All my personal software is MIT licensed. Selling software isn't my bag, baby.
Write some software, give it away for free
121–130 of 285 posts
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#122Or don't. I've done both, published OSS projects and sold some software. The level of entitlement in some comments I received on the OSS side was pretty crazy at times. While with the paid software, all of the interactions I had were so much more constructive. YMMV, but willingness to pay is a great filter.
I've regularly heard something similar said of consulting work, too. Many people new to the game worry about charging too much, because if a client is paying more then surely the pressure will be higher. Instead they end up experiencing the opposite: charging a higher rate tends to get them a better kind of client. I'm not sure what the exact lesson is here. Something about stingy people not being nice to work with,…
Value is relative. Effort-to-income ratios vary significantly between traders.
The pragmatic accept that work ≠ value, some do so permanently. But someone newly aware of this may deem it unfair, and react with totally disproportionate demands, some do so permanently.
Then you come across those who already benefit greatly from the imbalance, yet still make disproportionate demands. These tend to be good at it, subtle, strategic. Which may explain why they end up on the benefiting side.
Broadly, you find three types: the greedy, the balanced, and the generous pragmatic.
The greedy exploits relativity. The balanced respects it. The generous navigates it without resentment. Whether consciously or not.
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#123Or don't. I've done both, published OSS projects and sold some software. The level of entitlement in some comments I received on the OSS side was pretty crazy at times. While with the paid software, all of the interactions I had were so much more constructive. YMMV, but willingness to pay is a great filter.
I've regularly heard something similar said of consulting work, too. Many people new to the game worry about charging too much, because if a client is paying more then surely the pressure will be higher. Instead they end up experiencing the opposite: charging a higher rate tends to get them a better kind of client. I'm not sure what the exact lesson is here. Something about stingy people not being nice to work with,…
Not to mention that "OSI open source" is basically sponsored and advocated by the firms that stand to benefit the most: hyperscalers that will embrace, extend, and encrust the thing you built with their monetization tendrils and leave you without a way to make money on it yourself.
See: Redis, Elastic, etc.
Not an ounce of AWS or GCP is open source, yet they'll happily spin up a managed version of your thing and make hundreds of millions without cutting you in.
We need new licenses that are more "shareware" like. That permit individuals, but slap big trillion dollar companies.
"Fair source", "Fair code", the defold license, etc. are all pretty good.
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#124I wonder if you'd also be arguing for libre software to reject available funding? What's the difference? The Ruby on Rails foundation brings in a million per year: https://rubyonrails.org/foundation The Linux foundation is funded at around $250m / year from a quick Google search
Not at all. As a KDE Plasma user, I love and donate to open source.
I'm arguing that the current climate of "vibe code a startup a day" is unsustainable, terrible, and should NOT be the thing people strive for. Instead of appeasing VC firms, that energy can be better spent on passion projects or contributing to other open-source projects like KDE / Linux / GrapheneOS / etc..
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#125I got burned with an attitude like this: unexpectedly, people who had downloaded my open source tool for free started expecting support. Some of them sent pretty unfriendly emails.
I don’t understand what the downside of this is. That’s hilarious for them to expect, and you’re free to ignore them, take their suggestion and work on it, help them.
It can't be helped either way if it's public, but I was reminded of this:
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#126> It cost about $600 USD to release, mostly due to two initial security reviews. Can someone expand on this? I've given software away free and it didn't cost me anything.
I paid other humans with security expertise to "soft audit" the program prior to release, which uncovered a variety of vulnerabilities which were patched. It's a courtesy to the users, especially self-hosters.
The report is kind of concerning to read, particularly having XSS in this kind of app. The report was not meant to be exhaustive and fixing those vulns isn't some kind of implicit tick of approval.
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#127I got burned with an attitude like this: unexpectedly, people who had downloaded my open source tool for free started expecting support. Some of them sent pretty unfriendly emails.
I'm sympathetic to FOSS developers but struggle to understand this, maybe because it hasn't happened to me. But, why is this a mental drain? Is there not a simple solution? Reply with the license, "comes with no warranty," "you're free to fork," close issue and move on? I suppose in aggregate it could be draining.
The assholes outnumber the good ones, and it feels like all of humanity is transactional and extractive.
At first all engagement is exciting and validating. You work nights and weekends to please people you’ve never met, sure that one good turn deserves another.
Then you get your first jerk, then your second, then your third, while your father is in the hospital. You feel pressure to ship a feature you never wanted. Your issue tracker is demoralizing. You get a PR! Maybe someone is coming to your rescue. It sucks. Now you need to figure out how to respond. You’re alone. Your passion project has become your albatross.
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#128i have never understood this idea applying to all sofware. sure general research level software should be free and open source. business logic or specific use cases should not. The law is free and open source. Lawyers will not draft you a contract for free. Medicine is free and open source. A doctor will not set your arm for free. FOSS is kind of the worst of both worlds. Unfunded or corporately funded amateurs give away poorly executed sofware that should be standardized basic research while also creating a race to the bottom in specific applications. Locking out true innovation because the reward for monetization is not there. In other words FOSS acts like a non-profit monopolist: restricts production and quality by dumping free software on the market. Anyone who thinks linux is a paragon of quality needs some perspective, or that rust multi gig builds are efficient. essentially foss is the wikipedization of software.
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#129This is why I'm building free "spite apps" in homage to Larry David's spite stores [0]. The goal being to push back on enshitification of tech and dark patterns like mandatory subscriptions, ads and user data tracking.
As a solo indie-dev, writing free software (as in you don't need to pay anything) is fine, but I usually do not make the project (entirely) open source due to the added churn & maintenance.
In my experience, setting expectations early in my apps ("I'm a solo indie dev", "this is a free app", "you can reach out to me through email but don't expect super quick responses") helped reduce entitled users and - quite the opposite - people were super happy to get replies from me solving their problems.
[0] Blog post about it: https://sxp.studio/blog/spite-apps-the-latte-larrys-of-apps
Re: Write some software, give it away for free
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to say we don't have personal colputers anymore, they are MS/Apple/Google's device now, as they decide what it is allowed to run and what isn't.
linux
Yes, and becoming harder to use with UEFI removed S3 sleep (which MS pushed). I also expect banks and govts to force the requirement to have trusted platform (secureboot with some OS level stuff like in Android) to be able to log in from desktop, probably this or the next year. All "for your safety", sure. And for children's also.