Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by robotmay » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #4

Other than being engaged by Canonical, is there a reason the Snap platform be preferable to the Flatpak one?

I dunno if I'm doing it wrong, but I really don't like the .AppImage thing. I've never had it successfully add itself to my system, and I don't like that it isn't actually part of a package management system.

I totally understand the frustration of developers wanting to release on Linux and balking at the faff of adding your app to ~n package managers, but AppImage seems to be the wrong solution to that problem.

Snaps are quite nice though, from my experience so far. I've found the documentation a bit lacking, though it is improving.

EDIT: I got confused thinking FlatPak == AppImage, so you can ignore most of the above! I'm gonna check out the FlatPak system, looks interesting.

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

#72

Post by magduf » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

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 for this?

This is a product for businesses. The dynamics are different: businesses can easily be convinced to pay for software, since they do so already. If it solves a business need, this is an easy sell.

The way to make money with Linux software has always been to focus on the business market, because you're just not going to get any significant number of home Linux users or enthusiasts to pay for your software. And then, ignore the home/enthusiast users. No, I wouldn't pay for an email client either, but I don't need to connect to a Microsoft Exchange server at home. If my workplace were trying to switch to Linux, however, I'd readily recommend such a product to management.

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

#73

Post by amelius » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

makmanalp wrote: post #56

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.

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 previous/popular preferences, but that obviously comes with a bunch of problems of its own.

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

#74

Post by dlkinney » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #2

Quite a neat insight and somewhat confirming what I think personally; Linux users largely don't use Linux for FLOSS reasons. People who do use Linux for FLOSS reasons are however rather loud. I would probably not be wrong when saying that most Linux users will happily pay a developer for the binary of an application if the dev is "doing it right". Doing it right largely involves "don't treat the customer as a walking…

As one of the "Linux for FLOSS" users--and, yes, quite loud about it--I am inclined to agree.

I would pay good money for a high quality application on Linux. But in large part, one of the less-philosophical, more-practical things that I value about FLOSS is the opportunity to fix things if something doesn't work right. While I would gladly purchase an incredible, closed source application, I would much more value the distribution of the source code (with a workable build chain) along with that purchase.

In that manner, I KNOW I'm not just a buck in their wallet. It protects my purchase, to some degree, and demonstrates a good faith relationship with the developer. Even if I'm not allowed to distribute the code, and much prefer FLOSS, the right to maintain my purchase is incredibly important to me.

Of course, that's almost never an option, but to my mind, that would be a fair compromise...

~A Loud FLOSS Supporter

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

#75

Post by endorphone » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

spinningarrow wrote: post #25

coldtea wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly makes it terrible "for us, their readers"? Aside from their bs paywall (which is not a case with HN submissions, those are specific siloed posts) I like Medium -- and surely more than the accessional Blogger relic or badly done personal blogs.

> What exactly makes it terrible "for us, their readers"? Adding to GPs list ("stupidly large sticky header/footer and without cpu melting javascripts"): also the modal box saying "Pardon the interruption" every time I go to a medium based blog.

This is quite the diversion on the submission, and I apologize, but to add to your point Medium seems to be getting worse over time. Which of course it is -- as always it started as a minimalist tool "about the content". Then the whole "how do we monetize this" thing happened. Now there are fixed headers, footers, various interrupting popups, and the real question should be "what's next"? Clearly they won't stop at this.

Hiri at least used a custom domain. It's incredible how many authors just hang off the medium domain, committing the sharecropping mistake that has happened so many times before.

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

#76

Post by megaman22 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

lloydde wrote: post #52

> Turns out there aren’t a lot of email clients for Linux users that work with Exchange / Office 365 Has Linux on the desktop really fallen so far in the last years? When did the decay really set in? How does open source friendly Microsoft not see Linux email clients support falling behind at least as a problem in MS documenting its APIs, if not an opportunity to participate in the major open source clients and influ…

I'm not sure it's worth building an email client that works with Exchange/Office 365 on Linux, when you can use the web interface. Particularly as much of a PITA that trying to use EWS is, and how different it is for on-premise vs Office 365 usage.

It's currently a toss-up whether it's even worth trying to use Outlook on Windows desktops, as much of a buggy, hogging, piece of garbage it is.

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

#77

Post by pytyper2 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

The authors thought "..tracking exactly where those Snap installs are coming from isn’t possible at the moment.." was interesting. My opinion is that this is a good thing and I don't ever want it to be possible to see where those installs are coming from.

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

#78

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

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.

I don't think 121 kb is a lot, as people nowadays demand rich media content, and even a lookup on the native Yelp app can be thus expensive.

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

#79

Post by pmlnr » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #57

olalonde wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that I only ever hear those complaints on HN and never elsewhere... Are you all still using Pentium 3 PCs and 56k modems?

No some of us use smartphones and travel to places where 3G connections are the only thing available.

In rural Scotland, supposedly a developed country, even 2G is dropping regularly.

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

#80

Post by livebsd » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

lloydde wrote: post #52

> Turns out there aren’t a lot of email clients for Linux users that work with Exchange / Office 365 Has Linux on the desktop really fallen so far in the last years? When did the decay really set in? How does open source friendly Microsoft not see Linux email clients support falling behind at least as a problem in MS documenting its APIs, if not an opportunity to participate in the major open source clients and influ…

If you need an _email_ client, implementing support for the exchange protocol is probably the least of your concerns.

Even if the exchange protocol was open, I wouldn't implement support for a specific vendor knowing there are protocols which are more commonly used.

Microsoft could instead start by improving their implementation of IMAP in exchange, which is one of the most horrid and buggy implementations of IMAP I've ever seen. This is also true for their IMAP endpoint at office365.com.

But it's clear where they stand: outlook is the ultimate corporate lock-in, and it's not due to email by itself.