I wrote this post at a time when Readburner was crucified and before its current resurrection. In that post, I had suggested that companies entering deadpool should consider releasing their code under one of the opensource licenses. I made this argument to emphasize that it will build trust among the customers in this era of apps residing on the web rather than on the user’s computers. It was my argument that if the web app is also released as open source (as the in case of apps like wordpress and some wikis we have talked about in the previous posts), users will not be left in the lurch (in the event of a company shutting its doors).

Today Marshall posted about the AJAX based photo sharing site Zoto releasing its source code under an opensource license. There is no information about the company entering the deadpool. But, if it ever enters the deadpool, it won’t have any effect on their customers because they can simply take the source code and get it installed in their own servers. This is the kinda approach that will get people to trust the startups offering web apps. I just hope that the other startups follow Zoto in releasing their code under an opensource license. This ensures that the web app will live forever, irrespective of whether the company behind the app is part of the history or not.