Jason Antic

There's no reason for people to pay me if I give it away for free. That's the argument in my case.

So mistaken that it's "not even wrong." I love you man, but you have some weird mindsets about business. Like I said, I don't expect anyone to change their minds. But people pay for a service, not for code. And a service can't be so easily replicated.

But all tech companies do keep certain things a trade secrets. That's the nature of business. There is no way a business can be completely open.

Point to at least a dozen companies that have died by being too open, and I'll be happy to change my mind. Until then, this is simply a line that companies would have you believe. Especially in a big company context, *no one* cares about the code! Even UnrealEngine is open now.

The other perspective: Two people teams that can't afford a regular army of lawyers- success stories? Unreal Engine is great and I feel like it's the only example I can think of that fits your ideal other than perhaps Red Hat. But they're big. Others....?

Yeah, size matters. Epic Games begin to get a share of revenue off of games after a certain amount of revenue is made. They can easily go for someone who doesn't comply with that. But for a small business it's not easy to use that kind of model.

Cowards. You're all worried that someone's going to come along and do your own work better than you can, or steal your little secrets that don't really matter in the long run. Have some faith in your work! The internet will be happy to hound a company that breaks your license.

Open source is for large companies that need a community of experts around their tech stack from which they can recruit. They don't open source for charity or kindness it's a trick.