Why I'm opening up the source for my project

I thought I would share the thought process I've gone through to get to the point where I'm making my code available on GitHub.

The second thing is just to make it clear what I'm opening up. Which is my "SaaS Boilerplate" Parthenon. I put it in quotes because I want it to be much more than that, and in reality, it has features that no other boilerplate has because they're not SaaS Boilerplate features they're generic business features. So for those just wanting to check out my project's code - https://github.com/getparthenon

What am I doing?

I'm making my code/project source-available. This is not open-source. It comes with limitations. I'm using the Business Source License 1.1. This is used by Akka, MariaDB, and other great products/companies.

This allows for free use for all uses except production use. I've added an additional grant use that if you're generating less than $5,000 USD a month, you can use it for free in production. It also converts the code to open-source after 3-years.

Those making more than $5,000 USD a month will need to pay for a commercial license. Which is just $250 per developer, which gives them a year of updates and perpetual right to use the version they have a license for.

Meaning for many indie hackers they can use it for free until they hit 5k MRR then pay $250.

So... Why not open-source?

The simple answer is, I want companies to pay for it, not random people. While there are many great things about open-source, I feel that one major issue is that people aren't getting paid for their work, and this results in a poorer product. A product that many companies depend on. These companies can afford to pay but choose not to. Many companies don't even contribute developer time back to projects they use heavily. Nor open-source any of their own internal libraries.

While I think companies should pay, I think the ability for developers, charities, etc to use code to build things make for better developers and charities and overall a better world. I wouldn't be able to do what I do if it wasn't for someone providing me while free tools. So I want to be able to provide others with free tools while they build their projects and if they can afford it pay.

What is to stop people from using it and making money and not paying?

When I tell people about this idea, the first thing they point out is it's hard to know if someone is using it and should be paying but isn't. Simply, that's true. But what I've experienced is that most people will pay for indie stuff. I guess, I'm putting my faith in people.

What benefits do I expect to see?

I no longer have to manage a private setup to allow people access to the code. This lowers my costs. And makes life just overall easier. I can also use many of the free tools that are available to public GitHub repositories.

Lower barrier to entry

It will massively lower the barrier to entry. It allows people and companies to evaluate it without having to sign up, give credit card details, etc. While other successful SaaS boilerplate developers say they want people who have properly investigated the market to sign up. I personally think I want a totally different kind of customer, I want companies as customers. And to solve problems that mid-sized to large companies face. While also providing a solid foundation for indie hackers to build a project that can scale.

Building in Public

It will allow me to open up my backlog and project roadmap and fully build in public. My plan is to write informative tickets that will show what features are for. What problems they solve, how they solve them and sometimes give an idea into how they will be implemented.

You can look at the current backlog at https://github.com/orgs/getparthenon/projects/3

And some examples of the sort of tickets I'm planning on writing for future features.

A data exporter functionality https://github.com/getparthenon/monorepo/issues/7
Athena log event viewer - https://github.com/getparthenon/monorepo/issues/12

I hope these will help act not only as content marketing but help get viable feedback from other developers who will read them.

Conclusion

This is something I've been toying with for over a year. And now that I'm finally doing it, it feels really cool.

I'm still writing up the release announcement stuff, so once that is done, it'll be really interesting to see what the reactions are. Especially since normally, when someone is converting to the BSL license, they're doing it from open-source to source-available. Whereas I'm going from closed source to opening up more.

So if you want to check out my stuff:

Website: https://getparthenon.com/
GitHub: https://github.com/getparthenon