News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by monokai_nl on Friday November 16, 2018 @06:50AM (#18468115)
My color scheme https://www.monokai.pro is downloadable for free for Sublime and VSCode. It has a nag screen a la Sublime Text that tells you it's free for evaluation, but needs a license for continued usage. A small percentage of people purchases a license, but for sure not all 200K of them.
Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by huhtenberg on Friday November 16, 2018 @07:08AM (#18468191)
To put it bluntly and I mean no offense whatsoever - you come across as completely nuts trying to charge 10 EUR for a damn color scheme. That's basically what 200K people think when dismissing your nag.
Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by charlesdm on Friday November 16, 2018 @07:25AM (#18468254)
The fact that 200k people have downloaded it means it has value.

I'm actually more surprised 200k people have downloaded a custom colour scheme. But since they have, I don't think 10 EUR is excessive to charge for something like that.

Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by abcd_f on Friday November 16, 2018 @07:50AM (#18468354)
They downloaded it because it was free.

Its value is in the fact that it's free.

Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by monokai_nl on Friday November 16, 2018 @07:18AM (#18468221)
It's a color scheme, user interface theme and icon set in one. Why do you think it's nuts to charge €10 for that? Do you think it should be free?
Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by huhtenberg on Friday November 16, 2018 @07:35AM (#18468292)
Rationally it makes some sense, but irrationally - charging money for such triviality as a choice of colors is ridiculous.

I can see buying _icons_ being a bit more justified, because it implies at least some amount of non-trivial work on your end, but I don't really know anyone willing to pay for better code editor icons.

Also the fact that you offering to buy a "license" is off-putting, again considering the context of selling a set of RGB values. It's too grandiose, which too contributes to this looking nuts. Just say "buy" the scheme and it'll already be much better.

Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by jakobegger on Saturday November 17, 2018 @02:13PM (#18476888)
I've spent a lot of time picking colors for my app, and there's nothing "trivial" about it. It's a lot of work.

I totally understand that someone would charge money for it.

Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by monokai_nl on Friday November 16, 2018 @08:04AM (#18468419)
I understand charging for a code editor theme is not common practice. However, I don't see much difference between the work that goes into designing and developing a simple (Wordpress) web theme and a code editor theme. In the end a web theme is also a set of RGB values and other styling settings. And charging for that is acceptable.

I think it depends on what you think is trivial and what is not. I think designing a coherent theme is not trivial.

Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by imhoguy on Friday November 16, 2018 @08:17AM (#18468492)
Off-putting? You should check PANTONE and their licensing business. Anyway it's all about mixing electromagnetic waves.