9 ms·

Document Foundation starts charging €8.99 for 'free' LibreOffice

128 points by samizdis 4y ago

wodenokoto 4y ago
They're not the first in the world to setup up an optional charge for their own free software, and are not the first to use an app store as a front for allowing people to contribute money to a project.
TheUndead96 4y ago
I can see how this would elicit quite a negative response, but getting an app onto the App Store requires non-trivial fees. Even just code-signing an app requires money that could be better spent otherwise. This money would have had to have come from somewhere, and I don't think 9 euros is unreasonable. The strength of projects like LibreOffice is not that they are monetarily free (Google Docs exists), but that the source code is open.
- tpxl 4y ago
  The difference between 0 and 1$ is bigger than the difference between 1$ and 100$. Edit: That being said, I welcome the additional of an optional charge.
  - MonkeyClub 4y ago
    1 > 99? You’re sure about that? Or do you mean that the jump to start charging is the big decision, not the amount?
    - thro388 4y ago
      I think OP meant problems with setting up payment method, dealing with credit card etc.. Most of the world population can not even pay with usual visa card.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        There's that. But there's also a big psychological barrier to paying anything at all (even if you can whip out a credit card and pay in a minute) vs. paying a bit more. Is that barrier greater than an additional $99? I'm not sure in general. But it's probably bigger than paying an additional $3.99 or whatever.
- laundermaf 4y ago
  > getting an app onto the App Store requires non-trivial fees That's a cop-out. I guarantee they already get at least $99/year via donations by macOS users. If they wanted to charge directly, $0.99 would easily cover those fees, assuming 130 people buy it per year. The reality is that they want to get some money back, and that's ok. Using the Apple fees as an excuse isn't necessary.
  - joelhaasnoot 4y ago
    I mean sort of, but you also have to deal with Apple's App Store rules and goons...
  - forgotpwd16 4y ago
    >I guarantee Really? How?
    - laundermaf 4y ago
      Just look at how much they’re taking in. The figures can be found online and are in the tens of thousands. I’d think at least 1% of those users are macOS users.
    - nicce 4y ago
      You can’t publish app without paying that $99 yearly.
- Lutger 4y ago
  A negative response would be ridiculous, as is the clickbait title, and I don't think losing those users will actually be a great loss. LibreOffice is free as in beer. Not only the source, but also the binaries, and also for MacOs, are distributed for free. You can just go to the download page and grab it. The only thing thats being charged is going through the App Store. If this really 'backfires' as some people seem to suggest, I think the project is better off just abandoning the App Store.
zimbatm 4y ago
One question that often comes up on HN is how to make open source sustainable. This is one avenue that will allow funding of open source applications. What we found out with Spotif, Netflix, ... is that people are willing to pay for a convenient access to media. They could get the same content on pirate websites but it takes a while and there are some risks associated with it. This dynamic probably also true for software distribution channels. Users can download and compile the source, and side-load it on their phone. It's just more complicated and you don't get automated updates anymore. The main blocker right now is that people are used of getting things for free. Changing that social contract is going to be difficult.
- nullify88 4y ago
  Regarding convenient access, I'd argue that since there are many providers of TV media with their own libraries, the space is, if not already, becoming fragmented and inconvenient. I often open the wrong app, trying to find the media I want to watch. "Oh its only available in another region". "Oh it got pulled from Netflix". Providers introducing Ads will make it worse.
- challenger-derp 4y ago
  Well put. > ... willing to pay for convenient access ... Convenience as a monetization idea should be considered by more open-source devs: binaries compiled for various OS version, optional cloud compute/storage (e.g. Zotero), prioritized assistance (e.g. Tailscale), etc. > [...] people are used of getting things for free. Changing that social contract is going to be difficult. Society has to gotten used to paying for people's time & expertise in many conventional areas (e.g. healthcare, education, legal advice, food) but still aren't used to paying for open-source work they consume.
  - asutekku 4y ago
    Because open source software is often freely available without major restrictions. All the other examples you posted have a very clear paywalls.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
bitigchi 4y ago
