Hello Dev Community!
After developing websites for a few years, I was wondering if I should close source my backend. I know that leaving it open source is great because people can find bugs, help patch things, etc. But my reasoning for making it closed source is people have stolen my backend. I also want to start making money off of the API that the backend uses, so should I add license keys as well?
Thanks!
Top comments (1)
Could you explain a little more about your use of 'stolen'? Open source software is by definition usable by others...that isn't stealing, that's exactly what's supposed to happen. Perhaps you are referring to other people calling your own website's specific backend without authorisation? This is not stealing (as I understand it!), this is a lack of access control in the design, leading to exploitation by malicious parties... in which case look at access control mechanisms you could use, typically user-Identification & Authorisation Management (IAM) technologies, usually available as a service from your hosting provider if they are one of the big cloud orgs.
Regarding monetizing your service - perhaps you can charge for what can be done with the service as a whole (via purchasing access: see above!), rather than try to lock down the enabling technology (your backend code, which is already out there). What's your business model? Of course you may be interested in selling your software product directly, in which case how would prospective customers discover that they want to pay you? Look at business models (again!) in the community, like Atlassian, or RedHat (VA Linux), or Duende Software (who made their Identity Server open source work commercially profitable).
good luck :)