2
HRT-713
6y

I'm kind of in a bit of a conundrum.

Abou 6 months ago, a friend and me were speaking about how bored I was and how I don't have any new ideas for projects, and he gave me one, and it is the basis of the project I am currently building, yet I changed one of the variables he had gave me as to appeal to a wider audience, yet now as I resumed work on it, I think it is a good idea and would make me some money( I'm not writing about this grounbreaking idea that would make me millions, hell, I'm not sure it will be successfull, but it might make me some money to help me when the time comes to go to university) but I am a firm believer in open-source and I don't know if I should make it open source and rely on the donations and let them modify the code, or just charge for it?

If it were another case, I wouldn't think twice before making it open source yet I probably won't be able to afford uni and this would be good for me and help me along with the freelancing jobs I am starting to work on.

What would you guys recommend I do?

Comments
  • 2
    Without more info I can’t make a recommendation. I can tell you what I did. I started working on some software with my dad right as I started on my CS degree. We thought we could productize some software ideas he had to sell to pharma companies. We were building the software to automate a large portion of his job. We went through about 6 iterations over 3 years. By that point someone else entered the market with a lot more money and more industry support. While I would have liked to make some cash from the dozens of hours I put in per month for that entire period, I don’t regret it. I developed the skills I needed to apply and get my dream job. I now spend over half my time writing open source software and the rest on proprietary stuff. The startup my dad and I built brought us closer and taught us both so much about business, project/market fit, and collaboration. I now plan on reviewing the code I wrote for the startup and will see what components/patters might be open source-able.
  • 2
    @crhntr You're very lucky you got to work on that with your dad. I am very sorry it didn't work out, yet the thing with my idea is that I won't lose anything by developping it, and the possibility of someone having that idea right now is really slim as it's core is already available in the market, the value is of what I am going to build on top of it.
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