Strongly support this, as the revenue accumulated from the App Store will be used to improve the Mac version, which currently provides a horrible experience while using on a macOS system.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  I'm wondering if anybody uses it on Mac at all. If you don't need lots of features iWork is provided for free (and can handle lots of Office documents). If you need to have Microsoft Office you can buy it. Tried the Mac version a while ago. Looks horribly out of place, and it struggled to update the (retina resolution) screen with only a blank document open. That was a known bug but deemed unimportant...
cracrecry 4y ago
I can't see where the problem lies. Open Source is free as in freedom, but you can charge for it. E.g Long time ago I paid for Suse Linux distributions. I see everyday University's and companies laboratories and offices paying tens of thousands of dollars for proprietary software a year. It is not unreasonable to pay hundreds or thousands for OSS if with that you support development on the free.
- mfer 4y ago
  To add to this... I remember buying physical media to get my first distros of Linux. The source was open but the builds/dists were what I was paying for. Open source doesn't mean free distributions/builds or free support. If you look at the open source definition[1] it has to do with the source and what you can do with it. The key theme here is the source itself. I've spent a significant amount of my time around open source and having a healthy functional ecosystem of people around it is important. For that to happen you have to solve for the financial parts. Note, I'm not endorsing or rejecting this document foundation move. I've not thought about it enough to do so. [1] https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - wjnc 4y ago
    Ha yes this is a nice memory. Getting Debian 3 cd’s and then failing to do my first install because obviously with only one PC you can’t look up a guide online. (My dad always bought the big OS manuals, like 30 cm of paper per MS DOS-version, but this was my first time on my own.) Struggle, struggle to get to text only. Go onto IRC for help. All channels block you because “don’t use root for online”. Well another few days and user created and even X works. Hmm, no gaming on Linux. Miss that. Back to XP. Decade later. Proton is a gift. Installation is easy. Did pick up the Linux basics old school. Never looked back. Decades fly by.
    - mattl 4y ago
      Was it IRC channels blocking you or the servers themselves?
mkl95 4y ago
This article's headline is a bit misleading > [...] only when sold via Apple's Mac App Store.
justinclift 4y ago
The approach they're taking here seems reasonable. If things work out ok with it, then it'll be a useful revenue stream for them to build further Community enhancing things. Hopefully. :)
cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
Does anyone use it? It's slow and doesn't do much that other things don't already do for free. This should reduce demand for it and put it out of reach of the global poor at the benefit of bringing in more money.
- qwerty456127 4y ago
  Almost everyone (except some businesses who used legal) I knew used pirated MS Office until about 2010. Most of them are using LibreOffice by now. MS Office is getting increasingly rare. Nowadays I would buy MS Office just because it looks eye-candy but they have seemingly abandoned selling classic Office versions. I absolutely refuse to use software that requires me to sign-in with an online account.
  - bzzzt 4y ago
    In my company there's no escaping Google Drive. It's miles ahead of Microsoft if you want to collaborate on a document with multiple people.
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Google Docs*
  - laundermaf 4y ago
    > Most of them are using LibreOffice by now s/LibreOffice/Google Docs Editors/
    - qwerty456127 4y ago
      As by my observations remote-centric teams use Google Docs or Collabora, classic companies use LibreOffice.
- absove 4y ago
  At a glance an iPhone seems like one of the worst general purpose computing device for the global poor so in this case it's maybe not that big of a deal.
Cloudef 4y ago
Makes sense, putting software on apple's store is not free after all
qwerty456127 4y ago
Clickbait. "only when sold via Apple's Mac App Store". It's totally Okay to charge for specific installation medium. E.g. you can sell Linux distro disks for whatever a price you want and keep the money (although donating a part of it would be nice), you just can't ban copying.
traceroute66 4y ago
It is likely an unpopular view, but IMHO the open source community's bête noire about charging for stuff is effectively of its own doing. Open source has been driven by quite a vocal community of "stick it to the man" generation of freetards who live by the faux-arguments that: (a) "because its open source it must be better" (b) "X is free, so why should anybody pay EvilCorp for a license ?" Then you have software like LibreOffice that literally shout FREE in their own product name ! The Open Source community has effectively won its own race to the bottom and its going to be tough if not impossible to reverse that trend. Especially as the open source community also bitches and moans about any sort of restrictive license. Don't misunderstand me, I understand the arguments for seeking to charge for open source. I'm just saying there's a genie that needs to be put back in its bottle somehow....
