Re:An M1 for Curl
by cantremember11 on Friday December 30, 2022 @08:48AM
(#34184954)
Sending an invoice might require some sort of contract, which may imply some level of support. Something OSS devs generally cannot guarantee.
Most open source software licenses explicitly say there is no support.
> ... the commercial license can be their existing OSS license plus an invoice
Of course, Patio11 was running his own show, and a larger company might demand more, but it is worth asking.
Re:An M1 for Curl
by raverbashing on Friday December 30, 2022 @11:08AM
(#34186313)
Support contract:
1. For the given amount of $5000 for the period 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 you are entitled to
2. Create a feature or bug request on our support system
3. Have a first response back in 96h
4. No warranties explicit or implicit that we'll be able to solve your problem blah blah blah etc
And then you are on vacation and some asshole in legal sues you because you didn't respond in time when a dev had a small problem they could've solved by looking in the source code for 5 minutes but wanted support instead.
Way too risky.
Re:An M1 for Curl
by raverbashing on Friday December 30, 2022 @12:30PM
(#34187294)
Agreed, this is only an example (but as you grow you can have someone look at your email - this is part of why it's a good idea to offer support contracts)
Re:An M1 for Curl
by DwnVoteHoneyPot on Friday December 30, 2022 @12:10PM
(#34187068)
Invoices seem like a great idea. Becomes a business expense and can claim it off taxes. Essentially gov't kicks in whatever your tax rate is.
> We don't donate to OSS software which we use, because we're legally not allowed to.
> I routinely send key projects, particularly smaller projects, a request to quote me a commercial license of their project, with the explanation that I would accept a quote of $1,000 and that the commercial license can be their existing OSS license plus an invoice. My books suggest we've spent $3k on this in 2015. My bookkeeper, accountant, and the IRS/NTA are united on this issue: they don't care whether a software license is OSS or not. A $1k invoice is a $1k invoice; as a software company, I have virtually carte blanche to expense any software I think is reasonably required, and I think our OSS is reasonably required.
> I would do this more often if OSS projects made it easier for me to do so. Getting me to pay $1,000 for software is easy; committing me to doing lots of admin work over the course of a week is less easy. Take a look at what e.g. http://sidekiq.org/ , which is an OSS project with a commercial model, does. Two clicks gets me to a credit card form. If I actually used Sidekiq, Mike would have had my credit card on file the day that form went up.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10863939