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> I obviously can't afford to give my work away for free, but for you to get maximum benefit out of it, it needs to be open source. Who is it obvious to? This

> I obviously can't afford to give my work away for free, but for you to get maximum benefit out of it, it needs to be open source. Who is it obvious to? This is the first time I've heard of you. For all I know you could afford to give it away for free. And often in the case of open source, you reap the benefits later. Sounds like a great project, and the screenshots are promising.

ajross 14y ago
It's ransomware, yeah. Historically this is never (I mean, literally never AFAIK) been a good way to start a successful open source project. This might fool a few people (who like source in principle, but who don't want to muck with it themselves) into thinking it's "almost as good as open" and contributing. But it's deeply, deeply disrespectful to the community you will actually need to build if you want this to succeeed. Basically the funders end up being dupes; there's no community and probably never will be. I agree it looks cute, and I'd love to try it if it were available. But I certainly won't be funding it.
- fxtentacle 14y ago
  That seems to be well-reasoned criticism. I think i would need to further polish it before people will invest time on their own accord into keeping the open source project alive. To achieve that, i need some money to pay to pay for work and design. Giving software away for free and asking for donations doesn't seem to work well. At least i got like 500 support requests but no single donation yet for my last email project: http://tentacleworks.net/Site/Nostalgy_4_Mail.app.html http://tentacleworks.net/Site/Nostalgy_4_Mail.app.html So i thought that the best way to make this work would be to ask interested users to pay for the development costs, like Light Table: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table Do you have any experience / suggestions on how to launch this?
  - Vivtek 14y ago
    No. You don't need to polish it further. If it were free right now, I'd be using it today and helping you polish it. As it is, yeah, I feel disrespected. You want my free help (or the free help of other somebodies like me) but you want to be paid for your work. Obviously. Sorry, I really don't mean to be That Guy, but you are not coming across as anything like sympathetic, and I am 100% your target audience. Light Table is a darling of the community, but I get the same vibe there. Although, to be honest, he's got a huge (yet unspecified) vision and is asking to be "freed up" to work on it, whereas you've scratched your own itch and already have a working project but want to be paid before you'll let people use it. If you want my advice (which is worth as much as it costs you) put it on Github now and offer a supported, shrinkwrapped version for sale. Then you get paid, at least more than you're paid now, while still having an open source project. "But nobody will buy it if they can just download it," you say, and you may be right - or maybe not. It's worth a try. Sell a souped-up version, sell corporate bulk contracts with support, I don't know. There are lots of open source business models that have been applied with varying success. But don't, for the love of God, sell your time to the open source community.
    - fxtentacle 14y ago
      "You want my free help" that makes me wonder. I thought of it more like this: I'm selling the basic software once-off so that afterwards anyone can customize it as he/she pleases. For my taste, it's good enough so that i can use it :) so i'm not really asking for free help. I'm asking for money so that i can share my toys with everyone ;) But you both make a very valid point for making it open source as soon as possible. And it seems as if you have a good overview of the ways to monetize open source. Do you know how companies any of those Open Source companies ensure that none of their competitors just downloads all the source code and sells their exact same product?
      - sp332 14y ago
        They don't. Once you've released the code under an open-source license, anyone (including a competitor) can use the code in any way you allowed in the license. The strongest protection they use is trademarks, not copyrights. For example CentOS is exactly basically the same as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but they can't use Red Hat's name or logos. Also Firefox has several forks, but none of them are allowed to use the Firefox name or logos. Basically, you need to choose your license carefully in order to make sure it reflects what you want to happen with your code. There is a lot of flexibility https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatible...
  - izak30 14y ago
    I like this model. I like open source because if you get hit by a bus as an indie dev, somebody like me can keep going. I do disagree that people wouldn't use it now (if it is in some state of working) and you could raise money if you want to spend more time/add more features/pay a designer and then it would be up to the community if they wanted those things or not. Or you could keep it closed and ask for money and I would still consider buying it. I in no way feel disrespected by you saying that you'll make it open once you have hit some level of funding that you feel is appropriate, I can contribute or not at that point. One anecdote deserves another I guess.
- raphman 14y ago
  Maybe I am not representative of the general audience but I'd be happy to pay for a good IMAP client and even happier if I can fix small annoyances myself.
- npsimons 14y ago
  While I can appreciate your misgivings, I might point out a counter data point: Blender. Now, I'm not saying this software is Blender, but if it can be ransomed into OSS for an equitable price, why not?
  - benatkin 14y ago
    The scenario was materially different with Blender. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History
    - ajross 14y ago
      Exactly. I actually did contribute to the Blender fund. It was a real, working product, with verifiable quality, and the offer was concrete: 100k euro for the known-to-be-existing source. I'm willing to pay for that. I'm not willing to pay for someone to "work on" a project I can't touch yet; especially knowing the failure rate single-developer software projects have. (And yes, there were all sorts of technical squabbles about the Blender release, like license choice and worries about whether the IP would turn out to be "pure". But everyone was pure of intent, and things worked out.)
- SwellJoe 14y ago
  I've used a ransomware model a few times in the past. It worked out OK. The source got released, the coder got paid (never me, it was always stuff I was contracting out to well-known hackers within the community where the work was being done and I was contributing about half of the money...the ransom was to sweeten the pot), everybody was happy. And, I've contributed to ransoms as an outsider, as well. I don't think it's "deeply, deeply disrespectful" to anyone. It's asking for money so someone can work on what they want to (and presumably some others want them to do the same). No one is forced to participate or contribute. The only way it is disrespectful is if the code doesn't get released or proves to be shoddy after the funding is raised.

