Hi ! I like this website (and this community !) but I don’t understand if there is something like a company behind LangCorrect ? Is there somewhere I can find this information ? If not, is it possible to learn a bit more about that ? Is it non-profit ?
Hi @bisam ,
I’m glad you’re loving the platform! There’s no “real” company behind LC, at least not yet. I started LC originally as a weekend hobby project, and I never expected it to come this far. Feel free to ask me questions, and I’ll try to get to them as soon as I can. I’m currently in my final months of coding boot camp so I might reply a bit late.
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Hi, thanks for your answer. And since I’m free to ask you questions, please feel free to reply when you want, no hurry.
I asked you this question because this site is great, I got some ideas of how I could help, what I could do, etc. But I’m allergic to anything that is not for sure non-profit. So reading your answer, I think that right now, you don’t know if you want to make some money with it or not. Even if I would say “don’t !”, it’s your decision and I can imagine that you need time to decide.
But I think that you need to decide at one point. I saw some efforts to open source the code, that’s great, I would be happy to help (I can’t do anything about Django migrations, it’s too hard but testing and writing docstring, why not). But I don’t want to work for a potential company.
If we imagine that LangCorrect become something clearly non-profit, well … in the best case people could try to give you money to create a specific functionality but I think it won’t allow you to earn enough like a job. And, given the result, I think you spend A LOT of time on this and I don’t have anything more to give you than my thanks and my time. So it’s not so simple I guess. Of course, you can answer “maybe” but I will hear “yes” …
So my new question is : is that possible that one day LangCorrect become something that makes money ? As I said, there is no need to answer it quickly. There is no need to answer it in fact. But if you can, I prefer that you take your time, just think about it if possible.
Hi @masemune, you’ve put a huge amount of work into this site, obviously. It’s an amazing piece of work.
Following up on this question – since it’s not a company, where is it currently hosted? Are you running it on AWS, or someplace else? I’m curious about long-term sustainability and funding and all of that.
ps - “non-profit” doesn’t have to mean free 
– hosting, dev, and support all take time (and therefore some kind of money, in almost all cases). Of the various sites I’ve seen offering this kind of service, this appears to have the nicest design so perhaps people would be willing to pay a very small amount to keep it going. cheers! jz
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Thanks for the kind words, everyone. It makes me happy to read them.
Great questions. I’m re-evaluating the possibility of open-sourcing the platform. While I believe in the benefits of OS, the platform isn’t generating a significant amount of revenue, and I’m concerned about the potential implications of OS. For example, can I still have a premium subscription model? What’s to stop someone from just releasing their own version that’s completely free of charge, etc?
I’m not an expert in this area, and seeking advice from a lawyer would likely be necessary, which would be expensive.
I’m hosting it on DO. Thankfully there are premium supporters which have helped me sustain the platform. It would have been pretty tough for me without them. I’m honestly very grateful to them for believing in the platform enough to financially help maintain it. 
This is an amazing resource. I love it and am very glad that you started it. I also use Lang-8, but they are no longer accepting new registrants. So, the rate of receiving corrections has slowed tremendously.
I think this is an amazing platform for anyone looking to improve their language development and writing skills. Thank you so much and have a lovely week!
Sabrina
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You’re right, that’s precisely what’s gonna happened if you open source your code: if the premium subscription model persists, someone will host it for free. It’s the definition of open source, no need to ask a lawyer
To be honest, if Langcorrect was open source, I think I would host it for free because it’s too awesome.