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> On the consumer side, open source is inherently for enthusiasts Consumers care about whether software works for their needs, they don't care whether it's pro

> On the consumer side, open source is inherently for enthusiasts Consumers care about whether software works for their needs, they don't care whether it's proprietary or open source. And often there's also the factor of price. The problem with FOSS is that too few developers have the willingness to ask for money directly, like selling binaries instead of sponsorships/donations which have terrible conversion rates. https://piero.dev/2023/02/foss-funding-chapter-2-binaries/ https://piero.dev/2023/02/foss-funding-chapter-2-binaries/ Other monetization methods proposed in the article just don't scale, aside from the running a SaaS business which is 100% a great way to fund work.

vetinari 3y ago
> The problem with FOSS is that too few developers have the willingness to ask for money directly, like selling binaries instead of sponsorships/donations While I agree with you, this leads to confusion: the naive users from your first sentence then say, that they thought it is open source, why the author asks for money? This can be seen for example with android apps, that have GPL-licensed sources on Github, free binaries in F-droid and paid binaries in Google Apps Store. So basically the author is charging only a convenience fee, but this confusion still arises.
ghaff 3y ago
As I understand the proposal is that the source code is indeed open source and available freely but you have to pay to download the binary? It can be done. Some companies do things along these lines. But, especially at the consumer level, that introduces a lot of adoption friction. I imagine most users will close the page and move on once they saw they needed to build a binary themselves to try something out for free.
vharuck 3y ago
People who buy things expect quality, service, and interoperability. In my experience, FOSS projects often have the quality, but they lack service (they may ignore suggestions or unusual bugs). Interoperability is usually left as an exercise for the user. If a user buys a binary, the seller should expect demands for work or a refund. But people don't expect refunds for donations. And it takes a lot of money to attach strings to a donation.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  all valid, until the ubiquity of modern net use. Many people dont make individual purchases, instead they subscribe to bundled services which in turn gate-keep at a company store. The amounts of money moving in walled-gardens now are vastly larger than any individual products ever saw.
mistrial9 3y ago
.. because asking for money generally fails.. Huge "shareware" projects garnered a total of five figures kind of money, ever. Plenty of projects fail to get a thousand dollars, ever. The market is filled with success stories, to you dont see the misery of the failed ones.. especially when the stakes get large, such as phone monthly revenues, or ad streams on major consumer brands. The management that grabs the reigns there are hired specifically to push others out and maximize gains.

vetinari 3y ago

> The problem with FOSS is that too few developers have the willingness to ask for money directly, like selling binaries instead of sponsorships/donations While I agree with you, this leads to confusion: the naive users from your first sentence then say, that they thought it is open source, why the author asks for money? This can be seen for example with android apps, that have GPL-licensed sources on Github, free binaries in F-droid and paid binaries in Google Apps Store. So basically the author is charging only a convenience fee, but this confusion still arises.

ghaff 3y ago

As I understand the proposal is that the source code is indeed open source and available freely but you have to pay to download the binary? It can be done. Some companies do things along these lines. But, especially at the consumer level, that introduces a lot of adoption friction. I imagine most users will close the page and move on once they saw they needed to build a binary themselves to try something out for free.

vharuck 3y ago

People who buy things expect quality, service, and interoperability. In my experience, FOSS projects often have the quality, but they lack service (they may ignore suggestions or unusual bugs). Interoperability is usually left as an exercise for the user. If a user buys a binary, the seller should expect demands for work or a refund. But people don't expect refunds for donations. And it takes a lot of money to attach strings to a donation.

mistrial9 3y ago
all valid, until the ubiquity of modern net use. Many people dont make individual purchases, instead they subscribe to bundled services which in turn gate-keep at a company store. The amounts of money moving in walled-gardens now are vastly larger than any individual products ever saw.

mistrial9 3y ago

.. because asking for money generally fails.. Huge "shareware" projects garnered a total of five figures kind of money, ever. Plenty of projects fail to get a thousand dollars, ever. The market is filled with success stories, to you dont see the misery of the failed ones.. especially when the stakes get large, such as phone monthly revenues, or ad streams on major consumer brands. The management that grabs the reigns there are hired specifically to push others out and maximize gains.