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Just adding to this for the record since this was silently downvoted. Most businesses make decisions based on $$. And they are happy to buy anything that helps
by pickingdinner 3y ago
Just adding to this for the record since this was silently downvoted.
Most businesses make decisions based on $$. And they are happy to buy anything that helps their business. It's the cost of doing business. Think shopify apps. Most of those apps could be open source even if the only way to install them instantly was buying them through the app site. So having a paid for app for an open source project would be a great way get paid (or fund raise). Kind of like Linux being packaged for sale on the shelves of bookstores. That wasn't free, but people would buy it.
For business transactions, adding virtues and missions and meaning doesn't really come into play unless the marketing department has some plans that coincide with whatever virtues being sold. If the business is small, then maybe the founder. But again, it's not directly relevant to the product and use of it. Activism can be distracting when all you want to do is take care of business.
"If you agree with me, help me (or don't, you can still have it)" is a tougher sell compared to "this is $100, thank you, btw i believe in this" especially to the person/entity that could easily afford it (and pays for proprietary licenses already).
It's clear that if more OSS projects did better at making themselves money, they'd survive and maybe afford the price of continuing to improve and get better. This is in the interest of open source. I never took os to mean non-profit, although it has been synonymous with not-able-to-profit for quite some time now.
If OSI is an authority, maybe it would be in the best interest of "the community" if more help (in the form of guidelines and best practices) was provided in recouping development costs.