[HuwFulcher]

It's what you've stated but also there's an ethical side to it. Many founders want to give the option for competent users to self-host, only way to do that is open up the source code. They could go completely down the open source route and rely on donations but that doesn't usually cut it. The business model then is to provide a managed service where the founders deal with the hosting, updating, security, etc.

[etskinner]

Open source isn't the only way to allow people to self-host. Before SaaS was a thing, nearly everything was a closed-source self-hosted application.

[ezekg]

And this is something that ONCE by 37signals is trying to bring back: https://once.com

[lbhdc]

I hadn't seen Once, but that is pretty cool. I hope more and more companies start to offer this again.

[kyawzazaw]

is it closed sourced? they said you get to see the source code and can even edit

[ezekg]

You have to purchase it to see the source. After purchasing, you "own" it and can do with it as you see fit (outside of selling/distributing ofc).

License: https://once.com/license