Hi All,
I have an idea that I think would be really good in the e-commerce world, I have been trying and failing to build this on my own over the last few years. I am now thinking to make it opensource, as a way to get it out and get help on it. Also maybe it will help me grow as a developer and learn. The only thing I am worried about is that I will lose the ability to make money on this further down the line. Am I being silly?
Would love everyone's feedback.
I draw inspiration from reactioncommerce, they seem to be doing well as an opensource e-commerce solution.
You can't do it alone to make it big. Be it as a commercial product or an open source project. In case of commercial project, you have take forward the team sell it to clients whereas in case of open source, generally public/your clients take it forward and you can provide professional support for your clients when needed.
At the end of the day, its your call. What tradeoffs and benefits you would choose over others. In case you need any help of you're stuck somewhere, I'd be happy to help.
Good luck!
There are plenty of companies make money based on open source software. Mongodb, Redhat, even ecomerce giant Magento. etc.
Usually, it is when a open source project get big enough that big enterprises wants to use it, they'll pay a lot of money for professional support licenses, training, etc.
And smaller companies or individuals might be willing to pay for hosted solutions if they don't want to bother with all the dev ops needs to manage and scale it, even if it is open source.
Just a few thoughts...
If you can't get the product shipped, you won't make money anyways.
Open Source does not have to === not making money (you just have to think of a different business model than selling your code and/or a license to use it).
What is more important to you: the $$ or the experience? (IMO, experience is what you turn into $$$)
Just because your first project is open sourced, doesn't mean that your next project has to be! (or go contribute to someone else's project if it's the experience that you are after)
Is this functionality something you could sell as a module/package/upgrade for something that already exists in the marketplace so that you wouldn't have to create a whole ecommerce solution and could just focus on your idea instead?
There's already a TON of ecommerce solutions on the market (I'm also working on developing my own, have been for years - but for me to build my own products/services, not for others to use themselves). What would inspire me to pay to use yours over something that's already on the market, and possibly also free? (not saying that competition is a reason to not do this - I view competition as validation!)
I'd throw a couple of hours of work into it here and there, whether you make it open source or not
Could always just bring a few trusted peeps in to help/grow it?
What about outsourcing certain aspects?
Are you struggling with the implementation or the problem solving itself?
Dan W.
Absolutely not if you think there is some money to be made using your idea. People are ruthless when it comes to stealing your ideas and blaming you for it. Been there, done that.