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Always thought that Aesprite were onto something good. Assuming I've got this right, the source code is out there and free, but you need to pay for the compiled

Always thought that Aesprite were onto something good. Assuming I've got this right, the source code is out there and free, but you need to pay for the compiled binaries. Most people can't be bothered doing the latter, so paying a bit for it is worthwhile

torginus 5y ago
I'm not sure Aseprite is an example to follow - just as they made this license change, a fork of the previous license - LibreSprite - has popped up. It lacks a lot of the features and bugfixes of Aseprite, but hey it's free, and many open source enthusiasts view it as the morally superior version. This simultaneously shows the weakness of the open-source development model - a non-monetizable passion project can rarely match the quality of something with full-time devs behind it, and probably isn't something that the Aseprite dev(s) are happy about - it sucks to compete against your own product sold for $0.
badsectoracula 5y ago
Note that Aseprite is source-available but not FOSS, the license explicitly forbids redistribution. It used to be FOSS at the past though.
waplot 5y ago
I've seen the pay-for-binaries model in a few places. Not sure if it's scalable since someone can write a build script and share it with the community.
- gmemstr 5y ago
  It depends -- with a community build script, you're relying on (and trusting!) a third party to maintain it and not do anything malicious. Much easier to pay a few bucks for first party binaries. At least in my eyes.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    This is how every distro repo works and likely where you would get that binary from.
  - dikei 5y ago
    In Windows, people willingly download shady binary from piracy sites all the time to avoid paying for software. I think you underestimate the incentive of free (beer) stuffs.
dwohnitmok 5y ago
I'd be worried about perverse incentives. The company is now incentivized to make the build process more difficult, or at least not incentivized to try to make the build process easier for end users, which goes against the point of open source.
- tommyage 5y ago
  > I'd be worried about perverse incentives. The company is now incentivized to make the build process more difficult, or at least not incentivized to try to make the build process easier for end users, which goes against the point of open source. Open Source doesn't imply anything on the code. It assumes to benefit from a wide range of people (and outsiders views). Open Source projects, which would reject PRs on improving the build process will suffer contributions in the long run, risking their acceptance in the community. It should aid itself. At least this is the philosophy I proclaim myself :)
  - dwohnitmok 5y ago
    > Open Source doesn't imply anything on the code. No, but if we imagine the incentive taken to the extreme, where you have an arcane build process that makes it essentially impossible for any person who's not on the original team to build the software, then the software devolves to effectively just a source-available project, since the users have no way of actually building their own versions, which also precludes being able to make any modifications even on their own forks. I guess the major difference vs truly only source-available is that you can still copy and paste chunks of code to use in other projects?
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      I am struggling to think of any open source project of any size beyond small NPM packages that I've experienced that do not have an arcane build system. At least all of the ones I've encountered have been incredibly obtuse, to the point that I've mostly just given up. Anything Mozilla, Google, or Facebook writes. Actually, come to think of it, the only open source projects of non-trivial size I've ever been able to build without dedicating several weeks of time to have been from Microsoft.
Gigachad 5y ago
FOSS can’t really work like this because anyone is free to compile it and stick it in a flatpak or on the distro repos. It only really works for something like iOS where there is only one store.
torginus 5y ago
This business model relies on the build tooling being arse, though. git clone && npm run build is not worth $20 to most people.

torginus 5y ago

I'm not sure Aseprite is an example to follow - just as they made this license change, a fork of the previous license - LibreSprite - has popped up. It lacks a lot of the features and bugfixes of Aseprite, but hey it's free, and many open source enthusiasts view it as the morally superior version. This simultaneously shows the weakness of the open-source development model - a non-monetizable passion project can rarely match the quality of something with full-time devs behind it, and probably isn't something that the Aseprite dev(s) are happy about - it sucks to compete against your own product sold for $0.

badsectoracula 5y ago

Note that Aseprite is source-available but not FOSS, the license explicitly forbids redistribution. It used to be FOSS at the past though.

waplot 5y ago

I've seen the pay-for-binaries model in a few places. Not sure if it's scalable since someone can write a build script and share it with the community.

gmemstr 5y ago
It depends -- with a community build script, you're relying on (and trusting!) a third party to maintain it and not do anything malicious. Much easier to pay a few bucks for first party binaries. At least in my eyes.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  This is how every distro repo works and likely where you would get that binary from.
- dikei 5y ago
  In Windows, people willingly download shady binary from piracy sites all the time to avoid paying for software. I think you underestimate the incentive of free (beer) stuffs.

dwohnitmok 5y ago

I'd be worried about perverse incentives. The company is now incentivized to make the build process more difficult, or at least not incentivized to try to make the build process easier for end users, which goes against the point of open source.

tommyage 5y ago
> I'd be worried about perverse incentives. The company is now incentivized to make the build process more difficult, or at least not incentivized to try to make the build process easier for end users, which goes against the point of open source. Open Source doesn't imply anything on the code. It assumes to benefit from a wide range of people (and outsiders views). Open Source projects, which would reject PRs on improving the build process will suffer contributions in the long run, risking their acceptance in the community. It should aid itself. At least this is the philosophy I proclaim myself :)
- dwohnitmok 5y ago
  > Open Source doesn't imply anything on the code. No, but if we imagine the incentive taken to the extreme, where you have an arcane build process that makes it essentially impossible for any person who's not on the original team to build the software, then the software devolves to effectively just a source-available project, since the users have no way of actually building their own versions, which also precludes being able to make any modifications even on their own forks. I guess the major difference vs truly only source-available is that you can still copy and paste chunks of code to use in other projects?
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    I am struggling to think of any open source project of any size beyond small NPM packages that I've experienced that do not have an arcane build system. At least all of the ones I've encountered have been incredibly obtuse, to the point that I've mostly just given up. Anything Mozilla, Google, or Facebook writes. Actually, come to think of it, the only open source projects of non-trivial size I've ever been able to build without dedicating several weeks of time to have been from Microsoft.

Gigachad 5y ago

FOSS can’t really work like this because anyone is free to compile it and stick it in a flatpak or on the distro repos. It only really works for something like iOS where there is only one store.

torginus 5y ago

This business model relies on the build tooling being arse, though. git clone && npm run build is not worth $20 to most people.