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On paying for software

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Re: On paying for software

#91

Post by greysteil »

ttoinou wrote: post #80
greysteil wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I'm saying, and I don't think I'm spreading any falsehoods about free software licenses here. Building a business is about distribution as well as product. My product is pretty good, but my distribution, compared to a large player with an existing user base, is woeful. If I licensed under GPL I would be giving explicit legal permission to any big player (who was open source) to take my product for fre…

Thanks to copyright law we don't need to hide our codebases in order to charge for our work. I don't understand that part ?

Before patents, copyright law, and all that, secrecy was the only way to stop people copying your stuff. That was kinda crappy, and people went to great lengths to obfuscate their IP, expending lots of effort on something that had no benefit for their customers / the world.

Intellectual property law changed that - it made it possible for people to openly disclose their inventions whilst maintaining control of them (normally with some conditions). It was a really, really good thing for society, as it dramatically increased the returns to "thinking work".

I can probably dig out a link if you're interested.

Re: On paying for software

#92

Post by leesalminen »

mherrmann wrote: post #9

As an indie dev of desktop software, I have grown tired of complaints that my products aren't free as in speech and beer. I now reply to such criticism by linking to this post: https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/

I love that post. Also, just bought a license (and subscription for updates). Product looks awesome. Installing right now and am going to use it today!

Re: On paying for software

#93

Post by justinclift »

open-source-ux wrote: post #6

Why is it so hard for developers to make a full-time living selling their open-source software? Are the available options stacked against them? Thousands of developers make money building products or services for clients using open source software. But what if you don't want to be a consultant and simply want to charge a business for using your open source product? The Free Software Foundation (FSF) says that you can…

This is kind of timely, as setting up a Patreon account is something we (DB Browser for SQLite / sqlitebrowser.org) did a few days ago:

https://www.patreon.com/db4s

For us it's an initial experiment, as we had no idea at all if anyone would decide to become a Patron.

However, it's um... 3 or 4 days since the account creation and already some people have become Patrons. Kind of nifty. :)

Other people have been at it longer, and are definitely having a measure of success with it. For example, seeing Gina Häußge being able to work full time on OctoPrint gives us hope for the future. :)

https://www.patreon.com/foosel

Re: On paying for software

#94

Post by justinclift »

open-source-ux wrote: post #6

Why is it so hard for developers to make a full-time living selling their open-source software? Are the available options stacked against them? Thousands of developers make money building products or services for clients using open source software. But what if you don't want to be a consultant and simply want to charge a business for using your open source product? The Free Software Foundation (FSF) says that you can…

> There's the dual-licencing approach e.g. Red Hat.

This bit is confusing to me. AFAIK Red Hat doesn't use a dual-licensing approach.

Is it something they've recently introduced?

Re: On paying for software

#95

Post by matheusmoreira »

todd8 wrote: post #76
matheusmoreira wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying for software may be moral , but it certainly isn't natural . As the game's developer, you're the scare resource. Making copies of the finished game itself costs approximately $0. Copyright makes your game artificially scarce so that you can charge for it. It's a phony concept that exists to support an unnatural business model. The real business model should be players paying you directly to develop and update…

Are you saying that the "phony concept" of copyrights shouldn't exist? Authors and artists (and software developers) would have little incentive to produce in such an environment.

Yes.

Lack of incentives didn't stop the artists of the past. Many were able to secure patronage.

Re: On paying for software

#96

Post by mathgeek »

rootlocus wrote: post #87
matheusmoreira wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Products are scarce. Data isn't. What if everyone had a Star Trek replicator? Would they still pay for products according to their value? That's what a computer acts like.

You would probably pay for: the replicator, the recipe,the ingredients and the energy used by the replicator. However, Star Trek has a different economy from ours.

Star Trek has no economy except for its fictional one. Their economy of fabricators is itself a fabrication. At best, it represents an ideal.

Re: On paying for software

#97

Post by justinclift »

TimJYoung wrote: post #90
justinclift wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we please dispense with this notion and start realizing one simple fact: people will typically only pay for something if you make them pay. Things to appear to be changing for the better though. As an examply, Gina Häußge is working full time on OctoPrint (3D printing software) supported entirely by donations: https://www.patreon.com/foosel There are probably others too, I'm just not aware of them and have only…

Again, donations, etc. may work for some creators, but they will not work for all. There are always going to be products that are "Wow, I'm donating to her !", but the vast majority are more of the "plumbing" variety that are much, much harder to monetize in ways other than "pay me".

Sure. But the original statement was that it does not work. eg 0% success

Whereas clearly it can, as there are the occasional success stories. So, it's more than 0%. Maybe not a high percentage yet though. ;)

Re: On paying for software

#98

Post by rootlocus »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #48
kaibee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it certainly isn't natural. So what? Nothing about software development is 'natural'. I don't even know what definition of 'natural' you're using here. > It's a phony concept that exists to support an unnatural business model. It's a social construct that we've adopted in society because it allows for things we like. > The real business model should be players paying you directly to develop and update the game…

>I don't even know what definition of 'natural' you're using here. Copying data is a fundamental operation that all computers are able to perform and it costs nothing. Therefore, data is naturally easy to copy. Software doesn't need to be manufactured like physical goods do: the software construction step is fully automated by compilers and build systems. The cost of all this is approximately $0. Networks aren't free…

> Software doesn't need to be manufactured like physical goods do: the software construction step is fully automated by compilers and build systems.

Source code surely is manufactured. I write it with my hands, using years of knowledge and experience, spending a lot of time on it.

Re: On paying for software

#99

Post by rootlocus »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #85
Torwald wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copying data is a fundamental operation that all computers are able to perform and it costs nothing. That is not true. Running, maintaining, etc the IT infrastructure is costing money, electricity etc. It doesn't come for free.

Suppose that a copy takes 1 second to complete and the computer's power supply unit draws 400 W of power during that 1 second. How much does it cost to complete that copy? Hawaii has the most expensive electricity¹ in the United States, averaging at 29.23 cents / kW * h. Let's use 30 cents / kW * h. If we have 400 W sustained for one second, that equals 0.000111111111 kW * h. (400 Watt * second) * (30 cents / kWh) =…

This is a very large strawman you've constructed.

Re: On paying for software

#100

Post by patrickthebold »

ropeadopepope wrote: post #71
wazoox wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Linux and most free software projects allow donations. I even donated to projects I don't actually use, like FreeBSD. I donated money to many free software projects, Ardour, Mozilla, LibreOffice, OpenBSD, etc. This is clearly a false dichotomy.

The problem with open source is, for some reason, the developers feel no sense of obligation to the end users or the people who donate to them. MacOS devs do and will go out of their way to make sure their software is not just usable, but a sheer pleasure to use in every way possible. Yes, there are exceptions (I'm looking at you, Apple, with your Xcode and your Finder) but for the most part that's just the way thing…

A 'donate' button isn't a business model. Some open source projects have a business model built around paid support.

By all means please donate to projects you want to support. But 'donation' implies you aren't getting something in return. Otherwise it would be a 'purchase'.

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