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Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

blog.hiri.com

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

#121

Post by nsomaru »

tomcam wrote: post #94
bunderbunder wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> I've had plenty of friends and acquaintances observe that browsing the web on my computer is very zippy Wait, how often are people peering over your shoulder to even notice? Have been a programmer for 30+ years and no one has ever made an observation either way about my screen responsiveness...

sometimes people in a social context will share my laptop to change the spotify song or settle a google-able debate.

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

#123

Post by TuringTest »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #110
TuringTest wrote: post #65

"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…

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 terms of no-proprietary software (thus maintaining the Four Freedoms for their whole system), and complaining that popular venues in the community won't advertise his product for being closed-source, which is entirely their prerogative.

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

#125

Post by yAnonymous »

It's good to have a working Exchange client for Linux, proprietary or not. I'd hope that they polish Hiri a bit before they implement Gmail and IMAP support though, because it does have some rough edges, mostly with the UI.

As for the FOSS enthusiasts, I'd recommend ignoring them.

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

#126

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

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?

As with others here, various JetBrains tools and Linux-compatible Steam games (I have 75 and counting). Also a file comparison tool called Beyond Compare.

If Adobe released their apps on Linux (more specifically Photoshop and Premiere) I'd buy them in a heartbeat. Unfortunately they seem more interested in supporting the iPad if recent news is to be believed.

Edit: Just remembered I have a Sublime Text license too, although I stopped using it a while ago.

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

#127

Post by kevkav »

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.

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

#128

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

sandworm101 wrote: post #28
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.

How many people are actually free to use this product? My work uses outlook+office but, due to 101 different things, we are locked into windows and ie. How many people use outlook+office for email but are also free enough from other restrictions to be allowed linux? Our office is so locked imto win7 that the ongoing upgrade to win10 is killing things. People are migrating to the few win7 machines to complete essentia…

Plenty of people work for much smaller companies than big corporates. In fact I'd go so far as to say that most people do.

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

#129

Post by endless1234 »

amelius wrote: post #73
makmanalp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also loved that era of blogs, but unless the distribution problem is solved, we're probably never going back. Self-hosted personal blogs end up mostly being ghost towns these days unless you get somewhat famous. Medium on the other hand gets your foot in the door and draws your niche crowd and conversations for you with much less effort.

> but unless the distribution problem is solved Not sure what you mean. The distribution problem is solved by the internet. Discoverability (probably what you meant) is solved redundantly by Medium, since it is already solved by Google, and by social news websites such as HN and Reddit, etc. Medium = YouTube for textual content. The only way we "need" it is if we want a feed of algorithmically chosen content based on…

>Medium = YouTube for textual content. The only way we "need" it is if we want a feed of algorithmically chosen content based on previous/popular preference

Are you saying this is a bad thing in and of itself? Ok, sometimes I binge on videos needlessly, but to say the distribution/discoverability is already solved by the internet and Google is probably not how most people see it. Being recommended new content to consume based on previous preferences is a huge plus imo.

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