u/tsdexter

From what I’ve already looked at, they’re projected to climb for a bit then plateau… And fixed is currently higher, so at least in the short term I’ll be paying more?

edit: 3.7% is variable rate if it wasn’t obvious

I just bought my first 200 shares and can buy ~630 more in my RRSP ... should I dump it all in? dollar cost average?

It's for long term investment but are we on a downswing or up? Can I grab a few extra points waiting days or weeks? And yes I know, the answer "is in the sub name" but asking anyway 🤷‍♂️

I'm working on a project I'd like to eventually turn into my main income, maybe even replace my job someday if it goes well. Right now I'm stuck going back and forth on licensing and could use some outside perspective.

Here's what I want for regular users. Free to download, run locally, use for their own hobby projects. Totally fine if they sell stuff they make with it. I want a plugin system so people can extend it and build on top of what I made. Basically I want it to feel as open and friendly as possible for individuals and small-time tinkerers.

The thing I keep getting stuck on is this. In spaces like mine there's a pattern where a big well funded platform just takes a genuinely open project and bolts it straight into their existing ecosystem and user base. They've got the distribution and the resources to do that practically overnight, even if I'm the one who did the actual work building/innovating it. If that happens my odds of ever getting funding or sponsorships or just steady income from it basically drop to zero. Why would anyone pay me if a much bigger player is already giving away my own idea for free or cheaper as a feature in a platform people already use.

So the model I keep landing on is something like this. Free or source available for individuals, run locally, self host it (for themselves only), modify it, extend it, sell what you make with it, no restrictions there. But the hosted or managed version stays mine, that's what I'd charge companies or heavier commercial users for, and that's the actual business model that would let me keep building this.

Basically I want it open enough to build real goodwill and a community, but closed enough that a company way bigger than me can't just absorb the whole thing and give me nothing back.

Questions for anyone who's dealt with this:

Has anyone actually used a source available license like Elastic, BSL, FSL, fair source, whatever, and had it hold up the way you hoped? Did it scare away the community you were trying to build?

Is a plugin system plus a hosted layer enough of a moat on its own, or does the license itself still matter that much?

Anyone regret going full MIT or Apache and then watching a bigger player just fold your work into their own ecosystem?

Is there some middle ground I'm not thinking of, dual licensing, delayed open sourcing, something else people have tried?

I am a supporter of open source and want hobbyists to get real value out of this for free. I just don't want to hand a much bigger company a free feature and lose any real shot at this paying my bills. Curious how other people here have handled this tradeoff.