- ForHackernews 4y ago
  > LibreOffice that literally shout FREE in their own product name ! Libre != Gratis, as any speaker of a romance language could tell you. The free software (not "open source") community has always and forever been crystal-clear about this: Free software is about freedom, not zero price.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  Yeah, and we should help beer escape from its captivity and label cellphone contracts with a voice flatrate as free speech. > LibreOffice that literally shout FREE in their own product name I do not understand the point you are trying to make here. You were complaining about how English-speaking people misunderstand the word "free", but for "libre" there isn't this ambiguity?
boomboomsubban 4y ago
My only issue with this is that Apple gets 30% of the money.
- titoCA321 4y ago
  Well Document Foundation is "free" to host their own payment services and download servers deal with customers and MasterCard and Visa and American Express to avoid paying the 30%. But they did not, so they must figure that they can't beat the 30% once all the costs add up.
  - diffeomorphism 4y ago
    Are they? In the mac store? Because the comparison with payment on their own website is kinda irrelevant.
    - titoCA321 4y ago
      If you sell through the Apple App Store, Apple charges 30%. This is the industry standard when you sell through storefronts PlayStation, Steam, Xbox, etc. If they sell through their website then Apple doesn't charge any fees. They knew well ahead that Apple would take a 30% cut so I don't understand why some commenters are saying about why this is a "problem."
      - diffeomorphism 4y ago
        Because they would make the same comment on the playstation, steam, xbox etc. store? I am not sure what you think the "problem" is supposed to be instead or why it needs quotation marks.
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        > I don't understand why some commenters are saying about why this is a "problem." I'd prefer the money goes to the Document Foundation, who already need to pay to use the app store. It's not a major issue, but it's a downside to the decision in my eyes.
danpalmer 4y ago
In principle I support this, but I can't help but think it's going to backfire. Users buying LibreOffice on the Mac App Store are not going to be doing so because they care about free software – if they did they probably wouldn't be on a Mac and would probably download from official channels, perhaps donating directly if they want to contribute so that Apple don't take 30%. This means that those users buying it are users who would otherwise buy/use iWork, Microsoft Office, or Google Docs, and I'm pretty sure they're going to be in for a bit of a shock. LibreOffice is usable, but it's not the same in terms of usability. So, they're about to get a bunch of users who stumble onto their software, pay for it, have a bad experience, and then expect and are essentially entitled to customer support. Customer support through the App Store is hard at the best of times, so good luck. I somehow doubt the Document Foundation has factored this in to their pricing, or that they even have a customer support team.
- leidenfrost 4y ago
  Commercial FOSS software is in a weird situation The code is open, so anyone can compile it for free, and when enough people care, any of them with a bit of free time is permitted to distribute builds, like people do for Ungoogled Chromium. Also, the teams and organizations that create Free Software are often non-profit organizations and volunteers, where customer care and market analysis is nonexistent. The idea of selling free software is something that I see a lot in theory but almost never in practice. Sometimes I think it was just Stallman preaching what was applicable in his time bit it's not realistic in today's world.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    It is more realistic in today's world. There are a TON of open source projects I would be willing to support with corporate money if I could charge it as a "Sale" to my corp card, or invoice it as a "software sale" not a "Donation to a non-profit" I need no approval to buy software, I need approval to donate company money.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
zokier 4y ago
Hardly an unprecedented move. For example Krita is also selling on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita/ and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples around too.
- zaik 4y ago
  Conversations is selling on Google Play while being gratis on F-Droid: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conve...
  - npteljes 4y ago
    OsmAnd does something very similar. The OsmAnd+ version is $25 in the Play store, and free on F-Droid.
- HankB99 4y ago
  And the MSFT store before that. https://krita.org/en/item/krita-in-the-windows-store-an-update/ https://krita.org/en/item/krita-in-the-windows-store-an-upda...
- npteljes 4y ago
  Another example is the (excellent) Mindustry game. $10 on Steam, "name your own price" on itch.io and other channels.
