Ask Slashdot: Open Vs. Closed-Source For a Start-Up

atamagabakkaomae writes "Together with a friend, I am starting up a company in Japan that develops sensors used in motion capture. For these sensors we develop hardware and software. Part of the software development is an open-source toolkit called openMAT. We have some special purpose algorithms that we developed ourselves and that are better than our competitor's technology. I first wanted to publish everything open-source to spark interest in our company and to do development in collaboration with the community. My company partner disagreed and said that we will lose our technological advantage if we open-source it. So I eventually published only a part of the toolkit open-source and closed the most interesting code. How do you guys think that open-sourcing your code-base affects a company's business? Is it wrong for a small company to give away precious intellectual property like that or will it on the contrary help the development of the company?"

Comments

Post the source

[Threni]

And then I can sit around smoking weed and selling closed source versions of your software. You'd never know, because I'd obfuscate it.

Seriously, do it. It's the right thing to do. Moral, open, caring and sharing. All great stuff when you're trying to make a profit from people.

Re:No need to help your competitors

[vaccum pony]

>Frankly, if you have to ask this question you aren't really serious about succeeding. Yep, 'cause the only way to win to make someone else lose.