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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"

#71

Post by toyg »

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.

As reported here http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.331272.2... :

Revenues of WinZip Computing (WinZip)

2003 - $25,259,000

2004 - $24,928,000

2005 - $22,700,000

Peanuts?

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

#72

Post by TeMPOraL »

dchest wrote: post #66
TeMPOraL wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

Thanks!

I honestly am very surprised by this. Does WinZip have any other potential revenue source that could explain this, or is it definitely from WinZip the software?

EDIT Joel's post above hints about enterprise licenses. That changes the equation a bit - enterprises have to pay, and it's very easy to get that money from them.

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

#73

Post by TeMPOraL »

toyg wrote: post #71
TeMPOraL wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As reported here http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.331272.2... : Revenues of WinZip Computing (WinZip) 2003 - $25,259,000 2004 - $24,928,000 2005 - $22,700,000 Peanuts?

Thanks for that particular link, it highlights possible explanation - "Never subestimate the power of enterprise licenses". So it's entirely possible that almost no user buys it, but they get their money from enterprises. I'd love to see a breakdown if one's available.

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

#74

Post by embik »

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…

I'm new to HN and do not understand why I cannot edit the post above, but there was something I wanted to add:

elementary does try to use its limited funding to support things outside of the project, for example putting out bug bounties for bugs or features in other FOSS projects that everyone would benefit of. And there was some money for debconf15 as well: http://debconf15.debconf.org/sponsors.xhtml

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

#76

Post by brusch64 »

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…

If there are volunteers doing this work (unpaid ?) - what are you using this money for ?

Just for infrastructure ? If not, how do you get paid ? And how many percent of the developers get paid ? Who makes the decision who gets paid and who doesn't get paid ?

I am just interested how something like this is done in an open source project. I've seen some other projects (not programming related) which got really complicated and ruined, because they got money and started "distributing" wealth which left some of the people disgruntled (basically most of the bands who got successful have stories like that).

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

#77

Post by anon3_ »

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…

> Here's a mirror of the original version of this blog post. They rescinded it. No reason to make them dwell in misery forever.

> Elementry's Dev team doesn't pay for Ubuntu,

So?

> they don't pay for the Kernel or GNU Tools,

And? People get paid to work on both. Some people do it pro bono. They don't expect to be paid.

> 'cheating the system' when they download a prebuilt iso of a collection of free software for free.

Totally not true. There is a lot of refinement in the UX. If it's so easy, why is the distribution so special? Why don't you just whip up a bash script and send them out of business?

Even if they just combined Open Source works, they have every right to flip the combination (which takes time and skill) at a value. If you package something for me that saves my 10 developers a day each of config time - I just saved thousands of dollars.

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

#78

Post by toyg »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #57
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…

That's a very, very bad idea. It's concepts like this that make computing suck so hard (cf. yesterday's discussion about web being broken). A nagging pop-up is literally saying "fuck you" to your users. Sure, it may work in some cases from financial perspective (though probably not here, just like people switch from WinRAR to 7zip mostly because the latter doesn't nag), but it is crapping on your users. Software vend…

> A nagging pop-up is literally saying "fuck you" to your users.

Does any charity worker asking for money "literally" say "fuck you" to people? Honestly, I can't see your point. If done well, asking for donation does not have to be annoying.

> just like people switch from WinRAR to 7zip mostly because the latter doesn't nag

7Zip is free opensource; WinZip is closed-source time-limited shareware which nags once the time limit is reached. Regardless of nagging, users were supposed to pay for Winzip after a certain date from installation. This is why most people with advanced zipping requirements switched, once 7Zip became robust enough. (Regular Joes just stopped using either once Windows got good enough at dealing with zipped files.)

> You want me to pay you? Say it up-front.

Sorry, I personally have the opposite attitude. Why should I pay you if I don't even know whether your product actually works to my satisfaction? Once I'm happy with it, and you politely remind me that such lovely products don't grow on trees, I'm much more inclined to pay.

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

#79

Post by embik »

rlpb wrote: post #63
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.

I am not sure if anybody considered it, but we have at least one Ubuntu member around. This funding sounds a bit like for single persons doing Ubuntu-specific things, but I will bring it up! Thank you.

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

#80

Post by markild »

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…

To me, it's not the money that's the issue.

I just learned about elementary today, and when I'm presented with the main landing page, I feel that it is being very dishonest in what it is actually selling me. I'm not arguing the value of your work, but I feel that the whole product is very conscious about not mentioning Linux, Ubuntu etc.

Give me a proper explanation about what you (the group of people) are doing that brings value. Tell me what your work is based upon. Tell me it is free (as in speech, and as in beer), and let me make a informed decision if I feel this is something I want to pay for.

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