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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

#261

Post by simion314 »

coldtea wrote: post #132
simion314 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then those people are lying. Free is absolutely a factor for many. Source? Because if money is a problem you install Windows and live with the not genuime notification in the corner or you run some app that removes that too. I do not have data with numbers but please provide yours since you accused people of lying.

> I do not have data with numbers but please provide yours since you accused people of lying. In a world when most things are based on money, you need proof that cost, and even more importantly, free, is a factor? I, for one, have used OSS tools that are free over better paid tools, because cost is a factor. (I've also used others because they are better or because they have bigger community -- but cost has always be…

OK, I was refering at the desktop users, the one that wipe the valid Windows installation on the PC and put Linux on it, it is not the money in this case.

For enterprise software everyone not only users but companies will first try the free stuff, but honestly even if my companies pays for a library if there is an open source alternative I will try that first because many time we hit bugs in closed source stuff and we could not fix that ourselves and the product was abandones.

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

#262

Post by PuffinBlue »

dheera wrote: post #217
pmlnr wrote: post #5

Completely unrelated to the contents: Please, publishers, I beg you: walk away from medium. It's terrible for us, your readers. Set up a static blog, with a domain, go WordPress, Grav, Typo3, anything, but without stupidly large sticky header/footer and without heavy javascript . EDIT: apparently 121KB javascript is not heavy. I still believe it's an overkill for 30KB content.

> 121KB javascript is not heavy Part of the problem is that HTML and CSS alone are horribly outdated in terms of being able to provide a modern-looking UI outside the box. Want a slider? Unfortunately the gods at W3C/Google/etc. don't believe in a tag. Want a toggle switch? No . Want a tabbed interface? No infrastructure. Want a login button that doesn't look like it came out of an 80's discotheque? You're probably g…

> Part of the problem is that HTML and CSS alone are horribly outdated in terms of being able to provide a modern-looking UI outside the box.

I took such a sharp intake of breath in readiness to fire back a flappy-jowled response that I almost sucked my computer screen onto my face.

However, some of your following points are valid and it would be nice if things were a little simpler without resorting to lots of JS.

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

#263

Post by amyjess »

mattl wrote: post #210
dpower wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there, I'm the author of the blog post. Some context you may find interesting, and maybe I should do a follow up post about this. We were very enterprise focused, but it just didn't work. We were trying to displace MS Outlook. And unfortunately, most people want to stick with Outlook. Not because it's better, but because it's what they know. We found that even if we convinced 8 out of 10 people in a company to buy…

> Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. This is incredibly rude. You may not like it, but GNU/Linux was built by people for user freedom, not for proprietary email clients. Instead of using words like “fundamentalist” please instead consider that you are doing something that is not welcomed by the creators of the operating system and a large number of the l…

> Linux was built by people for user freedom

> not welcomed by the creators of the operating system

No, it wasn't. Linux was created because Linus Torvalds was in love with the OS running on the VAX at his university and wanted something just like it that he can run on his desktop at home.

> you are doing something that is not welcomed by the creators of the operating system

The DFSG and the OSD both prohibit discriminating against fields of endeavor, so the ability to run proprietary software on open-source operating systems is essential to the OS actually being open-source.

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

#264

Post by merb »

shkkmo wrote: post #241
ssdd wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. There are very few paid software for which we don't already have a FLOSS software that can compete with it. Linux users are normally good at finding FLOSS alternatives to paid softwares. Another thing that author can do is to compare Linux home users sales results with Windows home users for any of their product that is available for both platforms. Sales would be similar as long as Linux and Wind…

I tried and failed to find a quality git gui for linux, (coming from SourceTree on OSX). I tried a number and they either had awful UI, lacked functionality, or were too buggy. In the end I ended up paying for a license to GitKraken and am quite happy.

basically using a gui for git is not a good practice. most stuff is cluttered together and hard to find. even in sourcetree, stuff that is important is just not good. (I used sourcetree heavily in the past) I moved on from graphical git clients and I'm now way more happy and more productive on the cli. the only thing which I would miss on linux is a graphical merge tool, that is as good as kaleidoscope even on windows it's hard to find an equally well tool for the same price (there are good ones, but are way pricier)

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

#265

Post by bumholio »

slrz wrote: post #245
Nursie wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a third issue - support. I worked for a place about 15 years ago which was trying desperately to retire its previous flagship product in favour of the new version. The new version was better written and more scalable, but the major value for them was that they had made a big mistake with the old one - The gave away source code and allowed customers to customise the software, but they still honoured support co…

No sensible person is going to be mad with you for asking them to reproduce their issue without local customizations applied if they want you to help them with it. Write it into your support contracts. Maybe offer smarter customers to review and sign off on their modifications in exchange for a reasonable fee. These problems can be solved.

Actually, it seems like a huge wasted opportunity. If a company is so invested in your software that it's willing to develop a custom patchset and an internal team to maintain it, then it would make a lot more sense to buy the service from the very people who wrote the software, that know it best and can pull together multiple customer wishlists into standard solutions. That's why the open source service model can exist, the original developer is uniquely positioned to profit from these synergies and deliver value for the customer.

So you can have your proprietary cake and eat it too, you can sell "NO WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED" commercial licenses at fixed prices, but at the same time, earn much more profitable support and customization contracts from select customers.

As for the people still opting to customize their own "NO WARRANTY" installation, of course they won't get and don't expect any support for their customization until they also buy a services license.

