I've just written my first small paid application and would also like to release the source code publicly on github as a few people have expressed interest.<p>There's some pros and cons I can see with it:<p>Cons:<p>- Potential revenue loss, people wont pay if they can get it for free.<p>Pros:<p>- Giving back to community.<p>- Potential free advertising when technical users use the free code and non-technical users catch wind and pay for not having to be bothered with code.<p>Anyone do both and can share experiences?
I would keep the code proprietary and donate 20% of the application's revenue to the open source projects that made it possible. As soon as profit stops, open source it.<p>You'll be "giving back" way more this way.
Is it business software or consumer software?<p>Check out <a href="https://supportedsource.org/" rel="nofollow">https://supportedsource.org/</a><p>You can have your code public on GitHub, while still releasing it under a paid license.