Open sourcing (making free) your content management system has nothing to do with your ability to sell it. It may even help. Your clients could still hire you to extend it. It is not a matter of being evil or legally protected.

Of course I'm curious about your system too, but you have to make sure it won't damage your income. I think it would help really, since you could get more jobs, and requests for customization, which you might not get otherwise. You might also get help with localizing it or adding functionality. This could happen more easily if it is made free.

As for legal questions with your clients, you might want to put in your contracts that it is a site liscense, they can't redistribute, and that you are not responsible if they modify the system. That way you get feedback and work, and less hassle.

In reply to Re: To Open Or Not To Open by mattr
in thread To Open Or Not To Open by guillaume

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.