Ask HN: Have you ever open sourced your whole startup?

[coffeeheist_com]

We created a flipboard like product (web and ios) that we ended up ditching to create a completely different company. Now we have a kind of cool product which a lot of us use but noone is working on actively, I would like to open source it or give it away to some young team. Have any of you guys done it before? Did it work out?

[sarahallen]

When I was at Laszlo Systems, we did that to revitalize the business, not to turn it off. It was very effective at spreading the word about our product and simply shifted our business model.

It did take some time to instigate a real community around an established code base -- if I were to do it over again, I have ideas of things we could have done better. It's also easier now, I think, with github and the rise of social networks.

[coffeeheist_com]

I can imagine. Care to share any of these ideas/hints? :)