5 ms·

Being paid for work and turning free software into proprietary software are very different.

kingbirdy 8y ago
If he's the one who was putting the work in to the software, he has a right to ask to be paid for it, even if he previously was nice enough to give it away
fenomas 8y ago
Nobody "turned free software into proprietary software". He released some free software, then later he released other non-free software. He also explained his reasoning[0] - that developing the project as FOSS wasn't working out, for specific reasons he goes into, so he needed to try something else. Honestly, this kind of thing is the ugly side of FOSS culture. I get why you were hoping he'd continue under the old license, but the fact that he didn't is no grounds to say he betrayed people. [0] http://dev.aseprite.org/2016/09/01/new-source-code-license/ http://dev.aseprite.org/2016/09/01/new-source-code-license/
- paavoova 8y ago
  Some of the author's reasoning amounts to arbitrary justifications. They have a section describing the difficulties of integrating contributors patches, suggesting they're unwelcome, which is quite the high-horse stance to take when people are going out of their way to contribute code to your project. The rant against Linux packaging betrays the author's position, in that they would prefer to spam the user with donation/payment links in the most obnoxious way possible. For example, they claim "[Distributions] do not show who is the real developer of the application in a clear way" and "They do not show buttons/links/a simple way to contribute to the real developer of the program", but in reality all properly documented programs handle this themselves in one or more of their --version/--help output, the manual, and the interface. This is especially true for GUI applications, which typically have an "About", etc menu giving details. If the author neglected to document their program properly, it's no fault of the packagers. I have never had problems finding the upstream source and authors from properly documented packages. The article also brings up improper association of a package with a given disto. This is partiality true (e.g. users reporting bugs upstream for outdated packages when they should be contacting the packagers), but largely such end-user ignorance has nothing to do with Linux distributions, and is applicable to all OSs.
  - fenomas 8y ago
    The author's reasons are his own; arguing them with me doesn't get us anywhere. If you're suggesting that he doesn't really believe what he said and must have other motives, I can only say I find that very unlikely.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
It's still their software? And I imagine the reason it was turned into proprietary software is that they weren't getting paid for it.

If he's the one who was putting the work in to the software, he has a right to ask to be paid for it, even if he previously was nice enough to give it away

fenomas 8y ago

Nobody "turned free software into proprietary software". He released some free software, then later he released other non-free software. He also explained his reasoning[0] - that developing the project as FOSS wasn't working out, for specific reasons he goes into, so he needed to try something else. Honestly, this kind of thing is the ugly side of FOSS culture. I get why you were hoping he'd continue under the old license, but the fact that he didn't is no grounds to say he betrayed people. [0] http://dev.aseprite.org/2016/09/01/new-source-code-license/ http://dev.aseprite.org/2016/09/01/new-source-code-license/

paavoova 8y ago
Some of the author's reasoning amounts to arbitrary justifications. They have a section describing the difficulties of integrating contributors patches, suggesting they're unwelcome, which is quite the high-horse stance to take when people are going out of their way to contribute code to your project. The rant against Linux packaging betrays the author's position, in that they would prefer to spam the user with donation/payment links in the most obnoxious way possible. For example, they claim "[Distributions] do not show who is the real developer of the application in a clear way" and "They do not show buttons/links/a simple way to contribute to the real developer of the program", but in reality all properly documented programs handle this themselves in one or more of their --version/--help output, the manual, and the interface. This is especially true for GUI applications, which typically have an "About", etc menu giving details. If the author neglected to document their program properly, it's no fault of the packagers. I have never had problems finding the upstream source and authors from properly documented packages. The article also brings up improper association of a package with a given disto. This is partiality true (e.g. users reporting bugs upstream for outdated packages when they should be contacting the packagers), but largely such end-user ignorance has nothing to do with Linux distributions, and is applicable to all OSs.
- fenomas 8y ago
  The author's reasons are his own; arguing them with me doesn't get us anywhere. If you're suggesting that he doesn't really believe what he said and must have other motives, I can only say I find that very unlikely.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

It's still their software? And I imagine the reason it was turned into proprietary software is that they weren't getting paid for it.