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by mindcrime 3457 days ago
A business is more than just the source code. The source for Reddit, for example, is OSS. So anybody should be able to put Reddit out of business in a few days, right? But yet... nobody has. Hmmm....

So yeah, you can distribute source code and still make money. Lots of companies do it. Red Hat, SugarCRM, Alfresco, etc.

In some ways it's probably even easier for an online service to both be OSS and be successful, exactly because it takes all the other "stuff" (hosting, devops, marketing, network effects, etc.) to be successful. And, in fact, there are OSS replacements for things like Facebook and Twitter. The problem is, very few people use them for whatever reason (probably mostly network effects).

So at least in regards to the Facebooks, Twitters, etc. of the world, the first question you'd have to answer, is how to get people to switch to your service, whether it's free software or otherwise.
2 comments
westurner 3454 days ago
> The source for Reddit [...]

Src: https://github.com/reddit/reddit /blob/master/r2/setup.py

Docs: https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki/Install-guide

"Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES)" is donationware: https://github.com/honestbleeps/Reddit-Enhancement-Suite

"List of Independent GNU social Instances" http://skilledtests.com/wiki/List_of_Independent_GNU_social_...

> [...] the first question you'd have to answer, is how to get people to switch to your service, whether it's free software or otherwise.

"Growth hacking": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking

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LordWinstanley 3457 days ago
What he said ^^

Though, don't forget that most of the companies he quoted are actually losing money hand over fist, but are kept afloat by the fact they have investors queuing up to throw bucket loads of cash at them in the vain hope that some day someone will find a way to monetise it all.

So, I'd suggest that your geographical location might also play a significant part. Venture capitalists / Investors in the US seem a lot more amenable than their more conservative European counterparts to; chucking wodges of cash at seemingly terminably non-profitable businesses, on the off-chance of someday seeing a return.

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