Comment Re:As the song asks... (Score 1) 358
Because the owner says so
I was expecting an answer from the owner's perspective.
In the original context, interviewing a candidate for a job, it would be highly unlikely the person in front of you is the owner.
Because providing our code to competitors could cause us to lose our competitive edge?
If your program is useful to a competitor, then perhaps the competitor's improvements to your program are useful to you.
Yes, but they would not be obliged to release those improvements (GPL requires release of source only when you distribute to a third party, and most business management software is never distributed to a third party), so it is unlikely that will help.
Better yet, if your program is useful to one of the clients or suppliers who has to interact with you, that could improve your ability to make money.
Most business software would only be useful to somebody in exactly the same line of business, so it is unlikely other users are people you would end up interacting with.
Because there's no point releasing code that wouldn't be useful to anyone other than us?
Then there's no risk in releasing it to anyone else either, is there?
No, but there is a cost (preparing the code, probably adding missing documentation, and certainly a little management and IT staff time organising the actual release) and if there's no benefit, why do it?