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Paying for free software
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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The cost of switching to an unfamiliar Interface and workflow is high enough, charging money to do it will further increase the barrier to entry.
Paying for open source software sounds good on paper, but if it is required, the software will never accumulate the users to make the development have any meaning.
There has to be a "try it before you buy it" too. Otherwise the permutations of scams are obvious and nobody will fall for that. Idk how you would prove that the software works, without giving an actual copy of the software.
Also, legalities between different countries. You will just not get your money back from "trustworthy nigerian software dev who just needs 50$ to give you some software".
So no.
Do donate if you can though. If you value the software you use, you will pretty obviously recognize the utility and the cost to you, should it go away.
You could go the Grayjay approach and have it be "paid" software but not stop you from using it without pay, not even anything other than a small buy button which stays until you pay.
That is most likely going to generate less revenue than promoting donations, or a comparable amount at best. WinRAR is the meme example.
From a PR and marketing perspective, if I wanted to maximize my revenue as a single developer I would set up a Patreon or encourage recurring donations through the software by providing bragging rights stuff (merch, insider access, early access to unfinished builds and so on). Single mandatory payments simply reproduce the piracy/license access of commercial software and shaming people into paying without coercion just makes you seem less appealing to people who would donate anyway.
Free Software can be legally distributed (it's one of the 4 essential freedoms that it gives you). It doesn't matter if it's commercial or not, someone can always give you a copy.
There is a game called Mindustry, which is a libre game that is sold one Steam and it seems to be doing fine. This is just one example of a commercial Free Software project.
Grayjay is proprietary software. The license doesn't allow you to for example edit its source code: https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay/-/blob/master/LICENSE
So it's denying you at least one of the 4 essential freedoms.
Ok
Based on what you said, I'm not sure what you mean by "open source", but Free Software gives you the right to distribute the program (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms). So anyone who owns a copy can legally share it with you. There are commercial Free Software projects. The game Mindustry is one example.
Yes. And as you can see it has 14k reviews on steam while factorio has 141k reviews.
It's also a game, so there is no productivity gain or loss associated with it. There is no on call IT support, but you also don't need any and if something breaks, you lose nothing except the ability to play THIS game for a short while. It's not a... webserver you run your online shop through where every hour of downtime costs you X hundreds of euros or dollars.
The game was also made by what looks like one guy. It's not, you know libre office. With hundreds and thousands of contributors and a huge problem of how to distribute the money.
Of course you're allowed to distribute it. And of course you're allowed to charge for it. But realistically, nearly nobody would use it.
Yes, but what is this supposed to prove? That proprietary software is more popular? Usually it is. There are many different reasons for that, but one of them is that there is simply more of it.
It's similar to selling a desktop app or a mobile app. I can't find the source code of AnkiMobile right now, but I'm pretty sure it's Free Software. If you want an example of a commercial app that people might use to do work, there is Ardour.