Open source for application development [closed]

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I'm developing an application and am thinking about releasing it open source.

1. Is it good choice to open source it, even though it's not a developer API library, but an end user app?

2. When i开发者_StackOverflow社区s it a good time to release the source code? Should I start the project open source from the very beginning or wait until it's v1.0?

3. If the source code is GPL, how do you prevent someone from grabbing it and illegally releasing a proprietary closed source application? In practice, how can this violation of copyright law be spotted and is the law enforceable?

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This is all inherently subjective, of course...

1. Yes. There are many open source end user applications. Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, Open Office, and many many (other) GNOME and KDE apps, for example.

2. You definitely don't need to wait until v1.0, though it might be good to wait until you've got some early proof of concept code to "announce" the project. If you announce an empty code repository you'r unlikely to get contributors, and it may be hard to drum up enthusiasm later.

3. Spotting a GPL violation of an app is probably easier than spotting a GPL violation of a library, on average.

   If the code is GPL and you have evidence (or strong suspicions) that the GPL was violated you could try contacting gpl-violations.org or the FSF.

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Here are my opinions:
1 - Yes. It can be a portfolio, an example app for others, anything... IMHO, it doesn't matter if it's not a dev-focused project.

2 - Since the beginning. One great thing about these open-sources repositories is that it holds the source code. And there, you can but some ideas about the direction of the project, maybe even discuss it with other users / developers.

3 - Thats tough. I guess you can't, but I'm not sure.