Running an open source app: Usage, costs and community donations

Yet another testimony to how utterly few people are willing to pay for what they use in the abuse system called "open source". People, start charging for your work, and leave the freeloaders behind!

> A short disclaimer: I don’t need donations to make Spliit work. I am lucky enough to have a full-time job that pays me enough to live comfortably and I am happy to give some of the money I earn to the community.

And this is why open source will finally die, because being comfortably employed while still having surplus time and energy to work for free is an increasingly rare thing among the younger generations.

A better way to "give back to the community", instead of making open source software, would be to purchase software from other indie developers.

If anything is dying it's proprietary software. Which is great for all of us because open source is vastly more efficient system.

> People, start charging for your work, and leave the freeloaders behind!

We already have a profit-oriented market. And we have empirical evidence that profit-oriented markets do not like open source (for their primary products).

> being comfortably employed while still having surplus time and energy to work for free is an increasingly rare thing among the younger generations.

edit: remved anecdote

The cost of living will never rise so much that the upper 50% can't easily make enough money. (Otherwise what? The other 150 million people go homeless?)

And unless our industry sees a major shift, which I don't see happening, software engineers will continue being comfortably in the upper 50%.

> We already have a profit-oriented market. And we have empirical evidence that profit-oriented markets do not like open source (for their primary products).

That's a given. If you open source your code, other developers will steal it and sell your software. Just like billion dollar tech companies are the main benefiters of open source today, that some guy made for free. Excuse me, I meant for $42 in donations.

To be fair they're not heavily soliciting donations, and even actively say that they don't need them. So it's not surprising people don't prioritise giving anything. Many users probably haven't even thought of it

Are you the guy with the https://osspledge.com/ billboards around San Francisco? Haha. They’re funny. I enjoyed the art. If it’s actually you, I’d be curious who the illustrator is or if you used generative AI.

"Open source will finally die" said on a website likely running on some linux-based server, with some JS frontend, some open source/commercially licensed DB, and communicating with protocols regulated by a non-profit organization. Also in the future maybe reading this page from a device using a RISC-V processor. Sure.

I hope it brings a tear of joy to the corner of the eyes of those selfless FOSS programmers that they've done their share to help Y Combinator be worth $600 000 000 000. That money is surely better spent on people who deserve it better.

I'm not that guy, I'm against open source and free loading. Why would multi million dollar CEOs give anything to FOSS programmers when they're developing their crucial infrastructure for free?

Work for free for huge companies so they can make billion dollar profits while at the same time demanding unionization. Refusing to sell your work to consumers who are willing to pay, yet happy to provide free tech support to free loaders who wouldn't give you a cent. What's the logic?

When I write open source libraries I consider the ones benefitting to be the general public.

Even if my libraries were used only by mega corporations (which they aren't) there would still be a benefit to the public: If companies have lower cost, they will charge lower prices, benefitting customers / the general public. (And yes, they will lower prices. Most markets are not monopolies.)

> What's the logic?

Some of us like making things, and are happy to share our excess production with the world.

Like any other good work, it does not require acknowledgement or reciprocation, and the benefits are not part of a zero-sum economy where the giver is harmed by any action of the receiver.

You're on record as being vehemently anti-OSS. Why does it offend you so much that other people prioritize forms of compensation differently than you do?

That's why I make all my software AGPL now.

I haven't published any software at all recently. But if I did (anything non-trivial), it would be AGPL. Or even SSPL.

Permissive licensing (MIT, BSD, Unlicense, public domain, etc) is a scam to make you work for companies for free - if your software is worth anything to them, that is. They told developers they should use MIT licenses so more people would use their software. That's true. They didn't ask whether that was a good thing.

Open source never benefits the general public, because open source developers never make a product polished and user-friendly enough to be usable by the general public.

Instead, open source mainly benefits other developers. But at the end of the chain there has to be a product that is of use for non-developers. Because developing isn't for developments sake. And the person who makes that product reaps all the monetary benefits from the work that the others have made.

If FOSS people made complete products which were end user friendly, I'd buy the argument of benefitting the general public.

> You're on record as being vehemently anti-OSS.

That's true, I'm the chief anti-OSS crusader on HN and online. I'll give it a rest after this thread, to breathe and give all a chance to recover strength.

> Some of us like making things, and are happy to share our excess production with the world.

Selling those things is still sharing with the world. Most paid software is cheap to purchase.

If FOSS was an eco system where end users had the common(?) courtesy to donate just a little bit to at least one of the projects they use, then I'd have nothing to say. But whenever I use any FOSS code and donate, I usually find myself alone with two or three other people who have donated.

Unlike most other professions, programming is something most people start with as a hobby in young years. So maybe they don't value their own hard work and effort, even though they've matured past the young hobbyist phase? And then they get misguided by open source activists to labour for free.

A young artist who publishes their songs online for free in the hopes of becoming famous, will still retain copyright on those works. No record label can come around and start selling those songs without even letting the artist know. Much less stealing and selling the songs of a well-established artist if he/she decides to release music for free.

I just don't like free loading, and I don't like enablers either.

> developing isn't for developments sake.

[citation needed]

> the person who makes that product reaps all the monetary benefits from the work that the others have made

Which means that they can offer their product for a lower price, which then benefits the general public.

Companies being able to operate cheaper / more efficiently does benefit the general public, as long as the market isn't a monopoly. And as per my above comment, most markets are not monopolies.

> open source developers never make a product polished and user-friendly enough to be usable by the general public

I've been using Audacity, Gimp, Inkscape, uBlock Origin, and many others long before I knew what FOSS means. Spliit is also pretty cool ;)

Selling a thing comes with greater obligations than giving it away.

