Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#61

Post by billfruit » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #10

"First stop, reddit" Dont go to reddit for market research. You will only find extreem views on reddit. They are the younger crowd. Try the ubuntu or mint forums if you want to talk to average linux users. I myself would pay for such an email client because no good foss one exists atm. But i find it very odd that such basic software isnt yet free. I dont like the idea of having my email handled by propietary software…

Along with the Ubuntu and mint, I would also suggest the archlinux forums, they are quite active.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#62

Post by at-fates-hands » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #35

As a Linux user, while I would certainly prefer to use a FLOSS app, I'm perfectly willing to pay for proprietary software if it scratches an itch that free software simply can't. I bought a license for SublimeText, because I believe it still blows all other code editors out of the water. I purchased InSync, because there's no comparable Google Drive client for Linux that just works. I'd very much like it if the apps…

> I bought a license for SublimeText.

I did the same thing about six years ago and it was $75 then. Since then its only gone up $5. For me, this is really impressive. As adobe continues to increase the cost of their software seemingly daily, it's nice to see a company invest in their product while still maintaining a very, very affordable product.

I agree on the paid side as well. I just recently went "full Linux" and have no qualms about buying quality software that makes my job as a developer easier.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#63

Post by SamUK96 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #43

olalonde wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that I only ever hear those complaints on HN and never elsewhere... Are you all still using Pentium 3 PCs and 56k modems?

Maybe it’s the same reason why you hear professional designers complain when they see Comic Sans used for body text, but laypersons rarely will mention it. A pro will notice things about implementation that interfere with the content, while the layperson often can’t articulate it even if they sense it’s not quite right.

Parent comment is why I tell everyone to read Pragmatic Programmer, especially the "broken-window theory" section.

For those unaware, an empty house can go untouched for decades in NYC, but once it develops a broken window, it is ransacked and squatted within hours. Small failures invite large failures.

"Javascript bloat isn't too bad, just another 10KB" turns into (VERY quickly) slow + terrible code that is trash. Small amounts of apathy about code invites other developers to sink to lower (more sh*tty) standards until there is nothing good left.

I'm not saying we should all code in assembly and c and make sure our arrays are memory aligned and pointers efficiently used, etc. etc., but we should also not just stop caring about code quality for "productivity" sake.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#64

Post by pidg » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

lloydde wrote: post #52

> Turns out there aren’t a lot of email clients for Linux users that work with Exchange / Office 365 Has Linux on the desktop really fallen so far in the last years? When did the decay really set in? How does open source friendly Microsoft not see Linux email clients support falling behind at least as a problem in MS documenting its APIs, if not an opportunity to participate in the major open source clients and influ…

Office 365 comes with a very good web verison of Outlook, which supports more modern features than most email clients do (such as Office 365 Groups).

I suspect it doesn't bother them hugely that desktop client support is falling behind on any platform.

edited to add: Oddly I can't find much marketing by Microsoft of the browser Outlook, otherwise I'd link it here, but I'd say it's about 85-90% feature complete compared with the desktop client.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#65

Post by TuringTest » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

"Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. Some Linux blogs and Podcasts simply won’t give us the time of day. This is not a problem with the mainstream tech blogs and is a problem unique to Linux."

It seems weird that this guy will try to promote his product to the Linux community and chooses to do it by insulting its user base.

While not all Linux users have a problem with using proprietary source (and those would be their natural clients), most got attracted to the platform for the advantages of its open and freely usable code. IMHO it would do him good to understand and respect the reasons why his potential users value free-libre-open source software, and learn to communicate without disparaging them.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#66

Post by bunderbunder » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #43

olalonde wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that I only ever hear those complaints on HN and never elsewhere... Are you all still using Pentium 3 PCs and 56k modems?

Maybe it’s the same reason why you hear professional designers complain when they see Comic Sans used for body text, but laypersons rarely will mention it. A pro will notice things about implementation that interfere with the content, while the layperson often can’t articulate it even if they sense it’s not quite right.

A lot of people don't even realize that better is possible.

I've had plenty of friends and acquaintances observe that browsing the web on my computer is very zippy compared to doing it on theirs, and ask what I do. I hate to then have to explain to them that it's because of a fairly hard-won set of JavaScript-blocking rules and suchlike.

I especially hate it because the best alternative I can suggest to someone who doesn't understand tech well enough to manage such a thing is to just keep on trying to keep up with whatever fancy kit Web developers are working with these days. Which invariably means sending ever more money to Comcast. And regularly giving money to Best Buy to replace a computer that isn't really broken; it just can't keep up with the latest fashions among ad networks and reactjs developers.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#67

Post by pmontra » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

kevkav wrote: post #21

cirgue wrote: post #6

I am increasingly happy to pay for software and services as long as the organization producing the software has no relationship with advertisers. I would rather pay money than use something for free that includes advertising. If there are good open-source alternatives I will always prefer those, but there are definitely some things that open-source will never be able to really make work effectively (notably anything…

Out of interest, what linux apps have you paid for?

A couple of months of Intellij because a customer wanted me to work on a Java project which used that IDE. I delivered in the first month and paid for the second one because I didn't realize it was autorenewing. That was a long time ago.

I also received a Steam game from a friend as Christmas present. I didn't pay but he did.

Probably nothing else.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#68

Post by TelmoMenezes » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

looperhacks wrote: post #23

pmlnr wrote: post #5

Completely unrelated to the contents: Please, publishers, I beg you: walk away from medium. It's terrible for us, your readers. Set up a static blog, with a domain, go WordPress, Grav, Typo3, anything, but without stupidly large sticky header/footer and without heavy javascript . EDIT: apparently 121KB javascript is not heavy. I still believe it's an overkill for 30KB content.

I barely see the problem. Sure, the header and footer aren't perfect, but stupidly large? I also don't feel any "cpu melting javascripts" and my PC is barely usable when I compile anything. For me, Medium provides a very readable experience that is much better than the average static blog. And I don't have to fear a malware ridden page like an old Wordpress installation.

> I barely see the problem.

I barely see anything at all. I managed to take a peek at the title between two large bars of some other stuff I don't care about.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#69

Post by ISL » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

alexmorse wrote: post #3

I would insta-buy a lot of linux proprietary software if it fit my needs. No question, no hesitation. Things like: lightroom, sketch, omnigraffle, Your email client looks very well done! Doesn't apply to me, but if I had to use outlook/office 365 I would probably snap it up.

> lightroom

Tried Darktable?

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#70

Post by at-fates-hands » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #11

skrowl wrote: post #7

I'd imagine for most Linux users (not all, of course) that they're not interested in paid proprietary products, which is why they chose Linux in the first place.

There is little to no evidence of this. I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work). So in that sense, a Linux user might be less likely to use a product if they care most about the openness of the platform.

I would add stability. My Ubuntu distro never seems to go down, crashes, has weird bugs, or random updates.

It's just rock solid and something I've come to truly appreciate when I have to use my Windows 10 work laptop and have to deal with all the quirks Windows comes with by default.