<story><title>Shutting down a product? Open source it.</title><url>http://robots.thoughtbot.com/post/19388751626/copycopter-is-now-open-source</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>sirclueless</author><text>This particularly makes sense for SaaS offerings that are being discontinued. If your product is only available as a service then it is particularly painful when it disappears for those who depend on it. From a business standpoint, open-sourcing is a good way to maintain goodwill and shift the onus of administering the service to those who consume it without leaving them out to dry. All your consumers will have to make a decision on whether the cost of running their own service is worth it, which is a much healthier situation than a bunch of irate customers left with no recourse.</text></comment>
<story><title>Shutting down a product? Open source it.</title><url>http://robots.thoughtbot.com/post/19388751626/copycopter-is-now-open-source</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>notphilatall</author><text>That&apos;s only an option if you&apos;re shuttering the product of your own will. If you&apos;re part of a talent acquisition (which is the case with Posterous and Milk), the purchasing company would have to make that call, so you should really address the blog post to them.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s unlikely any of them would: they just paid a bunch of money and acquired the team plus source, and even if they don&apos;t use the acquired source, open-sourcing it is extra work and/or a liability. The team, on the other hand, may still have faint hopes that the company will do something with their product.&lt;p&gt;In the cases where it&apos;s clear that the team&apos;s energies will be focused elsewhere the team could try to include it in the terms of the acquisition, but were I in those shoes I&apos;d probably not want to risk souring the upside or acquisition as a whole.</text></comment>