What should Tool become — open source or with community Edition?
Hey everyone,
I've been building a labelling tool, a desktop app (PyQt6) for capturing and annotating gesture datasets — think of it as a companion tool for gesture recognition pipelines like Gesto, making it easier to collect, label, and export hand landmark data for training models.
I'm at a fork in the road on direction, and I'd love your input:
1. Open source it — release it freely (currently GPL-3.0), let the community use it, contribute, and shape where it goes.
2. Build a paid/commercial version — invest in polish, support, and features, and offer it as a proper product.
A few things I'm weighing:
Open source could grow adoption faster and build trust in the gesture-recognition/CV space
A paid version could fund continued development and let me focus more time on it
There's also a possible middle ground — open core with paid add-ons, or free for individuals/paid for teams
What would you rather see? And if you've built or used similar dev tools, what worked (or didn't) for you?
Curious to hear your thoughts — genuinely undecided here and want to build something people actually want.
Replies
@sundar_balamurugan What's stopping you from trying a community edition first?
Signspell
@juhan_polinert Yeah. I am deciding things. Maybe launching a community edition first is what I am going to do.
@sundar_balamurugan Do you think trust matters more than revenue at this stage?
Signspell
@jonathan_hayes3 I am right now trying to get the word out .
@sundar_balamurugan Have you considered letting the community help shape the roadmap first?
Signspell
@khadija_abdulhadi Yes, Not till posting this thread. Community is helping me now.
@sundar_balamurugan what's your biggest fear with going fully open source?
Signspell
@lee_jay1 No fear . I am planning to go Community + Opensource first. Then see how it takes off.
The thing that I am still thinking is about is monetization ways if I go opensource. But, yeah let me worry about that at later stage.
@sundar_balamurugan IIf you launched it paid tomorrow, who do you think would buy first?
Signspell
@pablo_ani Yeah, I never thought about launching paid in the first stage. I am talking Opensource vs community edition with paid one. I may have phrased it wrong in the forum. But, yeah let us see .
@sundar_balamurugan What feedback have you heard the most from early users?
Signspell
@paritosh_kumar_mandal Yeah, Got some feedback for the first version. Mostly good and some place for improvements.
@sundar_balamurugan Do you think companies and individuals need different versions?
Signspell
@hambali_salisu Not at the first. But, later down the road- they might need
I would try a free community edition before paying. Clear upgrade reasons matter most. What premium features do you believe companies would value first?
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@rajveer_raj Yes, completely understood. Thanks for the feedback. Will do it first.