ElCheapo 4y ago
It costs $100 to publish apps on the App Store every single year. Plus Apple puts caveats and conditions that must be dealt with by people in the organization on company time. Publishing your program on the App Store makes it convenient for the user to keep it in sync and updated, but it costs the publisher money. LibreOffice sure needs a bit of funding (like Anki) so I'm totally for putting it up for sale. Let's also not forget that the App Store is a proprietary platform, meaning that publishing a FOSS program vs. a proprietary one is pretty much the same since you can only distribute binaries. Sure, you can download the source and install it on your machine if you want to pay $0, but you can already do exactly that by going to the developer's website and downloading the .DMG installer.
Twisell 4y ago
I actually bought the collabora vanilla Libre Office App on the Appstore that is mentioned in the article for 10€ because at some point the Mac HiDPI support was horrible on the stable community edition and I would rather pay 10€ than to figure out how to make thing work... Call me sheep I'm fine with it. I guess the official release is meant to appeal to such use case and profit from direct monetary contribution to the project. I hope collabora played it fair an square and contributed to upstream, but an official release is a good way to ensure no middle party can cash in for a minimal packaging effort.
smileybarry 4y ago
Paint.NET does something similar and charges ~$8 on the Windows/Microsoft Store. You get smoother updates (via the Store and MSIX instead of their updater), easier installation and to support the project. Totally fine by me and I ended up buying it there for the auto updates.
everyone 4y ago
You have to pay $100 a year to apple just to be able to have stuff on their store. Also you need to buy the ridiculously overpriced apple hardware to run xcode in order to submit to store. They would need to charge something to cover those costs.
pabs3 4y ago
I note that Krita has a similar model; download for free from their site, or from the app stores for money.
pabs3 4y ago
I feel like there are always perverse incentives with open source business models, but I'm not sure I can see any with this one. I would of course prefer it if people could pay what they want (or if they linked to the gratis version), since there might be folks stuck on macOS and that don't have spare cash this week to pay for LibreOffice.
- pabs3 4y ago
  I guess the model (without pay-what-you-want) punishes poor people with the extra cognitive load of installing the gratis version outside of the presumably more convenient App Store flow.
  - benj111 4y ago
    Ah yes. The poor people. With Macs...
    - pabs3 4y ago
      I expect there are plenty of working poor folks with macs. Maybe they could afford one when they had a job but are now on welfare. Maybe they got a hand-me-down from a friend. Maybe they found one in a dumpster or elsewhere.
      - benj111 4y ago
        Perhaps, but if you're going to come up with such hypotheticals, you can't say anything is rich/poor. They could have won the Roll Royce in a competition. They may have a medical need for that champagne. Ultimately in any of those scenarios we are talking first world poor, so the amount is relatively still small. Further if they're 'working poor' that can afford Mac's, maybe they aren't that poor? Or if they are they obviously haven't got their priorities straight, and once you get to the point of saying society should help people on low incomes because they buy a Mac instead of food or some other nice thing they might spend their disposable income on, then you've lost me for one. Edit: I really thought you were being sarcastic in your first reply. Now I'm not so sure? I really can't see how that's a legitimate pov. If I buy cheaper less processed food am I being discriminated against because I have to spend more time peeling my own potatoes? If I buy a cheaper car with a smaller engine do I get discriminated against because I have to press the accelerator harder and change gears more? Poorer people have less money. Cheaper things tend to be less convenient than more expensive things. That's just how it works. It's not discrination, it's economics.
taylodl 4y ago
'Free Software' has always referred to freedom, not price. You get the source and you're free to change the source to resolve whatever local issue you may have.
dethos 4y ago
By reading the article, it seems a reasonable approach. Similar to what several other open-source projects are already doing.
insane_dreamer 4y ago
Reasonable approach. It costs actual $ to publish apps through the Mac App Store (which this is limited to, for now at least), even if devs contribute their time for free.
nashashmi 4y ago
Similarly Paid version of paint.net is available thru Microsoft store. All this does is make Apple Richer with the 30% tax. Can I also host Libre office on appstore?
thebitstick 4y ago
[NeoOffice](https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php) is free on the App Store and offers Dark Mode while LibreOffice for macOS still does not.

