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I think given that babel is used by many many corporate entities, an e.g. $5/month payment would not stop them from using it, IF that payment was trivial to mak

I think given that babel is used by many many corporate entities, an e.g. $5/month payment would not stop them from using it, IF that payment was trivial to make. I'd guess what's holding that back is that a) that fee is not necessary for them to use it, and b) it's hard to fight for paying money that's not technically necessary, and c) getting a license for anything approved can be a pain. What I don't think prevents this is that companies (even startups) think it's too expensive.

CountSessine 4y ago
What it really means is that they like using it when it’s free and that the cost of switching away from Babel to an alternative is less than the cost of supporting Babel.
- xmprt 4y ago
  The cost of supporting Babel (and other open source products in general) is more an administrative and political cost than a financial one in a lot of places.
  - foobiekr 4y ago
    It’s actually probably easier to get $20k approved annually than $5k. The bigger number implies skin in the game at all steps in the process and has an air of legitimacy.
krisoft 4y ago
> babel is used by many many corporate entities, an e.g. $5/month payment would not stop them from using it, IF that payment was trivial to make But for a corporation undertaking the obligation to pay any amount of money is not trivial to do. Someone inside has to justify the expense, probably write a document about it, depending on the corporation all kind of hoops need to be jumped, decision makers convinced, checks and gates passed. It is probably not meaningfully harder to do all of these for a $50k yearly licence than for $5 monthly licence.
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  With proliferation of cheap monthly subscriptions I believe the processes in the businesses would adapt - but yes, it would take some time. Still, the other point (why pay if there is no obligation) is a bigger obstacle. One obvious solution is to provide paid extensions on top of free core product, but that might lead to forks if enough people are interested in the functionality and not willing to pay (/ use proprietary software). I believe the future is in "fair use" licenses - those that grant users freedom to use for their (non-competing) business and to repair as needed, but that allow original developers to charge money for extra features and for services without worrying that competition will undercut them on market (without supporting the product). I'm following the "cloud protection" licenses and hope that one of them gains enough traction to become a serious contender to FOSS.
yCombLinks 4y ago
In our current system, it would be far easier to get 1 corporation to give you $1000 a year than to get 200 of them to give you $5 a year.
- briantakita 4y ago
  How would changing our current system make it easier for 200 to give $5 a year? To me it seems like there's a coordination cost of having 200 to do an organized thing vs 1 to do the same thing as the organized 200.
  - yCombLinks 4y ago
    Give dev's an ad hoc budget to buy whatever tools they need under a certain total per year, rather than have 5 meetings and 2 months of sales pitches for a tool.

CountSessine 4y ago

What it really means is that they like using it when it’s free and that the cost of switching away from Babel to an alternative is less than the cost of supporting Babel.

xmprt 4y ago
The cost of supporting Babel (and other open source products in general) is more an administrative and political cost than a financial one in a lot of places.
- foobiekr 4y ago
  It’s actually probably easier to get $20k approved annually than $5k. The bigger number implies skin in the game at all steps in the process and has an air of legitimacy.

krisoft 4y ago

> babel is used by many many corporate entities, an e.g. $5/month payment would not stop them from using it, IF that payment was trivial to make But for a corporation undertaking the obligation to pay any amount of money is not trivial to do. Someone inside has to justify the expense, probably write a document about it, depending on the corporation all kind of hoops need to be jumped, decision makers convinced, checks and gates passed. It is probably not meaningfully harder to do all of these for a $50k yearly licence than for $5 monthly licence.

bornfreddy 4y ago
With proliferation of cheap monthly subscriptions I believe the processes in the businesses would adapt - but yes, it would take some time. Still, the other point (why pay if there is no obligation) is a bigger obstacle. One obvious solution is to provide paid extensions on top of free core product, but that might lead to forks if enough people are interested in the functionality and not willing to pay (/ use proprietary software). I believe the future is in "fair use" licenses - those that grant users freedom to use for their (non-competing) business and to repair as needed, but that allow original developers to charge money for extra features and for services without worrying that competition will undercut them on market (without supporting the product). I'm following the "cloud protection" licenses and hope that one of them gains enough traction to become a serious contender to FOSS.

yCombLinks 4y ago

In our current system, it would be far easier to get 1 corporation to give you $1000 a year than to get 200 of them to give you $5 a year.

briantakita 4y ago
How would changing our current system make it easier for 200 to give $5 a year? To me it seems like there's a coordination cost of having 200 to do an organized thing vs 1 to do the same thing as the organized 200.
- yCombLinks 4y ago
  Give dev's an ad hoc budget to buy whatever tools they need under a certain total per year, rather than have 5 meetings and 2 months of sales pitches for a tool.