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Why Lichess will always be free

lichess.org

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Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#21

Post by beberlei »

neatze wrote: post #9
usgroup wrote: post #5

lichess is by far the finest piece of complex online software I’ve ever used. Desktop or mobile it works perfectly. There is no Silicon Valley, Spartan hiring processes, elite University filters: just open source contribution and a great quality gate. It’s also a great example of something born of and sustained by a community: a testament to the chess demography.

I wonder, if lichess used UML/SysML diagram(s) sometime in long past.

This is going to sting but an early version was built on PHP and Symfony framework :)

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#22

Post by flpaaa »

hinkley wrote: post #4

There are two interpretations of “why”. What is the motivation for it being free. What is the mechanism for it being free. In one of the links, > It amounts to $170 per month. Great news: I have a job (at prismic.io) and I can completely afford that. Lichess is my hobby, and all hobbies cost a bit of money. I can tell you that the joy of building lichess is absolutely worth the price I pay for it! Maybe it’s because…

Worse, if the original author could not keep the site up some asshole would take the code base, start glichess.org and slowly take the credit for it all.

Of course lofty principles would be cited, like "this is how open source works" or "you should not have used that license if you hadn't wanted this to happen".

And many people here would defend the asshole and forget the original author.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#23

Post by DivisionSol »

DorianSinDeep wrote: post #14
pull_my_finger wrote: post #6

> There is absolutely nothing positive about advertisements on websites from the perspective of their users. They eat up valuable screen space and bandwidth for something that nobody wants to see. They often manipulate and misinform. They have even been the source of security vulnerabilities many times in the past. While I share the loathing of modern Ads as a service or whatever the technical name for giving Google/…

While its good that you're willing to compromise in a reasonable manner, I don't think it has particular relevance to the point that advertisements in any form are most likely to be about something you won't go looking for yourself. There are even some companies with no advertisement spending because their product is so essentially useful that people will seek it out themselves.

Some advertisements are malicious attacks on your attention to build brand recognition and entice you to buy things you don't need.

However, I think advertising in itself isn't inherently evil. If a chess website served non-tracking, static (no-JS) banner ads about relevant products (maybe, specifically, chess products?) to offset costs, I don't see anything wrong with it. Of course the question is: "what is a relevant product to advertise next to chess?" Would... other board game advertisements be acceptable?

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#24

Post by cassepipe »

hinkley wrote: post #4

There are two interpretations of “why”. What is the motivation for it being free. What is the mechanism for it being free. In one of the links, > It amounts to $170 per month. Great news: I have a job (at prismic.io) and I can completely afford that. Lichess is my hobby, and all hobbies cost a bit of money. I can tell you that the joy of building lichess is absolutely worth the price I pay for it! Maybe it’s because…

Lichess is a non-profit association in France. Microsoft can't just buy it. If they have no money no more, they'll launch a donation campaign and if it doesn't work, they'll just put the site down until they have enough, then it can remain free forever. If the association ever breaks down, the code is out there for anyone to "reprendre le flambeau" . Thanks to them, being able to play chess online is a common good. They're not profit driven, they're freedom driven.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#25

Post by nly »

laydn wrote: post #7

Cost breakdown here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSk... I hope OVH would donate some compute/machines to lichess. It would help lichess a lot financially. It would be good publicity for OVH and I think it would be a drop in the ocean on their balance sheet.

Holy hell that's an expensive project. Do donations cover all this, or are the operators independently wealthy and generous?

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#26

Post by tdubhro1 »

laydn wrote: post #7

Cost breakdown here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSk... I hope OVH would donate some compute/machines to lichess. It would help lichess a lot financially. It would be good publicity for OVH and I think it would be a drop in the ocean on their balance sheet.

Interesting that a non profit pays 55k in French taxes

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#27

Post by hinkley »

vkk8 wrote: post #16
hinkley wrote: post #4

There are two interpretations of “why”. What is the motivation for it being free. What is the mechanism for it being free. In one of the links, > It amounts to $170 per month. Great news: I have a job (at prismic.io) and I can completely afford that. Lichess is my hobby, and all hobbies cost a bit of money. I can tell you that the joy of building lichess is absolutely worth the price I pay for it! Maybe it’s because…

Depends a bit on your location also. In some countries, the social security is good enough that people can survive on them while doing whatever (low cost) hobbies they like. I've heard of a few academics continuing to do research while being supported by the unemployment money. But yeah, some big company offering a crapload of money to buy lichess is also a problem. No-one is idealistic enough to refuse an amount of…

I should point out that I’m not just random internet grouch #435, but someone dabbling with this class of problem.

I’m trying right now to set something up that has the potential to have much more value to someone greedy than it does to my target audience. It’ll take a while I think before it really comes to that, but it is not out of the realm of reason.

I will most definitely be trying to take the temptation away from myself (or my heirs) to sell it. I would likely do that anyway, but the goad is that it costs more than I can really afford to write off unless I get very lucky, or others contribute substantially. There really isn’t much incentive for them to do that while I own everything outright. If I don’t want to end up with a cat food diet in my 80’s I’m probably going to need some of my investment back.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#30

Post by matsemann »

laydn wrote: post #7

Cost breakdown here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSk... I hope OVH would donate some compute/machines to lichess. It would help lichess a lot financially. It would be good publicity for OVH and I think it would be a drop in the ocean on their balance sheet.

I feel like the developer/founder should have a higher salary. $58k a year for running a site with millions of games per day.. deserves more. Is it because they don't get enough donations? Or saving the extra money for growth/buffer?

(edit: originally posted this as a top level comment but felt it fit better here)

Edit2: just checked. I've spent 11 whole days playing chess there (and not sure if that only counts games and not tactics etc). Made my first donation now.

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