4 ms·

I wonder if this new trend of software needing periodic payment to function will boost FLOSS adoption.

_jal 5y ago
For me personally, absolutely. I loathe subscriptions. It is the mental overhead. Since the shift to subscriptions, my personal spending on software is down something like 80% from what it was ca. 2015. Replacements mainly have been open source software or things I've written.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  For me it depends on what that subscription entails. Personally I only pay for the Jetbrains toolbox because it also includes a rolling perpetual license so if I ever do walk away from it I'm not leaving the software behind, just updates.
  - auggierose 5y ago
    But the perpetual one is a year behind what you are currently using, so that makes it hard to walk away :-)
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      And you will want the latest release so you can keep up with the latest features in the languages and frameworks.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >For me personally, absolutely. Business likes it though.
scarface74 5y ago
No, On the consumer side Office 365 offers a lot of functionality that requires a server component. On the other hand, who will work on polished software for end users for free?
- marcodiego 5y ago
  > On the other hand, who will work on polished software for end users for free? Man we're so over that... do you know what FLOSS means? Most FLOSS used today (and it is used in or to develop mostly everything you use) is developed by paid developers. You sound like bill gates in his open letter to hobbyists: "What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
  - scarface74 5y ago
    And how many companies are still paying “subscriptions” for open source software either for support and/or hosting on a cloud provider? But, where is the open source popular equivalent to Office365 and Adobe’s software suite - the user facing software? And companies that were trying to create a business around open source software are rapidly retreating to close source licenses like ElasticCo and MongoDB.
    - marcodiego 5y ago
      > And how many companies are still paying “subscriptions” for open source software either for support and/or hosting on a cloud provider? FLOSS is an enabler of almost all SaaS there is today. With regards to support or consultancy, that's is how Canonical, SuSE and (for the most of its existence) RedHat survived. There also minor examples, like Collabora maintaining LibreOffice or OnlyOffice. These are just from the top of my head. > But, where is the open source popular equivalent to Office365 and Adobe’s software suite - the user facing software? Equivalent to these... I really fail to provide, but consider many user-facing polished FLOSS like Blender, Krita, Inkscape, Firefox, Chromium, Audacity... Some of them have sustainable market segments, some of them are not as advanced as proprietary options; but most important: some of them are more popular/used them proprietary alternatives and a good enough for most people.

_jal 5y ago

For me personally, absolutely. I loathe subscriptions. It is the mental overhead. Since the shift to subscriptions, my personal spending on software is down something like 80% from what it was ca. 2015. Replacements mainly have been open source software or things I've written.

jpgvm 5y ago
For me it depends on what that subscription entails. Personally I only pay for the Jetbrains toolbox because it also includes a rolling perpetual license so if I ever do walk away from it I'm not leaving the software behind, just updates.
- auggierose 5y ago
  But the perpetual one is a year behind what you are currently using, so that makes it hard to walk away :-)
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    And you will want the latest release so you can keep up with the latest features in the languages and frameworks.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>For me personally, absolutely. Business likes it though.

scarface74 5y ago

No, On the consumer side Office 365 offers a lot of functionality that requires a server component. On the other hand, who will work on polished software for end users for free?

marcodiego 5y ago
> On the other hand, who will work on polished software for end users for free? Man we're so over that... do you know what FLOSS means? Most FLOSS used today (and it is used in or to develop mostly everything you use) is developed by paid developers. You sound like bill gates in his open letter to hobbyists: "What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
- scarface74 5y ago
  And how many companies are still paying “subscriptions” for open source software either for support and/or hosting on a cloud provider? But, where is the open source popular equivalent to Office365 and Adobe’s software suite - the user facing software? And companies that were trying to create a business around open source software are rapidly retreating to close source licenses like ElasticCo and MongoDB.
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    > And how many companies are still paying “subscriptions” for open source software either for support and/or hosting on a cloud provider? FLOSS is an enabler of almost all SaaS there is today. With regards to support or consultancy, that's is how Canonical, SuSE and (for the most of its existence) RedHat survived. There also minor examples, like Collabora maintaining LibreOffice or OnlyOffice. These are just from the top of my head. > But, where is the open source popular equivalent to Office365 and Adobe’s software suite - the user facing software? Equivalent to these... I really fail to provide, but consider many user-facing polished FLOSS like Blender, Krita, Inkscape, Firefox, Chromium, Audacity... Some of them have sustainable market segments, some of them are not as advanced as proprietary options; but most important: some of them are more popular/used them proprietary alternatives and a good enough for most people.