[OT] Open Source and my company's web application

[Sy Ali]

It's quite off-topic, but there are some people with good brains
lurking about.  Or good lurks braining about.  =p


There's this little web application that my company has been working
on for a while.  It really rocks.  It really really rocks.

We've been using it for some time.  It is the single most powerful
driving force in the way my business runs from day to day.

It's nearing readyness for public viewing/flaming.  We're just not
sure how to go about this.

It's one of those funky Ruby/Rails whiz-bang AJAXy apps.  Yes, and
it's yet another todo application.


Route 1:
Releasing the use:

Self-hosting and selling the service has come to mind.  This is what
backpack has done yes?

Openly hosting applications isn't really our thing, so we've got only
our wits.  Where can I go to learn more about the pitfalls of such a
thing?

We're thinking of starting by haivng an openly-accssible version of it
which resets itself hourly.

Then we're thinking about choking off some of the functionality and
making that version openly available.  Sign up with a username and
password, use the thing for life.  It's good marketing/karma and
something that we'd consider.

Then we're thinking of selling the unthrottled package, including
shunting it off onto a separate sub-server and all that sort of thing.
 Custom hosting with the complete package.

Dealing with signups, permissions, money flow and that sort of thing
isn't a big deal.. the fear is with keeping a good service flowing,
good uptime.. and dealing with concepts we may never have thought of..
(documentation, technical support, training.. who knows)


Route 2:
Releasing the code:

We've liberally used various open source components.  Pardon me while
I use a little FUD.  So because we've used code which have their own
licensing terms, the application as a whole _may_ find itself
"infected" by the licensing correct?

Also, some modifications have had to be made to that outsider code
(fixing bugs, adding features, etc).  We still need to arrange to get
a hold of the various authors of the alien code to provide patches.

My first goal is go get a list built which describes all of the alien
code and to get the licensing terms for each item.

Assuming all code is GPL, under what circumstances can that GPL code
be bundled with ours if ours is under a different license?  Can that
alien code be referred to as separate modules?  Can it even be shipped
in the same tarball with our app?



Releasing the whole shebang GPL is indeed possible.. but we need to
somehow leverage the "oh my god" aspect.  Bunches of brain and brawn
have gone into it, and it'd be nice to get something out of it. 
Either it's released into the wild as a marketing tool or it's held
back somehow for fun and profit by selling only its use.

Ideas?  I'm sure lots of other people have run into the same sort of
dillema.  I'm not sure where to go to get those experiences.

Really this application isn't such a big deal to us.  We made it
because we had a BIG itch to scratch.  It's growing up quickly and so
it'd be nice to start dreaming of its future.

Frankly, I'm leaning towards hosting it for people to try / use for
free, accepting donations to cover the serving costs, GPLing the lot
of it and accepting/assembling a public development team to work on it
on some open source developer site.


Comments welcome..
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