Not hating on open source, just let people use what fits their expectations and needs and stop deterring them with gatekeeping :P
UX = user experience
This one dude has made this app for years and constantly updates it, fixes things, is responsive, and makes a great app. He's now been more loyal to his users longer than Reddit has, and I personally have used his app daily for 13 years.
Yeah, I'll happily pay for it.
FOSS is great but it doesn't pay the rent people, this guy is doing this mostly as his main gig. This isn't some huge corpo, it's one guy who makes his living building the app he loves. I'm sure he'd love to make it FOSS if he didn't have to pay bills on anything.
FOSS can pay the rent. But the users that will complain about £20 for a lifetime of ad removal, definitely aren't going to be the ones that help him should the bank come calling about late mortgage payments.
This is the same crap I left /r/Linux for way back in the day, so so so many people who are all "Linux is the best way and you're stupid for even considering windows or mac" but unable to see realities. Yes, of course I love linux and FOSS, I use it as my primary driver, but we live in a society where free work doesn't pay for housing.
You're exactly right, most of the "FOSS Open Source supreme" people will look at an app that was lovingly crafted for months, call it garbage, and then demand they make it free. I just can't even with them.
Meanwhile I'd love to see the stats on how many hours a week they put into FOSS apps on their own, and if they've given up their jobs to code for FOSS apps for the good of the community.
I'm a developer. I code mostly proprietary stuff for my company. I'd gladly go code for FOSS projects, but so far my bank is just completely unwilling to cancel my mortgage payments, and my electricity, water, sewer, internet, they all want to be paid too, so unfortunately I'm stuck doing this.
Upvoted via Sync lol. FOSS is great, FOSS is irreplaceable, but for independent programmers FOSS doesn't pay the rent.
I understand people's concerns and criticism over the use of Google-based ads, but I have no issue paying for no ads knowing how much work has been put into the app. I'm glad we have some great FOSS options as well (shoutout to Infinity and Thunder, among others!)
This meme just explained the post meme to me
Scatterbrained me sometimes forgets to add more context, because I forget other people can't see what's been going on in my head prior. Now you know how people at work feel when interacting with me.
Or when I do a "by the way..." remark to something that was discussed hours before and nobody knows what I'm referring to.
My brain could be used to feed entropy to /dev/urandom
FOSS is great but also developers' gotta eat
Amen. And he got screwed from the Reddit api fiasco. If i remember correctly he was on the hook for as much as $250k in refunds because he's had to shut the app down and refund subscribers.
The guy has to make a living, so I don't begrudge him that one bit.
I love the idea of Lemmy itself being FOSS but individual instances and apps being a competitive marketplace of for profit businesses.
That way profitable entities with skin in the game can contribute back to the core, as can anyone, while ensuring the communities exist on servers that actually have some kind of monetization.
developers’ what
I don't think apps have to be FOSS. It's super important for libraries, frameworks and other infrastrucuture related stuff to be FOSS, but you can always change a client.
The three stages of a long-term FOSS user:
How the fuck do I do anything? I'm so lost.
I've somewhat mastered how to use it and became a power user. I'm happy about this, I've developed a sense of superiority over those who don't use it, and will now promote it constantly to others like a goddamn cult. My SO has left me and my family has disowned me, but I don't care, they are too ignorant to be as enlightened as I am.
(A decade or two later) I don't even give a fuck anymore what somebody uses, this still works for me, and what works for you, works for you. Let's just all coexist. OS and app development models don't mean shit, common standards and protocols between them do. As long as I, a Linux user, can email a PNG to a Mac user and they can open it, we're good.
It's been like this since the mid-90s. Most of the people who are being annoying about it are in stage 2.
I'm using Sync right now. I've tried a few different lemmy apps and this is the only one that actually works without bugs. Maybe because it's a paid developers full time job and not just some free side project?
I do wish it wasn't a subscription. Apps are generally a flat fee.
I just wish people would stop making software choice their whole personality
Don't forget this is a community built around Open Source software with many refugees who came because proprietary apps were forced on them.
The Lemmy protocol is open source and you're free to use an open source solution. You're free to use sync for Lemmy in much the same way you can run a Spotify client in Linux. One does not destroy the other.
Tldr if you don't like it, don't use it.
Everyone is always promoting that app, so I don't understand why y'all are butthurt when anyone complains about it.
It's almost like the internet is a collective of different voices and not one unified entity...
Sync is great and I'm happy to pay for a quality user experience to support a solo dev.
The great part of the fediverse is that everyone can use whatever they want. Personally I stick to Foss clients though.
I am currently using Sync, and while I agree that the UX is better I can also understand why so many on the Fediverse are against similar apps. They are here because corporations have ruined every other good thing on the internet and non-FOSS is very much associated with big corporations. While I would prefer that Sync were FOSS I also see the reality of Western society and how untenable creating an app would be without some kind of ad revenue. A majority of people are notoriously stingy and donations can only get you so far.
Dude, at least people don't use Reddit is what I think about this situation.
I don't mind so much that it's not FOSS. Developer needs paying, fair enough
I want an app without an egregious Privacy Policy that doesn't bundle code that shares "Usage Data" with advertisers
I do find it a bit odd to monetize a client for a service which is 100% free. Not necessarily against it, but it bothers me slightly.
I have to laugh at the 100% free moniker. Sure, the CODE is free. Do you seriously think hosting, domains, certificates, maintenance, and everything that goes into an instance just poofs out of nowhere? Seriously?
Lemmy and Mastodon are both paid products. Maybe you don't pay (and you should) but you should disabuse yourself of the illusion that Lemmy just happens.
Even code is not free. Any decent developer writing code does so with an opportunity cost. If those developers want to provide that software to others for free, that’s great. But it still costs their own time and skills that they could be monetizing. For many people it’s a hobby.
I've gone through this a few times. When he (and his users) realized he wasn't going to continue developing Sync for reddit, he asked us what to do. We requested the Lemmy app. He's always been super receptive to us and we're comfortable supporting him. He's developing it alone and got fucked by a company trying to inflate themselves to cash in on an IPO.
Obligatory xkcd comic.
Mega corporations are apparently equivalent to solitary, independent developers now.
I use Linux and tons of other open source software daily. I have published and maintain a number of open source projects, and contribute regularly to others.
I also pay for closed source software and have a few proprietary apps that I sell.
There's a place for both models, they're not exclusive.
I installed sync yesterday, and it's nice. It's very usable without paying for it. In fact, the only reason I could see paying at all is to support the creator. The ads are negligible. I had to look for them to notice em. Basically if you don't wanna use it, don't. Not very complicated imo. There's other apps and the web browser. Your paying for the interface not the content.