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>If your ongoing work is not worth anything, why should you be paid extra for work you did in the past? If you write a piece of software that took you a year t
by barking 6y ago
>If your ongoing work is not worth anything, why should you be paid extra for work you did in the past?
If you write a piece of software that took you a year to write but buyers are only willing to pay $500 for then do (A) live on $500 or (b) try to sell to many buyers including some in the future?
You seem to be saying (b) is out of the question but if it is who will write the software these people wish to buy?
- vertex-four 6y agoYou can find multiple buyers before you write the software, you know - you don't have to have just one person paying you. If it's consumer software, things like Kickstarter or Patreon are how this is often done - if it's b2b, this is how a lot of software development is done anyway. Examples of software successfully funded via crowdfunding include Spine, Magit, and Diaspora - although Spine appears to be closed-source anyway. You can write an MVP, pitch it to potential clients, and write software that provides value to them. That's what I'm doing.
- barking 6y agoBut planning/hoping to sell copies in the future is unethical, is it?
- fsflover 6y agoWhy do you think so? Purism created its products using crowdfunding, i.e. they sold their devices (and free software on them) before anyting was created.
- barking 6y agoThey're a device maker then
- fsflover 6y agoAs I mentioned above, they also write free software for their devices. The price includes it.
- barking 6y agoManufacturers commonly include software in their products but no one buys a Mercedes for its software.
- fsflover 6y agoIn the particular case of Purism Librem 5 phone, many people decided to buy the device in order to support the development of free software for mobile phones. As opposite to the PinePhone, whose developers do not develop any software and rely on the "community developers".
- vertex-four 6y agoReally? If the car contained no software, people would still buy it over alternatives that contain software at various levels for a better driving experience, comfort, and entertainment?
- barking 6y agoI don't think it's really an option for your average software developer to create a car marque as a way of monetizing their software development.
- vertex-four 6y agoBecoming employed by a car company that wants to improve the experience of their vehicle is a perfectly reasonable option though. Or writing software for someone else's car - there's more than enough gearheads who'd spend a ridiculous amount of money on custom code for their vehicle if only they were permitted to.
- vertex-four 6y agoYes, copyright is unethical, as is closed-source distribution. Sell actual work - there's always work to be done on or around software. My project is livestreaming software, but it turns out there's plenty of folks who don't want to set up livestreaming software, they just want to pay someone for the result of having a solid branded stream - so my business model is providing them that end. If I could do it reasonably with existing software, I would, but I can't, so I'm writing software for it.
- barking 6y agoAnd there's nothing to stop someone else letting you write all the code and get paid for the bit you charge for, right. In fact they could work full time on that while you have to spend time doing software updates/maintenance etc.
- vertex-four 6y agoIf I'm not making money off it, I'm going to stop writing it and find something else to do, obviously? Being able to say "I have deep technical knowledge of this domain, proven by the fact that I literally wrote the software and can customise it to your needs" is worth something, unsurprisingly.
- barking 6y agoHow could a programmer of great ability ever become wealthy living by your ethics?
- vertex-four 6y agoHow could an architect of great ability ever become wealthy if they weren’t able to just sell the same building design over and over again with no work for decades? Oh wait, that’s the norm.
- barking 6y ago