Ask HN: Should I offer an OSS version?

1 pointjoshcanhelp2 comments

I sell a WordPress template online that does quite well. The problem is that someone released an older version into the wild and now it's available for free.

I've often thought about releasing a free version in the repo with no customization ability but I'd hate for my sales to suffer.

Has anyone out there decided one way then switched to the other and regretted it? Or switched and had a great experience?

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Sales will suffer and when people find out that they can get it for free (especially if it's on a site with more juice than you on Google), they will fall off to nothing.

Not only that, but the people using it will be your biggest complainers and the cause of many headaches. OSS seems to have created a whole group of users that feel entitled to everything for free.

This has happened to me a few times already, so now I stick to pure services/commercial.

Thanks for the reply, Paul.

My thought was to offer a stripped down version, no customization options at all. Those who wanted more than just the basic functionality would pay.

Does that still sound like a bad idea?

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