On paying for software

Re:On paying for software by michaelmrose on Sunday June 10, 2018 @01:25PM (#17279099)

"Open source, on the other hand, is like trying to shave with a razor blade with no handle. It's a hard sell to get people to donate to projects that they know are going to cut them at some point."

This sounds whiny and more importantly it isn't true its hard to get people to pay for things that they can have for free full stop.

Don't make things more complicated than they are.

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Re:On paying for software by electricEmu on Sunday June 10, 2018 @01:55PM (#17279267)

I would say the blade analogy is fairly correct.

OSS isn't polished many times. The installer might be missing. Documentation is out of date or incomplete. The plug-in manager requires using the file system explorer directly.

All of that cuts. OSS can be death by a thousand cuts at times.

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Re:On paying for software by ropeadopepope on Sunday June 10, 2018 @01:49PM (#17279226)

> This sounds whiny

Are you an OSS developer by chance?

> its hard to get people to pay for things that they can have for free full stop.

The Apple third party app ecosystem proves you wrong. Users are willing to pay for good software, even if there are free alternatives available.

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Re:On paying for software by michaelmrose on Sunday June 10, 2018 @07:53PM (#17280792)

You failed to prove me wrong or in fact to understand the point I was making.

People are disinclined to fund open source projects that they can get for free.

If you rely on voluntary donations you will find yourself poor.

They may be willing to pay for value added only if getting something for nothing isn't an option.

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Re:On paying for software by ropeadopepope on Sunday June 10, 2018 @08:26PM (#17280899)

> You failed to prove me wrong or in fact to understand the point I was making.

Then communicate your point better. Losing the hostility would be a great start.

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