tech-company, open-sourceWe are building a startup and it is tech-startup.
I am quite liking the concept of open sourcing as there are many developers who wishes to help to build a better product.
But I am worried that my idea/concept will be stolen. I want them to help but I don’t wish to build more competitors.
How can I overcome this situation?
PS: We don’t aim sell our product as a service. It is online service.
Basically, you are asking how share your idea so others can help you build your dream while not becoming the competition? This is supposed to be an open source project?
The idea of a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is the ability to create something for the world to study with the availability for others to freely expand upon the foundation of the project for innovation and improvement. If you are to label this project open source, then the code has to be available for anyone to edit the project in any manner they see fit.
If you write the source code and use a licence agreement which prohibits the use of your software commercially without the consent of your entity, then you will maintain the commercial rights. This is not truly open source software, though.
Use a Non Compete and Non Disclosure Agreement, if you wish for the code to not be spilled. There can be a time limit on the agreement for a specific milestone. This way you can be first to market. Which is the goal you are trying to accomplish, if I understand correctly. Your legal counsel or a legal entity from your local area can advise you how to go about that. Maybe, you can just get the team to agree to the terms, as most people like to get some compensation for their time and effort.
If your idea is a truly unique idea you could patent it as intellectual property and maintain the rights to the property. In this case you would also have to use a NC/NDA to protect your property rights. This is proprietary software.
All licencing and contractual legalities come down to the local, regional, and national laws and regulations in your particular location. Seek legal advice from an officially licensed practitioner of the the system from which jurisdiction falls under.
**This is in no means legal advise, for I am not a legal practitioner.**
In my opinion, if you want to be open source, then be open source. Let’s face it, someone has probably thought of this idea already anyway. There are not many thoughts that one single person can have in which someone, somewhere has not already tried or thought. This is one of the underlying principles for the open source movement and FOSS. Improve upon each other. In this way, we make truly innovative projects. We create things together from different cultures, through timelines, and across boarders. With free and open source software projects, we can create projects no person ever laid eye upon.
It sounds like you want to enable third party developers to contribute their time and talents to your project, but not to become competitors. Your first thought is to open source the code that runs your platform.
That’s hard. If I find code for a platform, I’m motivated to use it to make my own instance of your platform. Typically, this model can work when you’re open sourcing a platform and selling services, or when you’re open sourcing a tool and retaining IP in a platform that leverages the tool. But your case doesn’t seem to fit the model.
A common alternative is to retain IP in the core platform, but deliver APIs that allow third party developers to use the service or add value for users. Open sourcing tools or specimen applications can build trust, and this way developers who want to add utility or build new lines of business for themselves can do so in ways that grow your business too.
I don’t think you’ll be able to protect your ideas if you go open-source. To be honest, if your business is successful people will copy your ideas even you go closed-source. The only idea to prevent that to happen is get a patent or don’t do it.
Nobody would give you free programming unless you give something something valuable to the community. Adding a restricted license is one of the most common reasons for discouraging independent programmers.
What about closed-source your core components and open source only the plugins for the independent developers?
Creating an open-source for-profit product is not an easy feat. But it's not as impossible as the other here have stated. An easy example would be GitLab which is a version control system (VCS) that open-source their softwares.
This would still actually require an extremely solid business model, law/license experties would also be a huge boost.
What GitLab do as a business model is actually offer support, high-level security, and they do the maintanance for you. Which most companies don't want to risk or to be bothered with.
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