Hy Platonics,
Thank you very much for your reply. I have used you reply to create a new thread "Please convince me to make my software open source (3)"
Your contribution is very valuable to me to me for making this important decision.
With regard Bernard
Platonides wrote:
Bernard wrote:
Or a competitor can create the same kind of SAAS solution but more cheap because I have the costs, and the competitor the profit.
If the competitor doesn't innovate, he will be just copying your version, unable to provide the new features the client wants.
Credits If I make my software Open Source I get the credits for that. That is very important to me. If enterprises want to use a wiki internally they can do so with the Open Source version. But the real knowledge is within Wikiation, my company. Credits are very strong related to the license. Do I really get the credits? I know in theory it should be. But how this can be achieved in real life?
Your extension should register itself in Special:Version. It will show there the extension name, the author and a link to its root site.
If someone else uses your software to give out the same services as you, you will still be credited there. If they chosed the other guy just because he was 50% cheaper and it's enough his lower level of support, it's ok. If they want you can point on how the other guys are using your software, and show that your company is leading that development. Thus, it is in their interest to have the best company, that is, yours. Of course, you may be from that role if you stop improving it and another one does. Even in that case, you would still be able to give a better service to your customers than if you were the only owners of the extension by taking *their* fixes.
Could the rival company remove the line giving you credit from there? Yes, but that is considered a Very Bad Behavior in the Free Software community, and are likely to be breaking the license. Almost all software licenses have a statement saying that the authors must be credited. They could argue that you are still credited in some hidden file, but that's borderline on their side. Removing from there a significant contributor (pretty much, the sole author!) from where they were shown, is morally dubious and might void their license to use your extension.
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