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It's unfortunately hard to make money on your software if it's free. (Assuming your primary interest is making software, not providing support.) Personally, I'
by archagon 11y ago
It's unfortunately hard to make money on your software if it's free. (Assuming your primary interest is making software, not providing support.)
Personally, I'm going to try open-sourcing my retail software a) once sales goals have been met, and b) without the art assets. Maybe that would be a good compromise.
- takeawayandrun 11y agoI haven't really seen this done but couldn't Google pour money in to developing very high quality GPL'd libraries for say.. C++ or Python - becoming the defacto standard libraries. If other's want to use them in their closed source projects they'd have to pay licenses to Google, however internally they can use them in their closed source code since they own the rights to it. The trick would be get that critical mass where competing libraries aren't used as much. Google definitely seems to have the talent and workforce to do it
- anon1385 11y agoWhy would they do that? Google isn't a charity. Anything that makes it easier to develop native software (which 'won't-suddenly-disappear' software has to be) is in direct conflict with Google's strategic interests (Chrome, ChromeOS) and their bottom line.
- takeawayandrun 11y agoWhat? Businesses that try to to use the libraries they create would have to pay royalties... how is that charity?