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

#266

Post by peterwwillis »

dpower wrote: post #168
magduf wrote: post #72

The big thing I see missing from all this analysis is the home vs. work distinction. You have people saying "Linux users choose FLOSS because of philosophy, and proprietary software goes against this", you have users saying "I'd have tried it if it were FLOSS and I could just download it and try it", etc., but the problem is: this is a product for working with an Exchange server. How many individual users have a need…

Hi there, I'm the author of the blog post. Some context you may find interesting, and maybe I should do a follow up post about this. We were very enterprise focused, but it just didn't work. We were trying to displace MS Outlook. And unfortunately, most people want to stick with Outlook. Not because it's better, but because it's what they know. We found that even if we convinced 8 out of 10 people in a company to buy…

The decision to choose a "mail client" (really a "groupware system") is a complex process in most cases. MS Office is the default because it does everything, and it works on the top two platforms. Google is sort of competing in this space, but it's nowhere near MS's feature set, customer/business service, and compatibility.

The people buying your product are not integrating it into their business case because your product can't compete, it can only fill a niche. In this sense you should definitely find niches, such as users willing to pay money to have a working client on Linux. But this can be a dangerous game. If, for example, Evolution suddenly stopped sucking balls at Exchange compatibility and became a half-decent mail client, you could lose your niche, and your cash flow.

If I were you, I would make your product be as different as it can be while still being compatible. One way would be tightly integrating with an OS or product. Another way would be providing custom integration that competitors don't even come close to. Another would be to provide utility functions that nobody else has. Getting to the point where people use your product not because they like it, but because they have to have it. Kind of like the iPhone. Nobody ever needed a giant glass touch screen, but once people started using it, they couldn't give it up.

Once you have that kind of core functionality, you could give away a stripped down product and ask for payment for premium features. This would net you additional users that would otherwise go to a free competitor, and be a potential entry to sales once they feel they need the extra features.

(apologies if you're already doing any/all of this)

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

#267

Post by the8472 »

mattl wrote: post #210
dpower wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there, I'm the author of the blog post. Some context you may find interesting, and maybe I should do a follow up post about this. We were very enterprise focused, but it just didn't work. We were trying to displace MS Outlook. And unfortunately, most people want to stick with Outlook. Not because it's better, but because it's what they know. We found that even if we convinced 8 out of 10 people in a company to buy…

> Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. This is incredibly rude. You may not like it, but GNU/Linux was built by people for user freedom, not for proprietary email clients. Instead of using words like “fundamentalist” please instead consider that you are doing something that is not welcomed by the creators of the operating system and a large number of the l…

> fundamentalist

> relating to or advocating the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.

I think it's fair to say that the gospel of saint ignucius is interpreted strictly in some circles.

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

#268

Post by larkeith »

wruza wrote: post #104
pmlnr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how the article looks like on 1280x800: https://i.imgur.com/L07L4ce.png Sticky header/footer, cookie consent covering the menu, not a single line of the content visible. You consider this design good? I might be wrong with this specific site on the JS - it only loaded 121KB Javascript. The actual HTML of the entry is 30. WordPress nowadays upgrades itself to minor version - security patches - without touching…

1280x800 means you can have ad blocker at least (or tampermonkey). Block bottom bar and make header scrollable for this site once. Phones lack this, sadly.

I just block Javascript for Medium on my phone, which helps (though there's still an obnoxiously large top bar). The availability of a workaround doesn't excuse Medium's poor design, though.

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

#269

Post by ndarwincorn »

alkonaut wrote: post #213
dpower wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there, I'm the author of the blog post. Some context you may find interesting, and maybe I should do a follow up post about this. We were very enterprise focused, but it just didn't work. We were trying to displace MS Outlook. And unfortunately, most people want to stick with Outlook. Not because it's better, but because it's what they know. We found that even if we convinced 8 out of 10 people in a company to buy…

Any business that is part Linux and part windows, exchange infrastructure, will need an exchange client for all their Linux client machines? Assuming web based won’t cut it for those users, then it would seem Hiri is a good fit for that business? I can’t see in what way you are competing or displacing Outlook if you are makinhg a product for Linux. The reason it’s a viable product would be 1) because there is no Linu…

>there is no Linux outlook

With the GH aquisition I'll be shocked if we don't see most of MS's desktop stuff, including Office, move to Electron/WebAssembly in the next few years.

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

#270

Post by mattl »

amyjess wrote: post #263
mattl wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. This is incredibly rude. You may not like it, but GNU/Linux was built by people for user freedom, not for proprietary email clients. Instead of using words like “fundamentalist” please instead consider that you are doing something that is not welcomed by the creators of the operating system and a large number of the l…

> Linux was built by people for user freedom > not welcomed by the creators of the operating system No, it wasn't. Linux was created because Linus Torvalds was in love with the OS running on the VAX at his university and wanted something just like it that he can run on his desktop at home. > you are doing something that is not welcomed by the creators of the operating system The DFSG and the OSD both prohibit discrim…

Linux is a kernel. GNU is an operating system, and so GNU/Linux is what most people are actually using.

The DFSG and OSD are criteria for evaluating free and open source software and more specifically their licensing terms. The discrimination against fields of endeavor means you can’t make a license that says “the government can’t use my software” or “no military use” and call it free software or open source software. It has absolutely nothing to do with being able to run non-free software.

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