128 points by samizdis 4y ago

They're not the first in the world to setup up an optional charge for their own free software, and are not the first to use an app store as a front for allowing people to contribute money to a project.

TheUndead96 4y ago

I can see how this would elicit quite a negative response, but getting an app onto the App Store requires non-trivial fees. Even just code-signing an app requires money that could be better spent otherwise. This money would have had to have come from somewhere, and I don't think 9 euros is unreasonable. The strength of projects like LibreOffice is not that they are monetarily free (Google Docs exists), but that the source code is open.

tpxl 4y ago
The difference between 0 and 1$ is bigger than the difference between 1$ and 100$. Edit: That being said, I welcome the additional of an optional charge.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  1 > 99? You’re sure about that? Or do you mean that the jump to start charging is the big decision, not the amount?
  - thro388 4y ago
    I think OP meant problems with setting up payment method, dealing with credit card etc.. Most of the world population can not even pay with usual visa card.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      There's that. But there's also a big psychological barrier to paying anything at all (even if you can whip out a credit card and pay in a minute) vs. paying a bit more. Is that barrier greater than an additional $99? I'm not sure in general. But it's probably bigger than paying an additional $3.99 or whatever.
laundermaf 4y ago
> getting an app onto the App Store requires non-trivial fees That's a cop-out. I guarantee they already get at least $99/year via donations by macOS users. If they wanted to charge directly, $0.99 would easily cover those fees, assuming 130 people buy it per year. The reality is that they want to get some money back, and that's ok. Using the Apple fees as an excuse isn't necessary.
- joelhaasnoot 4y ago
  I mean sort of, but you also have to deal with Apple's App Store rules and goons...
- forgotpwd16 4y ago
  >I guarantee Really? How?
  - laundermaf 4y ago
    Just look at how much they’re taking in. The figures can be found online and are in the tens of thousands. I’d think at least 1% of those users are macOS users.
  - nicce 4y ago
    You can’t publish app without paying that $99 yearly.
Lutger 4y ago
A negative response would be ridiculous, as is the clickbait title, and I don't think losing those users will actually be a great loss. LibreOffice is free as in beer. Not only the source, but also the binaries, and also for MacOs, are distributed for free. You can just go to the download page and grab it. The only thing thats being charged is going through the App Store. If this really 'backfires' as some people seem to suggest, I think the project is better off just abandoning the App Store.

zimbatm 4y ago

One question that often comes up on HN is how to make open source sustainable. This is one avenue that will allow funding of open source applications. What we found out with Spotif, Netflix, ... is that people are willing to pay for a convenient access to media. They could get the same content on pirate websites but it takes a while and there are some risks associated with it. This dynamic probably also true for software distribution channels. Users can download and compile the source, and side-load it on their phone. It's just more complicated and you don't get automated updates anymore. The main blocker right now is that people are used of getting things for free. Changing that social contract is going to be difficult.

nullify88 4y ago
Regarding convenient access, I'd argue that since there are many providers of TV media with their own libraries, the space is, if not already, becoming fragmented and inconvenient. I often open the wrong app, trying to find the media I want to watch. "Oh its only available in another region". "Oh it got pulled from Netflix". Providers introducing Ads will make it worse.
challenger-derp 4y ago
Well put. > ... willing to pay for convenient access ... Convenience as a monetization idea should be considered by more open-source devs: binaries compiled for various OS version, optional cloud compute/storage (e.g. Zotero), prioritized assistance (e.g. Tailscale), etc. > [...] people are used of getting things for free. Changing that social contract is going to be difficult. Society has to gotten used to paying for people's time & expertise in many conventional areas (e.g. healthcare, education, legal advice, food) but still aren't used to paying for open-source work they consume.
- asutekku 4y ago
  Because open source software is often freely available without major restrictions. All the other examples you posted have a very clear paywalls.
jillesvangurp 4y ago

bitigchi 4y ago

Strongly support this, as the revenue accumulated from the App Store will be used to improve the Mac version, which currently provides a horrible experience while using on a macOS system.

