

Naah bro, it's hard to monetize open source projects.

[tomfox2]

Yes, I understand. That's precisely why I'm considering not open-sourcing it immediately, but rather doing so after gaining some traction. Alternatively, perhaps I could just open-source some of the tooling components of my product and publish them to NPM.