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Spending money doesn't make you a professional. Not being able to afford liceases, saas costs, etc is common. Why pay $ amount per year when there are great o

by wolco 7y ago

Spending money doesn't make you a professional. Not being able to afford liceases, saas costs, etc is common. Why pay $ amount per year when there are great open source products available?

marpstar 7y ago
- How much time (i.e. labor hours) will it take to find and vet an alternative solution Y to solution X (provided that you already know that X will solve your problem/save you time)? - How do you value your time? - What's your tolerance for community-only support vs. commercial support? The list goes on, but gratis isn't always better just because you don't need to pull out your wallet.
- wolco 7y ago
  You usually need to vet all editors. You download a free trial or you download an open source version. After a month the paided on stops working until you pay causing friction. The open source editor keeps working and even provides updates. In general choosing open source saves you time with yearly licease management, licease audits and removes the risk of surprise price increases and product shutdown. Commercial support can be invaluable and can provide more value over community support. Commercial support for a code editor is wasteful in terms of cost/value and wasteful timewise (who is calling spending time about a macro feature not working).
pjmlp 7y ago
Because even open source products should be paid for, specially when one earns money thanks their existence.
- wolco 7y ago
  I think you misunderstand what open source is. They are paid for by future development and / or increased adoption. Take the most popular open source editor (vscode). Do you think microsoft is getting value from this open source product? Why didn't they charge a yearly licease fee instead of open sourcing it? They were probably more interested in increased adoption...
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    My point was about random people trying to make a living out of open source, while others feel entitled not to support them, while enjoying earning money. Not about corporations doing open source as advertising stunt. Which is precisely why anything I produce, is either commercial or under GPL.

by wolco 7y ago

Spending money doesn't make you a professional. Not being able to afford liceases, saas costs, etc is common. Why pay $ amount per year when there are great open source products available?

marpstar 7y ago

- How much time (i.e. labor hours) will it take to find and vet an alternative solution Y to solution X (provided that you already know that X will solve your problem/save you time)? - How do you value your time? - What's your tolerance for community-only support vs. commercial support? The list goes on, but gratis isn't always better just because you don't need to pull out your wallet.

wolco 7y ago
You usually need to vet all editors. You download a free trial or you download an open source version. After a month the paided on stops working until you pay causing friction. The open source editor keeps working and even provides updates. In general choosing open source saves you time with yearly licease management, licease audits and removes the risk of surprise price increases and product shutdown. Commercial support can be invaluable and can provide more value over community support. Commercial support for a code editor is wasteful in terms of cost/value and wasteful timewise (who is calling spending time about a macro feature not working).

pjmlp 7y ago

Because even open source products should be paid for, specially when one earns money thanks their existence.

wolco 7y ago
I think you misunderstand what open source is. They are paid for by future development and / or increased adoption. Take the most popular open source editor (vscode). Do you think microsoft is getting value from this open source product? Why didn't they charge a yearly licease fee instead of open sourcing it? They were probably more interested in increased adoption...
- pjmlp 7y ago
  My point was about random people trying to make a living out of open source, while others feel entitled not to support them, while enjoying earning money. Not about corporations doing open source as advertising stunt. Which is precisely why anything I produce, is either commercial or under GPL.