bzzzt 4y ago
I'm wondering if anybody uses it on Mac at all. If you don't need lots of features iWork is provided for free (and can handle lots of Office documents). If you need to have Microsoft Office you can buy it. Tried the Mac version a while ago. Looks horribly out of place, and it struggled to update the (retina resolution) screen with only a blank document open. That was a known bug but deemed unimportant...

cracrecry 4y ago

I can't see where the problem lies. Open Source is free as in freedom, but you can charge for it. E.g Long time ago I paid for Suse Linux distributions. I see everyday University's and companies laboratories and offices paying tens of thousands of dollars for proprietary software a year. It is not unreasonable to pay hundreds or thousands for OSS if with that you support development on the free.

mfer 4y ago
To add to this... I remember buying physical media to get my first distros of Linux. The source was open but the builds/dists were what I was paying for. Open source doesn't mean free distributions/builds or free support. If you look at the open source definition[1] it has to do with the source and what you can do with it. The key theme here is the source itself. I've spent a significant amount of my time around open source and having a healthy functional ecosystem of people around it is important. For that to happen you have to solve for the financial parts. Note, I'm not endorsing or rejecting this document foundation move. I've not thought about it enough to do so. [1] https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
- wjnc 4y ago
  Ha yes this is a nice memory. Getting Debian 3 cd’s and then failing to do my first install because obviously with only one PC you can’t look up a guide online. (My dad always bought the big OS manuals, like 30 cm of paper per MS DOS-version, but this was my first time on my own.) Struggle, struggle to get to text only. Go onto IRC for help. All channels block you because “don’t use root for online”. Well another few days and user created and even X works. Hmm, no gaming on Linux. Miss that. Back to XP. Decade later. Proton is a gift. Installation is easy. Did pick up the Linux basics old school. Never looked back. Decades fly by.
  - mattl 4y ago
    Was it IRC channels blocking you or the servers themselves?

mkl95 4y ago

This article's headline is a bit misleading > [...] only when sold via Apple's Mac App Store.

justinclift 4y ago

The approach they're taking here seems reasonable. If things work out ok with it, then it'll be a useful revenue stream for them to build further Community enhancing things. Hopefully. :)

cvccvroomvroom 4y ago

Does anyone use it? It's slow and doesn't do much that other things don't already do for free. This should reduce demand for it and put it out of reach of the global poor at the benefit of bringing in more money.

qwerty456127 4y ago
Almost everyone (except some businesses who used legal) I knew used pirated MS Office until about 2010. Most of them are using LibreOffice by now. MS Office is getting increasingly rare. Nowadays I would buy MS Office just because it looks eye-candy but they have seemingly abandoned selling classic Office versions. I absolutely refuse to use software that requires me to sign-in with an online account.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  In my company there's no escaping Google Drive. It's miles ahead of Microsoft if you want to collaborate on a document with multiple people.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    Google Docs*
- laundermaf 4y ago
  > Most of them are using LibreOffice by now s/LibreOffice/Google Docs Editors/
  - qwerty456127 4y ago
    As by my observations remote-centric teams use Google Docs or Collabora, classic companies use LibreOffice.
absove 4y ago
At a glance an iPhone seems like one of the worst general purpose computing device for the global poor so in this case it's maybe not that big of a deal.

Cloudef 4y ago

Makes sense, putting software on apple's store is not free after all

qwerty456127 4y ago

Clickbait. "only when sold via Apple's Mac App Store". It's totally Okay to charge for specific installation medium. E.g. you can sell Linux distro disks for whatever a price you want and keep the money (although donating a part of it would be nice), you just can't ban copying.

traceroute66 4y ago

It is likely an unpopular view, but IMHO the open source community's bête noire about charging for stuff is effectively of its own doing. Open source has been driven by quite a vocal community of "stick it to the man" generation of freetards who live by the faux-arguments that: (a) "because its open source it must be better" (b) "X is free, so why should anybody pay EvilCorp for a license ?" Then you have software like LibreOffice that literally shout FREE in their own product name ! The Open Source community has effectively won its own race to the bottom and its going to be tough if not impossible to reverse that trend. Especially as the open source community also bitches and moans about any sort of restrictive license. Don't misunderstand me, I understand the arguments for seeking to charge for open source. I'm just saying there's a genie that needs to be put back in its bottle somehow....

