Plans to ever open source the base system?

I was just curious if this system could be open sourced so that someone could run their own private server? I have NO idea what the mechanics are behind the scenes, nor any idea of the hardware it takes to run even a single game, but I do know that open source projects often get some really neat (and often obscure) additions b/c someone wants a feature that the devs can't spend time on.

Seems a bit twittery, *shrugs

Yeah, that's not gonna happen, lol. They're running this as a business.

Ever heard of Red Hat? Or BigBlueButton? Both have open source completely free stuff, and are businesses. There are ways to make it work, so don't just dismiss it out of hand b/c you think open source =/= business. And, according to what I read, the developers do this as a side project to their day jobs. So the business needs may be secondary (I don't know).

I agree. Why would I plan on saving up to put money into this server if I could jump on a privet one. I would hate it if there were other servers out there it would brake up this community and no one would ever find groups to play with as easily as we can now. I know people are thinking well the privet server would be just that a privet server but as we all know threw the test of time with the internet that is impossible once the source code or what ever it is called for this is put out there some one will take advantage of it and that will just be another sad day.

And that's fine. Not everything works in the open source ecosystem. But some things do, and often it's the niche things that do best, which is why I brought it up. My thought would be open the basic table, but leave out the chat/vid/audio & 3d dice. And the community would still be here, b/c the forums would be separate, and this is where people would congregate. Anyway, thanks for the time.

I don't know, I have someone in my roleplaying group that probably WOULD subscribe if he was able to actually meddle in the backend and be able to set up his own functions within roll20. He's working on his own roleplaying system and is a fan of the front end, but wants a bit more control of the back-end so that he can use it special for his own system. Seriously I think that doing that would be a great subscription incentive. And then you can have these options shared between paying subscribers and less work for you.

Or, if not that, then how about publishing an open API to allow others to build on top of what you've got. You can then take a look and if anything comes along that's really great you can offer to bring it on board officially. I'm a developer, and I have a really fabulous web application with database back end that does an enormous number of primary GM functions that I'd be delighted to link to your interfaces via an API, if open sourcing is not an option. At least with the API everything would still run on your system, but allow others, such as myself, to fill in the blanks and build this out into something more comprehensive. Anyway, just a thought for you. Or, if you have any ideas on how others might collaborate with you for this purpose, I'd certainly be interested.