hehe, your server is HN'ed :)

I'd replace the homepage (temporarily) to the absolute minimum during the time it's bombarded with requests, unless you have a vserver/cloud-host that you can scale up. Or change the server your DNS records point to, if you use CNAME, to one at rackspace, github homepage, or anywhere else with a minimal homepage. \nBut I'm sure the guys @HN have better tips :)

I don't know much about legal stuff and licenses, but I would allow anyone to use your software as long as it's code is shared, except for enterprises. Companies who want to use it commercially and have more than 1-5 employees would need to obtain a license. Open Source doesn't mean that you cannot put a price tag on it.

But as you said, prepackaging the stuff as a deb/rpm and allowing white-labeling for enterprise customers would be a good way get some money back from this. Just saying, but you could, if you wanted to, add advertising into the opensource product and disallow it's removal unless a license is obtained. If you were an SaaS, you could collect data and metrics, that you could monetize, but I'm glad you aren't anymore :)

@pg I think there should be a sticky informing website owners on howto react, when their website is HN'ed. Somewhere in the footer of the homepage or so.. This is happening a bit too often and many aren't prepared for such high traffic peaks.

> Companies who want to use it commercially and have more than 1-5 employees would need to obtain a license.

> but you could, if you wanted to, add advertising into the opensource product and disallow it's removal unless a license is obtained.

That's not Open Source. The phrase Open Source has definite meanings and a strict definition, and people have a set of expectations when they hear that phrase. http://opensource.org/osd-annotated

Granted, you certainly can do what you are proposing, but

- That's a very different business model from an Open Source one, as commonly discussed and understood.

- You really shouldn't call it Open Source. This is important beyond mere pedantry as people spent a lot of time building up the Open Source movement with strong principals, and we all benefit immensely from it. If we allow the Open Source label to be ruined by things like this we will all suffer.

> Open Source doesn't mean that you cannot put a price tag on it.

The other things could be done, but you're right, they don't fall under the strict definition of opensource. It would require a different license :)

Oh, btw, the op should take a look at https://pkgr.io/ and https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm