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Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

blog.elementary.io

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Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#61

Post by rgbrenner »

orik wrote: post #22

Here's a mirror of the original version of this blog post. I'd like point out a couple of quotes. https://web.archive.org/web/20150211134734/http://blog.eleme... >We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software. Elementary's self-important attitude has and continues to completely baffle me. People joke about ElementaryOS being just Ubuntu + Pantheon Sh…

Elementry's Dev team doesn't pay for Ubuntu, they don't pay for the Kernel or GNU Tools

This attitude is why we don't see Linux startups -- just volunteer efforts, run on peoples spare time that they eventually get burnt out on and give up.

They are asking for $10. They aren't asking for a huge sum of money. $10 could be a very reasonable amount of money for the effort they've put into it.

Yes, it's built on free software... but when I (and many other people too) build their start up on free software and charge money.. we don't ask how much of that is going to Nginx, Linux, etc... we say, they're charging for the time/effort required to build that service.

And just like how many startups would be forced to charge higher prices if they had to redevelop nginx, etc... elementaryOS wouldn't be $10 if they had to duplicate all of that work.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#62

Post by pjmlp »

hueving wrote: post #48
toyg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go further and say that opensource distributions should all have a standard customizable package that will "nag" users after a certain amount of hours from first boot. The package could spring a pop-up if X is running, or send an email to root@ (or whatever the "admin" user is). If done well, I bet a lot of users wouldn't mind dropping $5 or $10 -- probably more than you get by doing the occasional donation drive…

This will alienate developers that don't want to work on a distro that is a cash grab.

Only developers that don't care about stealing other developers work.

I do contribute to projects I use, as I know how hard it is to live from open source.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#63

Post by rlpb »

embik wrote: post #59

Hello everyone, I'm a contributor to elementary (did some small coding and sitting around in their Slack). I'm not 100% sure I should post, but I've seen the HN community being very reasonable, so here we go. Please note I'm in no way official for elementary and I wasn't involved with this blog post at all; I just would like to provide another perspective on the topics discussed here. Yes, the blog post is/was terrib…

Has Elementary ever considered joining the Ubuntu family? That would qualify you for http://community.ubuntu.com/help-information/funding/ I think.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#64

Post by ekianjo »

SunShiranui wrote: post #45
ekianjo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elementry's Dev team doesn't pay for Ubuntu, they don't pay for the Kernel or GNU Tools Yeah, totally agree - no matter how much they do, their work is close to nil compared to what was accomplished because of GNU tools, Linux kernel work and Ubuntu specific improvements made over the past xx years before ElementaryOS. It's like they are only in for the money, which does not sit very well with this kind of communit…

While the amount of work those upstream projects have contributed is indeed monumental, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss elementary OS' contribution to the free software operating system landscape. I think their work in providing a good UX for GNU\Linux operating systems is admirable and it's a very important step to really make something most would be happy to use.

> I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss .. contribution

I am not dismissing their work, I just find the attitude a little snobbish. Just like if you gift-wrap something and you take credit for everything that's inside. The attitude is just wrong.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#65

Post by icebraining »

rgbrenner wrote: post #61
orik wrote: post #22

Here's a mirror of the original version of this blog post. I'd like point out a couple of quotes. https://web.archive.org/web/20150211134734/http://blog.eleme... >We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software. Elementary's self-important attitude has and continues to completely baffle me. People joke about ElementaryOS being just Ubuntu + Pantheon Sh…

Elementry's Dev team doesn't pay for Ubuntu, they don't pay for the Kernel or GNU Tools This attitude is why we don't see Linux startups -- just volunteer efforts, run on peoples spare time that they eventually get burnt out on and give up. They are asking for $10. They aren't asking for a huge sum of money. $10 could be a very reasonable amount of money for the effort they've put into it. Yes, it's built on free sof…

orik isn't criticizing them for charging, though, but for calling some users "cheaters" for doing essentially the same they are doing - getting Free Software for free.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#66

Post by dchest »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60
toyg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Microsoft included decent compression facilities in Windows, a lot of people did in fact pay for WinZip. I bet some still do, considering it's still on sale -- something that cannot be said for most Linux distributions.

I highly doubt many people were paying for WinZip or WinRAR, given that they're a running gag in the IT sector (just like paying for Total Commander). But I'd love to see data on it, if anyone has some.

  Revenues of WinZip Computing (WinZip)
  2003 - $25,259,000
  2004 - $24,928,000
  2005 - $22,700,000
(from Corel's IPO filings, http://blog.goodsol.com/2006/04/winzip_and_jasc.html)

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#67

Post by pjmlp »

rgbrenner wrote: post #61
orik wrote: post #22

Here's a mirror of the original version of this blog post. I'd like point out a couple of quotes. https://web.archive.org/web/20150211134734/http://blog.eleme... >We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software. Elementary's self-important attitude has and continues to completely baffle me. People joke about ElementaryOS being just Ubuntu + Pantheon Sh…

Elementry's Dev team doesn't pay for Ubuntu, they don't pay for the Kernel or GNU Tools This attitude is why we don't see Linux startups -- just volunteer efforts, run on peoples spare time that they eventually get burnt out on and give up. They are asking for $10. They aren't asking for a huge sum of money. $10 could be a very reasonable amount of money for the effort they've put into it. Yes, it's built on free sof…

This is why after my open source phase as university student back in the mid-90's, I ended up doing mostly commercial software.

Unless one hits jackpot a la RedHat, or is doing consulting/teaching/web paywalls, open source seldom pays bills.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#68

Post by brusch64 »

icebraining wrote: post #36
[deleted] wrote: post #31

[deleted]

Well, on the B2B side, there are many people working on Odoo, both for the main company and for the dozens (hundreds?) of companies that build stuff on top of the platform. The platform is LGPL licensed, and all the code we build on top of Odoo at the company I work for is (A/L)GPL licensed, as is most of the code built by companies like ours. And we certainly get paid more than minimum wage :) https://www.odoo.com/

Please don't get me started on Odoo. We've tried to use Odoo as the base system for an ERP for a customer from us. We've started with OpenERP (7 ? - the last version).

It looked pretty good - there were books available which showed how to customize OpenERP for your workflows. We've started planning the ERP solution for our customers.

Then one of our bosses had the idea to update to Odoo, because it was the "current version". I don't think that it is automatically bad if you change the reporting system completely - but I've hardly seen such a half ass job of documenting the new version. The last time I was working on it the only "documentation" was a 3 page presentation from the Odoo days. Half of the plugins we used with OpenERP didn't work any more, and some functionality was in the GUI(updating plugins) but didn't work (in a stable and released version).

When searching for answers Stackoverflow didn't really work and the whole vibe in the forums was along the line "I've finally got it working - it was not that hard after I found out how to do it" or "you just have to pay company x a certain amount they will gladly do that for you".

I was really lucky that I got transfered to other projects and was able to stop working on this project.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#69

Post by pjmlp »

colechristensen wrote: post #41
rlpb wrote: post #21

It troubles me when I see statements like "an entire operating system that has taken years of development and refinement" and "However, developing software has a huge cost", but there's no mention of the money they're collecting going to the developers of Ubuntu, Debian and upstreams that surely together comprise the majority of the work that they're referring to. Basing their wording on the huge development cost of…

Consider also, quite importantly, that a large volume of the work done on any Linux-based operating system is and has been done entirely without money changing hands.

Only when one forgets that most of those developers:

- were payed to work on GNU/Linux by their employers

- had a different source of income

- were students with their parents paying for their bills

- were building a portfolio for a job change

So money did change hands, even if indirectly.

Re: Payments – Why we make you type "$0"

#70

Post by tacone »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #58
toyg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devil is in the details... if done well, you wouldn't be interrupted. Maybe springing it at login, or waking, or at some other time when a surprise might be more welcome. (Also, I hate the word "donation" tbh. It communicates a sense of hopelessness, of misery, that is just sad IMHO.)

For me it communicates a sense of giving someone money because I believe in them and want to support them. OTOH, such nagging communicates the sense of desperation, that the vendor is literally begging for money.

To me it communicates unwillingness to assume responsibility of selling something (ensure it actually works, refunds, etc)
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