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

> 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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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?

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.