Re:Ask HN: How to stay open source and also make money?
by stephenr on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @09:11AM
(#40222679)
I don't have any info to back it up but I feel like this is a good approach, I've considered the same approach for quite a while: the source is free, if you want access to the apt repo, it costs money.
Re:Ask HN: How to stay open source and also make money?
by al_borland on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @06:04PM
(#40230110)
I’ve purchased a couple apps through App Stores that were free or open source, in an effort to support the development. Eventually the devs decided to put the code behind their own store, and I feel like I got the rug pulled a little bit.
I had to buy it again to get the latest version. The main app I’m thinking of, FileBot, I was waiting on a native Apple Silicon version. The stand alone download had it, but the App Store did not. If I remember correctly, this was due to a dependency not being updated or universal, so they have 2 separate binaries on their site, and the App Store allows for the one universal binary. Eventually it seemed like the update would never come, so I bought it again. When I first bought it, there was no non-App Store option, so I specifically bought it to support them… I could have gotten it from their site for free if I remember correctly, and feel like I got the short end of the stick.
One method that I really like is paywalling software store versions of applications. You can still manually install from a GitHub page or something similar for free, but if you want to have auto updates and such via your software store, you can pay a small fee for that privilege. TaskbarX has used this method in the past, although I don't know if they still are using it.