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I would like us as an industry to promote paying for things we use. Crazy idea, I know. Open source is great and fun and an incredible force multiplier for the

I would like us as an industry to promote paying for things we use. Crazy idea, I know. Open source is great and fun and an incredible force multiplier for the world, but when you want to do this stuff for a living, you have to charge money for it somehow, and if you're a software business, and not just software adjacent, it means charging for software.

phero_cnstrcts 2y ago
As long as it is not via subscriptions…
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Everyone goes to subscriptions, because trying to get new customers every month at a rate that pays everyone's salaries, at a typical engineering level, plus everyone else on the company, and office rental, doesn't scale, specially in developer tools where many prefer to suffer with lesser tooling than paying.
  - Nathanba 2y ago
    Subscriptions are only okay for me if it's done like Jetbrains does it, where you can keep the old versions permanently. Partly because it implies what has to be true for monthly payments to make sense: that the software keeps getting better and keeps getting support for various tech advances that happen and tools and databases. If I'm paying monthly for something that doesn't cost them anything then that feels illogical on my side. This should become a thing with online services too, at least let me keep some kind of upgraded version of your service after I stop paying. Something please, anything to make me feel less like a chump for having paid and then ending up with nothing in the end.
cube2222 2y ago
I’m not sure if that’s clear or not from my comments, but I completely agree (and pay for JetBrains editors, amongst other tools). Though in the case of “fundamental / ecosystem center” tools like code editors which e.g. others will build plugins for I believe there’s immense value in it being open-source. Thus, I’m rooting for them to find a business model where they get our money without making it non-open-source.
jarule 2y ago
Pay-for closed-source is profitable for about a week. Then some asshole offers a shittier but free facsimile and community contributions render it good enough to kill the original.
- andrewmcwatters 2y ago
  I think we're all pretty familiar with this cycle, but there do exist durable products that don't succumb to this issue within reason and the burden rests on the original authors to find ways to create themselves a moat like any other business.
everforward 2y ago
I don’t think this will ever happen. Software Engineering is fairly unique in that our tools are effectively the same thing we create (code). If carpenters could build saws out of wood, they would probably make their own tools (and many do, for tools that can be made of wood like hand saws). You generally have to sell goods to people who can’t make them themselves. How often do carpenters buy shelves instead of making them? How often do constructions workers hire someone else to build a shed for them? I don’t care for closed source editors in general. My editor and its configuration are one of the most important tools I have, and I don’t want to hand someone the ability to remotely disable it. I would rather go back to using plugin-less vim, because I can at least depend on the tool. JetBrains is probably the only one I would even consider, and I still don’t care for it (and really hate having a separate editor per-language if I don’t have to).

phero_cnstrcts 2y ago

As long as it is not via subscriptions…

pjmlp 2y ago
Everyone goes to subscriptions, because trying to get new customers every month at a rate that pays everyone's salaries, at a typical engineering level, plus everyone else on the company, and office rental, doesn't scale, specially in developer tools where many prefer to suffer with lesser tooling than paying.
- Nathanba 2y ago
  Subscriptions are only okay for me if it's done like Jetbrains does it, where you can keep the old versions permanently. Partly because it implies what has to be true for monthly payments to make sense: that the software keeps getting better and keeps getting support for various tech advances that happen and tools and databases. If I'm paying monthly for something that doesn't cost them anything then that feels illogical on my side. This should become a thing with online services too, at least let me keep some kind of upgraded version of your service after I stop paying. Something please, anything to make me feel less like a chump for having paid and then ending up with nothing in the end.

cube2222 2y ago

I’m not sure if that’s clear or not from my comments, but I completely agree (and pay for JetBrains editors, amongst other tools). Though in the case of “fundamental / ecosystem center” tools like code editors which e.g. others will build plugins for I believe there’s immense value in it being open-source. Thus, I’m rooting for them to find a business model where they get our money without making it non-open-source.

jarule 2y ago

Pay-for closed-source is profitable for about a week. Then some asshole offers a shittier but free facsimile and community contributions render it good enough to kill the original.

andrewmcwatters 2y ago
I think we're all pretty familiar with this cycle, but there do exist durable products that don't succumb to this issue within reason and the burden rests on the original authors to find ways to create themselves a moat like any other business.

everforward 2y ago

I don’t think this will ever happen. Software Engineering is fairly unique in that our tools are effectively the same thing we create (code). If carpenters could build saws out of wood, they would probably make their own tools (and many do, for tools that can be made of wood like hand saws). You generally have to sell goods to people who can’t make them themselves. How often do carpenters buy shelves instead of making them? How often do constructions workers hire someone else to build a shed for them? I don’t care for closed source editors in general. My editor and its configuration are one of the most important tools I have, and I don’t want to hand someone the ability to remotely disable it. I would rather go back to using plugin-less vim, because I can at least depend on the tool. JetBrains is probably the only one I would even consider, and I still don’t care for it (and really hate having a separate editor per-language if I don’t have to).