Ask HN: As a startup, should you open source your internal tools?

If it's already releasable (carved out into it's own repo, parsed for any possible security breaches, independently runnable, etc.) You can just make that public with no fan fare and agree not to do anything with it for a month or two. Let your excitement die down, see if anyone notices it or cares, then evaluate at some future date what could happen with it. If you decide no, just make it private again

The first thing to consider is what are your goals for releasing this code? Is it to get other folks to help? To give back to communities that have helped you? To commoditize your complement? To make a name for yourself, either for sales or hiring purposes? You might say "all of these" but which one is the primary focus. That choice will drive what makes sense.

Like some of the sibling comments mention, you just need to be rigorous about how you spend time improving the tool.

It also might be worthwhile to think about the difference between pure OSS and open development. You can have one without the other. For instance, you could post your OSS tools on your org's github and explicitly disavow any support. Any PRs that come in might be merged or maybe not, but you aren't trying to build a community of contributors.

One fav quote about startups: they don't starve, they drown. Focus on swimming.

The thinking is code that isn’t core to your business, and can be useful to others can serve as goodwill. It helps attracts other engineers and nets you a nicer brand.

Think about how much brand swag Microsoft gets from vscode and Typescript.