ajross 14y ago

It's ransomware, yeah. Historically this is never (I mean, literally never AFAIK) been a good way to start a successful open source project. This might fool a few people (who like source in principle, but who don't want to muck with it themselves) into thinking it's "almost as good as open" and contributing. But it's deeply, deeply disrespectful to the community you will actually need to build if you want this to succeeed. Basically the funders end up being dupes; there's no community and probably never will be. I agree it looks cute, and I'd love to try it if it were available. But I certainly won't be funding it.

fxtentacle 14y ago
That seems to be well-reasoned criticism. I think i would need to further polish it before people will invest time on their own accord into keeping the open source project alive. To achieve that, i need some money to pay to pay for work and design. Giving software away for free and asking for donations doesn't seem to work well. At least i got like 500 support requests but no single donation yet for my last email project: http://tentacleworks.net/Site/Nostalgy_4_Mail.app.html http://tentacleworks.net/Site/Nostalgy_4_Mail.app.html So i thought that the best way to make this work would be to ask interested users to pay for the development costs, like Light Table: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table Do you have any experience / suggestions on how to launch this?
- Vivtek 14y ago
  No. You don't need to polish it further. If it were free right now, I'd be using it today and helping you polish it. As it is, yeah, I feel disrespected. You want my free help (or the free help of other somebodies like me) but you want to be paid for your work. Obviously. Sorry, I really don't mean to be That Guy, but you are not coming across as anything like sympathetic, and I am 100% your target audience. Light Table is a darling of the community, but I get the same vibe there. Although, to be honest, he's got a huge (yet unspecified) vision and is asking to be "freed up" to work on it, whereas you've scratched your own itch and already have a working project but want to be paid before you'll let people use it. If you want my advice (which is worth as much as it costs you) put it on Github now and offer a supported, shrinkwrapped version for sale. Then you get paid, at least more than you're paid now, while still having an open source project. "But nobody will buy it if they can just download it," you say, and you may be right - or maybe not. It's worth a try. Sell a souped-up version, sell corporate bulk contracts with support, I don't know. There are lots of open source business models that have been applied with varying success. But don't, for the love of God, sell your time to the open source community.
  - fxtentacle 14y ago
    "You want my free help" that makes me wonder. I thought of it more like this: I'm selling the basic software once-off so that afterwards anyone can customize it as he/she pleases. For my taste, it's good enough so that i can use it :) so i'm not really asking for free help. I'm asking for money so that i can share my toys with everyone ;) But you both make a very valid point for making it open source as soon as possible. And it seems as if you have a good overview of the ways to monetize open source. Do you know how companies any of those Open Source companies ensure that none of their competitors just downloads all the source code and sells their exact same product?
    - sp332 14y ago
      They don't. Once you've released the code under an open-source license, anyone (including a competitor) can use the code in any way you allowed in the license. The strongest protection they use is trademarks, not copyrights. For example CentOS is exactly basically the same as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but they can't use Red Hat's name or logos. Also Firefox has several forks, but none of them are allowed to use the Firefox name or logos. Basically, you need to choose your license carefully in order to make sure it reflects what you want to happen with your code. There is a lot of flexibility https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatible...
- izak30 14y ago
  I like this model. I like open source because if you get hit by a bus as an indie dev, somebody like me can keep going. I do disagree that people wouldn't use it now (if it is in some state of working) and you could raise money if you want to spend more time/add more features/pay a designer and then it would be up to the community if they wanted those things or not. Or you could keep it closed and ask for money and I would still consider buying it. I in no way feel disrespected by you saying that you'll make it open once you have hit some level of funding that you feel is appropriate, I can contribute or not at that point. One anecdote deserves another I guess.
raphman 14y ago
Maybe I am not representative of the general audience but I'd be happy to pay for a good IMAP client and even happier if I can fix small annoyances myself.
npsimons 14y ago
While I can appreciate your misgivings, I might point out a counter data point: Blender. Now, I'm not saying this software is Blender, but if it can be ransomed into OSS for an equitable price, why not?
- benatkin 14y ago
  The scenario was materially different with Blender. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History
  - ajross 14y ago
    Exactly. I actually did contribute to the Blender fund. It was a real, working product, with verifiable quality, and the offer was concrete: 100k euro for the known-to-be-existing source. I'm willing to pay for that. I'm not willing to pay for someone to "work on" a project I can't touch yet; especially knowing the failure rate single-developer software projects have. (And yes, there were all sorts of technical squabbles about the Blender release, like license choice and worries about whether the IP would turn out to be "pure". But everyone was pure of intent, and things worked out.)
SwellJoe 14y ago
I've used a ransomware model a few times in the past. It worked out OK. The source got released, the coder got paid (never me, it was always stuff I was contracting out to well-known hackers within the community where the work was being done and I was contributing about half of the money...the ransom was to sweeten the pot), everybody was happy. And, I've contributed to ransoms as an outsider, as well. I don't think it's "deeply, deeply disrespectful" to anyone. It's asking for money so someone can work on what they want to (and presumably some others want them to do the same). No one is forced to participate or contribute. The only way it is disrespectful is if the code doesn't get released or proves to be shoddy after the funding is raised.