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Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

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

#271

Post by calcifer »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #207

Did anyone in here actually try? I installed the snap, from there on it went downhill: * after start, I get "Nouveau is known to cause crashes" -> restart for fixed rendering * after I login, there are no mails showing up, but there is also no "Something went wrong with your login" * when I click on the calendar, there is a "Sorry. We are unable to load your calendar" * when I try to send mail: "Yikes, something went…

Any particular reason you are using Nouveau? Nvidia users on Linux overwhelmingly [1] prefer the official binary blob.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/mL98GZA.png

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

#272

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

dmurray wrote: post #201
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh please, don't act as if "fundamentalist" didn't have negative connotations in English. You may have misunderstood my point. Based on the assumption that the OP wants to avoid unintended insults, I was pointing out the issues one could associate with using "fundamentalist" as a term of derision. I'm not trying to play PC-police. I was just raising the point in case the OP would want to know. tl;dr There are many…

Is "vandal" really politically incorrect these days? As far as I can tell from Wikipedia the Vandal people have died out and there is no one left to take offence from having their ethnic name associated with property damage.

> Is "vandal" really politically incorrect these days?

I have no idea. I'm not sure if most persons' definition of "politically correct" is sufficiently nuanced to cover this application.

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

#274

Post by shkkmo »

merb wrote: post #264
shkkmo wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried and failed to find a quality git gui for linux, (coming from SourceTree on OSX). I tried a number and they either had awful UI, lacked functionality, or were too buggy. In the end I ended up paying for a license to GitKraken and am quite happy.

basically using a gui for git is not a good practice. most stuff is cluttered together and hard to find. even in sourcetree, stuff that is important is just not good. (I used sourcetree heavily in the past) I moved on from graphical git clients and I'm now way more happy and more productive on the cli. the only thing which I would miss on linux is a graphical merge tool, that is as good as kaleidoscope even on window…

I use both gui and command line. Which one varies depending on the task. Quickly checking the working directory state and committing a couple of changes is much easier for me in a GUI. Complicated resets, checkouts, rebases and queries are much easier with the command line.

Edit: I find using a GUI to view the state of a git repo reduces the amount of mental space and energy I need to devote to this information.

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

#275

Post by hitekker »

kevkav wrote: post #127
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #60

I think this piece (along with many, many others in the genre) is unduly discounting the practical implications of a proprietary binary for users, preferring to blame a preference for open source solely on a "fundamentalist FOSS mentality". For example, my next GPU is going to be a Radeon largely because I'm tired of the weird issues that come with installing/updating proprietary drivers, the lack of transparency aro…

The intention of the article was in no an attack on the "FOSS mentality". FOSS is a reality and is a great thing! The point that was being made, was that promoting paid linux applications is a challenge. And that that challenge becomes more difficult because we need to operate in an environment where many of the biggest publications do not want to know anything about non-FOSS apps.

You did right by your customers, you made a solid product and you’re not hurting anyone with your business.

Better just to ignore the religious radicals sneering on the sidelines.

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

#276

Post by hitekker »

TuringTest wrote: post #123
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My intention with this comment isn't to promote a culture of weaponized offense-taking. And I'm not even sure if the OP meant the term "fundamentalist" as an insult. But if so ... I think this would be insulting to persons who self-identify as Fundamentalist Christians [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism

Oh please, don't act as if "fundamentalist" didn't have negative connotations in English. Fundamentalist Christians may decide to identify themselves with that word, but I've never heard of a FLOSS group calling themselves "Fundamentalist Open-Sourcers". Besides, the insult was not merely in that term, but also considering a "problem" (for him, maybe!) that some Linux users may want to keep their systems pure in term…

It sounds like the author hit a little too close to home.

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

#277

Post by mattl »

wendy0x2 wrote: post #255
mattl wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, please don’t conflate paid software with proprietary software. You can pay for either, but only proprietary software is the issue.

A company can't survive on paid oss (gnu/gpl). The license allows anyone to purchase it and then go ahead and give it out for free, which would happen in short order. Support doesn't work for many small companies, because you just don't have the manpower, so proprietary software is necessary.

I don’t think a business would actually do that, if they purchased something they would likely not put it up on GitHub immediately, but I think the key to selling free software is customization. Red Hat makes a good deal of money from free software, but as you say, much of that is from support.

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

#278

Post by huhtenberg »

dlkinney wrote: post #74
zaarn wrote: post #2

Quite a neat insight and somewhat confirming what I think personally; Linux users largely don't use Linux for FLOSS reasons. People who do use Linux for FLOSS reasons are however rather loud. I would probably not be wrong when saying that most Linux users will happily pay a developer for the binary of an application if the dev is "doing it right". Doing it right largely involves "don't treat the customer as a walking…

As one of the "Linux for FLOSS" users--and, yes, quite loud about it--I am inclined to agree. I would pay good money for a high quality application on Linux. But in large part, one of the less-philosophical, more-practical things that I value about FLOSS is the opportunity to fix things if something doesn't work right. While I would gladly purchase an incredible, closed source application, I would much more value the…

> I would much more value the distribution of the source code along with that purchase.

Everyone would until they realize how exceptionally hard and draining it is for a vendor to deal with blatant rip-offs and trivial repackaging of said source code, sold under a different name for a fraction of the price by some random outlet in China.

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

#279

Post by chias »

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.

FWIW, Firefox's "Reader" mode is an absolute godsend for Medium articles. Works great on mobile too.

(not disagreeing with your statement at all, just pointing out something that may increase your QoL in the interim if you haven't yet given it a try)

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

#280

Post by dhimes »

hardly_a_mirage wrote: post #247
windows_tips wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fundamentalist" is used as a slur by some people (c.f. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fundamentali... ). The slur assumes things that don't exist in the word itself, so it's not obvious the word incorporates them.

I think the difference between the slurred fundamentalist (connoting a terrorist-like figure) and a tech fundamentalist is objectively clear.

Perhaps "purist" is a better word here?
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