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OT, Is there any start-up that tried free (as in speech) model for SaaS product? It will be selling point, because you don't have to worry about company going out of business or that they decided to move on to something else.

We need a license that will a) protect the developer from competition as long as they're in business and b) protect users from the company killing the product. When devs are not in game anymore, it must be possible for users to run the software themselves and allow others to enter the market (fork the company, not just free software). id Software's approach by frequently releasing old versions of code in Affero GPL might work.



I don't know if they qualify as startups, but here are two examples:

Mint (http://www.haveamint.com) and FogBugz (http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/)

You can buy and self-host these products, with source code included.




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