I don't want to make a bad business decision. But I feel like we should make our product open source, with capital OSS. The reason is because it expands the value for companies considering using it by not being afraid they will lose access in future, although they can ensure that now with perpetual licenses which we currently sell.
However, if we want to have a SaaS offering, making it Open Source could encourage people to trust that relying on that will not incur future debt. This is because they can circumvent future problems by self-hosting the open source version.
The problem is, while seemingly expanding the value, it looks like we reduce the amount of value we can capture, and encourage people and companies to use it without paying, giving them a free head start to their own (internal or external) product ambitions. What incentive to they have to return the value they receive to us, unless we charge for it up front?
I don't really like this choice right now, and I don't feel we have to make it, but I feel instinctually it could be a good thing to do. It doesn't sound smart tho. What do you think? What do you do, in your startup or business or side-project?
However, if we want to have a SaaS offering, making it Open Source could encourage people to trust that relying on that will not incur future debt. This is because they can circumvent future problems by self-hosting the open source version.
The problem is, while seemingly expanding the value, it looks like we reduce the amount of value we can capture, and encourage people and companies to use it without paying, giving them a free head start to their own (internal or external) product ambitions. What incentive to they have to return the value they receive to us, unless we charge for it up front?
I don't really like this choice right now, and I don't feel we have to make it, but I feel instinctually it could be a good thing to do. It doesn't sound smart tho. What do you think? What do you do, in your startup or business or side-project?