I am unwilling to accept those obligations, in most cases.

I am, however, perfectly happy to share some of the work that I do back into an ecosystem which I have benefited from. I also volunteer for organizations I care about, and I pick up litter in public parks. :)

I do not believe that I am being exploited. The Internet is and always has been built on open source -- and as bad as the Internet is, it would be worse if it didn't exist or if it was a proprietary network.

I think you're taking a real problem (funding of valuable work) and exploding it into an argument against open source, which just doesn't follow for me.

I do 100% support finding a way to monetarily compensate people who do valuable work and contribute it to the world. Theoretically. Practically, it gets messy real quickly and I don't see a good broad solution.

If you don't want to give away software, and it sounds like you don't, then. Don't.

Perhaps you're under the impression that I blindly click the button for a permissive license? No. I read it first. I know what it allows. That's why I choose it.

I think it's nice when companies make money, for the record. Pays for houses, puts food on the table, sends kids to summer camp and college. Some of them even make a lot of money. That's fine too.

If they want to use my software in the process, more power to them. That's why I put my name next to the copyright notice, on a license which says in plain English that they can do that.

That's a very interesting perspective, thanks. :-)

Did you know that every dollar a company makes gets taken away from someone? It's zero-sum if you aren't close to Jerome Powell. Why assume the dollar is better in the hands of the company owner than whoever had it before?

The economy is not a zero sum game. We (non-politicians/non-billionares) have significantly more resources than we had 100 years ago, and we will have significantly more resources in 100 years than we do now. And open source developers are a small part of why.

Every dollar a company makes is given to them by someone, in exchange for something else.

I go to the supermarket, they don't take my money. I pull it out of my pocket and swipe it into their coffers. They have food, you see. Which I can eat. Unlike money.

Strange how a game you describe as zero sum has built the prosperity of the modern world. I wonder if something is missing from your understanding of how that game is actually played.

> I am unwilling to accept those obligations, in most cases.

This is the argument I keep hearing every time a discussion about open source boils down, and I think it is wrong. Because in truth there is no big commitment if you sell some software for $10 or $20. In worst case if it doesn't work for the customer, you give a refund. When you go out to buy a sandwich or a couple of beers for $10, do you think they are worried about any commitment? No, it's "Here you go, enjoy!". You won't have any more obligations than you are willing to take on, just like open source.

> I also volunteer for organizations I care about, and I pick up litter in public parks.

Would you pick up litter that a mega-corp is dumping in the woods, while they keep dumping more and laughing at you?

> there is no big commitment if you sell some software for $10 or $20

This ends up not being true. It creates headaches and contracts both explicit and implied. It creates legal requirements and a for-consideration nexus that is far too complicated to contemplate at this level. Also moral obligation, tax liability, _customers_ to serve. No thank you.

Money changes everything. I don't need that overhead in my life. I've done it before (accepting donations only), and I won't do it again.

> Would you pick up litter that a mega-corp is dumping

If a megacorp was diminishing my enjoyment of the park by their litter, then yes sure, if it was of a magnitude that I could solve myself.

I'd also encourage the application of whatever legal and financial penalties might be available -- just like conflicting use of open source. If a license is violated, then pursue for damages. If the license allows the use in question (e.g. BSD, MIT), then that's a decision made by the licensor.

The economy is not a zero sum game because we produce more stuff. Money, however, is a zero sum game unless you are Jerome Powell. We produce more stuff because we work hard to produce it, not because venture capitalists have larger bank accounts.

Especially in relation to open-source software, this should be obvious. Software exists because someone wrote it, not because a company owner was paid for access to it. Programmers may be paid to write software. However when comparing two worlds, one in which a programmer wrote some software for free, and another in which a programmer was paid $1 by a venture capitalist who received $5 from a customer who is now out $5, it's not at all clear that the second world is better. Especially since in the second world, the customer has to keep paying and has to contend with software full of ads that make it slow.

What is the big headache? I'm curious to know, because I can't see it. I started my first business at a very young age, and had a lot of people around me in my life who tore up heaven and earth, really went ballistic, because in their world you work for somebody else - preferably the government - and receive a salary and that's it. To try to start a small business was one of the worst sins, and surely the IRS and competitors and employees would sue me out of existence just for having a business.

I still don't know what it was (is) with these people? Maybe a religious worshipping of the government and a fear of the IRS that are greater than the fear of God? Thinking that if you make a slight mistake, you'll be imprisoned for life. That was the impression they give. And when developers talk about the big headache of charging for a piece of software, I can't help but thin back to that.

The truth is – and you know it also – that if you sell software for $10, $20 or even $100, there is no contract nor much headache. You can give the money back to a customer who isn't satisfied and that's it. You can have your customer service as minimal as you prefer. You can also legally earn quite a lot of money on it as a side business before having to think about taxes or incorporation. And when that day comes, well congratulations, now you're supporting yourself as an independent developer!

The headache is only in your head.

This is straightforwardly, nakedly, embarrassingly illiterate and wrong.

Money has velocity. The faster it moves around, the more there is. If you're a waiter and you get tipped the same serial-numbered twenty dollar bill five times, you've earned a hundred bucks, not twenty.

When economic productivity increases, there's more to buy, and more people doing and making valuable things which others want to pay them for. This increases the velocity of money, it moves around faster, so it isn't zero sum.

This is taught early in any course of study in economics. Since you don't know the most basic and fundamental facts about the subject, it's not surprising that your conclusions make negative sense.

You could spend two weeks of evenings on YouTube and never again reveal your ignorance in such a naked way. I highly recommend this. You're making perpetual-motion class arguments in a place where people know the second law of thermodynamics. Step your game up.