Is Intellectual Property Endangered By Remote Developers In Startups?

Successful open source businesses depend on factors outside of their codebase, such as:

  • Brand positioning and PR
  • Customer base
  • Portfolio
  • Talented engineers and business professionals able to scale
  • Strategic partnerships
  • Investments

If Facebook’s codebase gets stolen and replicated as NewFacebook.com, who cares?

Even Technological Companies Don’t Revolve Entirely Around Their Codebase

Sure, high-quality product is a necessity for acquiring market share. But there’s so much more to that.

  • Will you beat Google’s market share and adoption if you clone their codebase to a new domain?
  • Can you take over Airbnb without their reputation, customer base, and listings?
  • How would you recruit drivers and riders if you clone Uber’s or Lyft’s apps on the AppStore or Google Play?

Successful businesses build a name, acquire market share, land investments, hire A-star players, and keep dominating by innovating quickly. Chances are, a single developer stealing the entire codebase (virtually impossible) will be light years behind the original product a couple of weeks later after all the work put in by the core team.

There’s A Negligible Concern Over Stealing A Codebase

Moreover, companies have strict contracts in place (and hungry legal teams), patents, and investments that could keep them afloat for much longer. A single rogue developer cannot overtake an entire market with a leaked source repository.