ForHackernews 4y ago
> LibreOffice that literally shout FREE in their own product name ! Libre != Gratis, as any speaker of a romance language could tell you. The free software (not "open source") community has always and forever been crystal-clear about this: Free software is about freedom, not zero price.
diffeomorphism 4y ago
Yeah, and we should help beer escape from its captivity and label cellphone contracts with a voice flatrate as free speech. > LibreOffice that literally shout FREE in their own product name I do not understand the point you are trying to make here. You were complaining about how English-speaking people misunderstand the word "free", but for "libre" there isn't this ambiguity?

boomboomsubban 4y ago

My only issue with this is that Apple gets 30% of the money.

titoCA321 4y ago
Well Document Foundation is "free" to host their own payment services and download servers deal with customers and MasterCard and Visa and American Express to avoid paying the 30%. But they did not, so they must figure that they can't beat the 30% once all the costs add up.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  Are they? In the mac store? Because the comparison with payment on their own website is kinda irrelevant.
  - titoCA321 4y ago
    If you sell through the Apple App Store, Apple charges 30%. This is the industry standard when you sell through storefronts PlayStation, Steam, Xbox, etc. If they sell through their website then Apple doesn't charge any fees. They knew well ahead that Apple would take a 30% cut so I don't understand why some commenters are saying about why this is a "problem."
    - diffeomorphism 4y ago
      Because they would make the same comment on the playstation, steam, xbox etc. store? I am not sure what you think the "problem" is supposed to be instead or why it needs quotation marks.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      > I don't understand why some commenters are saying about why this is a "problem." I'd prefer the money goes to the Document Foundation, who already need to pay to use the app store. It's not a major issue, but it's a downside to the decision in my eyes.

danpalmer 4y ago

In principle I support this, but I can't help but think it's going to backfire. Users buying LibreOffice on the Mac App Store are not going to be doing so because they care about free software – if they did they probably wouldn't be on a Mac and would probably download from official channels, perhaps donating directly if they want to contribute so that Apple don't take 30%. This means that those users buying it are users who would otherwise buy/use iWork, Microsoft Office, or Google Docs, and I'm pretty sure they're going to be in for a bit of a shock. LibreOffice is usable, but it's not the same in terms of usability. So, they're about to get a bunch of users who stumble onto their software, pay for it, have a bad experience, and then expect and are essentially entitled to customer support. Customer support through the App Store is hard at the best of times, so good luck. I somehow doubt the Document Foundation has factored this in to their pricing, or that they even have a customer support team.

leidenfrost 4y ago
Commercial FOSS software is in a weird situation The code is open, so anyone can compile it for free, and when enough people care, any of them with a bit of free time is permitted to distribute builds, like people do for Ungoogled Chromium. Also, the teams and organizations that create Free Software are often non-profit organizations and volunteers, where customer care and market analysis is nonexistent. The idea of selling free software is something that I see a lot in theory but almost never in practice. Sometimes I think it was just Stallman preaching what was applicable in his time bit it's not realistic in today's world.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  It is more realistic in today's world. There are a TON of open source projects I would be willing to support with corporate money if I could charge it as a "Sale" to my corp card, or invoice it as a "software sale" not a "Donation to a non-profit" I need no approval to buy software, I need approval to donate company money.
  - mschuster91 4y ago

zokier 4y ago

Hardly an unprecedented move. For example Krita is also selling on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita/ and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples around too.

zaik 4y ago
Conversations is selling on Google Play while being gratis on F-Droid: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conve...
- npteljes 4y ago
  OsmAnd does something very similar. The OsmAnd+ version is $25 in the Play store, and free on F-Droid.
HankB99 4y ago
And the MSFT store before that. https://krita.org/en/item/krita-in-the-windows-store-an-update/ https://krita.org/en/item/krita-in-the-windows-store-an-upda...
npteljes 4y ago
Another example is the (excellent) Mindustry game. $10 on Steam, "name your own price" on itch.io and other channels.

