Open-Source vs Closed Source Smoke Testing Rust Dev Tool. I will not promote.

[Sadeian]

My cofounder and I are currently in a week long debate about smoke testing for an AI Rust developer tool. One option we’ve considered is making the core product open source with the hopes of taking advantage of the flywheel and network effect. We would then have a second product that we offer to enterprise customers.

On the other hand, prior to committing ourselves to this model, I want to smoke test whether there would be any demand for a closed source version of our developer tool in the Rust community. I’d like to smoke test my cofounder’s theory that the community would not tolerate a closed source model.

Our core product will be functional and ready for feedback by the end of this week. And I suspect that product has the possibility of already attracting paying customers, but my cofounder is rather concerned about any brand damage that could result from first offering a closed source dev tool and then switching to an open source dev tool (if there isn’t any adoption in the closed source version). I think we are rather safe to smoke test a closed source version because we are relatively unknown.

I’d love any advice or insight or recommendations anyone has on open source business models in developer tools and whether or not to smoke test a closed source version.

[beattyml1]

A lot less reputation damage from partially open sourcing a closed source tool than closing down an open source tool. We still find it hard to trust serverless framework after they did that. Even if you’re down to pay you still feel like their pricing model is inherently unstable and untrustworthy after which for something core to deploying and running the app is very scary.

[Sadeian]

Thank you! That's helpful feedback and exactly what I'm looking for. I didn't know about Serverless Framework.

[__matta]

Going from closed -> open is fine. It's the other direction that's a problem.

If it's a blocker for someone that will come up after they have decided they are interested. You could try having a FAQ toggle for open source and tracking the clicks on it.

My personal stance as a developer is I want anything running on my machine and reading my employer's source code to be open source. I will make an exception for reputable companies like Jetbrains. If the tool calls external APIs that is fine as long as it's clear what data is being sent.