We are talking decades of work, dealing with platform issues, performance, loads of security considerations and then there is the whole licensing+patent topic.
Sure UI work is hard, but of the whole package, it's only the visible part of the iceberg and now I'm expected to give $30 to the person who only contributed that last piece? Of course it's work too but if not at least half that money is being donated to the underlying FOSS projects then I'm out.
Another suggestion: open source your app. Those who don't know how to compile/build it, or are too lazy, which will be most, they can pay for the convenience, and you'll have the income you expect, but at least you are giving back to the community on whose work you are basing yours.
> self-taught full-stack developer who wrote the first line of code in the 2020 Corona lockdown.
You my friend are standing on the shoulders of giants. Time to ack them.
If I felt that people should give me a cut of any commercial software they build on top of my library then I would try to express that in my choice of license.
Though we as a community can still have views regarding kids hacking things trying to profit off decades of hard work by a large community. Different if they contribute back obvioisly. There are lots of compromise models out there.
Edit: Softened unreasonably provocative expressions
And the mask slips. Maybe don't gatekeep software using licenses as they are designed to be used
Though acting legally and acting ethically/responsibly are still different things.
You did read the rest of my post right?
No, you are not expected to pay $30 to anybody.
If the distribution of the money make you unhappy, just pay $30 to this guy and $30 to the other project (or $150 using a x5 ratio sugested in other comment).
Or you can use the free CLI, or a free alternative.
Even better, you can write a free clone of this app and distribute it for free. Just remember to choose the licence carefuly. You'd probably like AGPL that makes comercial use very difficult.
That said, there is nothing wrong with a paid wrapper around a large and complex open source library. Distributing their work more widely is not a disservice.
If there's one thing that I've learned, is that "It Depends™" is my mantra.
ffmpeg is the sharp end of years of work by a whole lot of folks. It isn't just a single developer's "pet project" (although its originator[0] deserves enormous heaps of credit). It has been maintained by a whole community of really good (and dedicated) developers (and people with all kinds of other skills)[1].
It's not just a library. It's a platform. People have made entire (lucrative) careers, from just "tuning" ffmpeg.
Because of the infrastructure provided by ffmpeg, people can build some really useful implementations, and create focused applications.
I have found that making an approachable interface for a complex substrate, can be incredibly valuable, and definitely worth paying for.
"Easier" is in the eye of the beholder. Ever watch a really, really experienced studio musician at work? They sit down, and in five minutes, your scratches on a piece of paper, take on a magical aspect. They make it look absurdly easy, but that comes from intense practice. There was a documentary (don't remember the name), about a bunch of major musicians, that came out of the California scene, in the late 1960s/early 1970s. In it, there was a discussion about someone (I think it may have been one of the Grateful Dead, or Eagles), that lived above Jackson Brown, who is a very successful singer and songwriter (BTW: The "songwriter" part is the bit that makes the money). They talk about hearing him practice, as he was developing songs. He'd play just a few bars, over, and over, and over again, until he got it right.
Songwriters and studio musicians may not be able to command roaring crowds at Glastonbury, but they can give you the album that you'll need, to get that crowd to show up, in the first place. So success requires contributions from many different places, and each has its own measure.