ElCheapo 4y ago

It costs $100 to publish apps on the App Store every single year. Plus Apple puts caveats and conditions that must be dealt with by people in the organization on company time. Publishing your program on the App Store makes it convenient for the user to keep it in sync and updated, but it costs the publisher money. LibreOffice sure needs a bit of funding (like Anki) so I'm totally for putting it up for sale. Let's also not forget that the App Store is a proprietary platform, meaning that publishing a FOSS program vs. a proprietary one is pretty much the same since you can only distribute binaries. Sure, you can download the source and install it on your machine if you want to pay $0, but you can already do exactly that by going to the developer's website and downloading the .DMG installer.

Twisell 4y ago

I actually bought the collabora vanilla Libre Office App on the Appstore that is mentioned in the article for 10€ because at some point the Mac HiDPI support was horrible on the stable community edition and I would rather pay 10€ than to figure out how to make thing work... Call me sheep I'm fine with it. I guess the official release is meant to appeal to such use case and profit from direct monetary contribution to the project. I hope collabora played it fair an square and contributed to upstream, but an official release is a good way to ensure no middle party can cash in for a minimal packaging effort.

smileybarry 4y ago

Paint.NET does something similar and charges ~$8 on the Windows/Microsoft Store. You get smoother updates (via the Store and MSIX instead of their updater), easier installation and to support the project. Totally fine by me and I ended up buying it there for the auto updates.

everyone 4y ago

You have to pay $100 a year to apple just to be able to have stuff on their store. Also you need to buy the ridiculously overpriced apple hardware to run xcode in order to submit to store. They would need to charge something to cover those costs.

pabs3 4y ago

I note that Krita has a similar model; download for free from their site, or from the app stores for money.

pabs3 4y ago

I feel like there are always perverse incentives with open source business models, but I'm not sure I can see any with this one. I would of course prefer it if people could pay what they want (or if they linked to the gratis version), since there might be folks stuck on macOS and that don't have spare cash this week to pay for LibreOffice.

pabs3 4y ago
I guess the model (without pay-what-you-want) punishes poor people with the extra cognitive load of installing the gratis version outside of the presumably more convenient App Store flow.
- benj111 4y ago
  Ah yes. The poor people. With Macs...
  - pabs3 4y ago
    I expect there are plenty of working poor folks with macs. Maybe they could afford one when they had a job but are now on welfare. Maybe they got a hand-me-down from a friend. Maybe they found one in a dumpster or elsewhere.
    - benj111 4y ago
      Perhaps, but if you're going to come up with such hypotheticals, you can't say anything is rich/poor. They could have won the Roll Royce in a competition. They may have a medical need for that champagne. Ultimately in any of those scenarios we are talking first world poor, so the amount is relatively still small. Further if they're 'working poor' that can afford Mac's, maybe they aren't that poor? Or if they are they obviously haven't got their priorities straight, and once you get to the point of saying society should help people on low incomes because they buy a Mac instead of food or some other nice thing they might spend their disposable income on, then you've lost me for one. Edit: I really thought you were being sarcastic in your first reply. Now I'm not so sure? I really can't see how that's a legitimate pov. If I buy cheaper less processed food am I being discriminated against because I have to spend more time peeling my own potatoes? If I buy a cheaper car with a smaller engine do I get discriminated against because I have to press the accelerator harder and change gears more? Poorer people have less money. Cheaper things tend to be less convenient than more expensive things. That's just how it works. It's not discrination, it's economics.

taylodl 4y ago

'Free Software' has always referred to freedom, not price. You get the source and you're free to change the source to resolve whatever local issue you may have.

dethos 4y ago

By reading the article, it seems a reasonable approach. Similar to what several other open-source projects are already doing.

insane_dreamer 4y ago

Reasonable approach. It costs actual $ to publish apps through the Mac App Store (which this is limited to, for now at least), even if devs contribute their time for free.

nashashmi 4y ago

Similarly Paid version of paint.net is available thru Microsoft store. All this does is make Apple Richer with the 30% tax. Can I also host Libre office on appstore?

thebitstick 4y ago

[NeoOffice](https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php) is free on the App Store and offers Dark Mode while LibreOffice for macOS still does not.