[gfwilliams]

I actually had a lot of success with Open Sourcing. After a year of making virtually nothing out of selling Espruino as software (while being bombarded with sometimes abusive comments about the fact it wasn't Open), I decided to put it on KickStarter as Open Source hardware a year ago - and the result was very good. My second KickStarter is about to finish in 24 hours too.

It's a shame yours didn't work out - I think I was lucky I had something that could be crowdfunded more easily.

Having said that, none of the people that berated me for being Open Source have contributed anything back (others have been very helpful though). I've also had to cope with cheap clones, the possibility of competitors using my own software, and a huge support burden from users of other hardware.

[gfwilliams]

Just to add: Overall open source has been great in my case. It's just that it's very easy for someone to make a comment on the internet - it doesn't mean they're particularly bothered about it or are prepared to do anything about it!