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Agreed. It irks me when proprietary software developers ask for donations for a 'free as in beer' work. Either offer your product as a paid service/item, or mak

by morbius 11y ago

Agreed. It irks me when proprietary software developers ask for donations for a 'free as in beer' work. Either offer your product as a paid service/item, or make it open source and free as in speech software. The middle ground is just annoying.

secstate 11y ago
Not sure why you're downvoted. KSP offered a one-time purchase of the beta for a promise of a crack at the 1.0, and they came through marvellously. There's an example of doing a closed-codebase project for money right.
robertfw 11y ago
Then don't donate. It's their project, their time and effort, their choice.
- eyko 11y ago
  And our money, which they're asking for.
- ggchappell 11y ago
  It is. However: (1) People who make things (of any kind) publicly available are often not clear on how the public perceives them. It can be helpful to let them know. (2) This fellow has obviously put a lot of work into the program. But there are limits on how far development by one person, in their spare time, is likely to go. There are two reasonably sustainable development models: establish a clear funding stream by charging for the product, or release the source code and do open development. This fellow is doing neither. If people admire this work, and want it to continue to be developed, then they have an incentive to encourage the original developer to switch to a more sustainable model. and ... (3) Is there anything wrong with offering a trade? "I'd like it if you did X. If you do, then I'll give you money."
  - benihana 11y ago
    I agree with everything you said. But this isn't what's happening in this thread. In this thread, a random, semi-anonymous person saw that someone was offering their work for free and asking for donations, and planted their feet firmly in the ground and let everyone know that they refuse to donate unless the code is licensed in exactly the way they like.
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      When you say I'm semi-anonymous, I assume you didn't bother to even click on the profile link. There you'll find more than enough to send me a pizza, if you are so inclined. I do not hide and I am very public about my opinions. In fact, I think this project, being closed, is a disservice to the craft of software creation. It's great work and, yet, all we can see is its results rendered on a screen. It's also limited to a single operating system and CPU architecture. Opening it up would enrich other groups and allow it to be enriched by them. I place no unreasonable condition on my donation. In fact, it's my donation and no legally allowed condition should be deemed unreasonable.
      - ggchappell 11y ago
        > There you'll find more than enough to send me a pizza, if you are so inclined. TIL that Dominos delivers in Brazil. Question: How common is it? I.e., do huge numbers of people in Brazil order delivery pizzas, or is it more of a niche thing?
    - ggchappell 11y ago
      I don't know that there is a clear distinction. "If you do X, then I'll do Y." "I absolutely refuse to do Y, unless you do X exactly the way I want it done." The above two are making essentially the same statement. The difference is one of attitude. And the attitude behind a short online text message, is something very easy to misinterpret -- or so recent history suggests, IMHO.
sneak 11y ago
Not everyone believes in copyleft - or copyright, for that matter.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  I, however, do. Very much, in fact.
  - bottled_poe 11y ago
    It's funny that you were down-voted for this comment. How dare you have a minority opinion!
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      I'm quite surprised it is a minority opinion among hackers.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        You're on a website chock full of users trying to make money by selling stuff. Of course they're going to be pro-selling stuff, even in sub-optimal closed-source forms. MIT licence is pretty popular here for exactly that reason. You may have avoided downvotes if you'd couched your argument in terms of licences. Perhaps.
        rbanffy 11y ago
        The other thing that surprised me is the marked shift according to timezone. Right now, noon at GMT-3, I see upvotes for my opinions. However, as noon moved to the US West and mid-Pacific, a steady flow of bad karma hit my comments. There is a master's or doctoral thesis in there somewhere waiting to be extracted...
harperlee 11y ago
I like the payment process with a slider that can go to a price of 0, that had Ubuntu at some point (perhaps currently).

by morbius 11y ago

secstate 11y ago

Not sure why you're downvoted. KSP offered a one-time purchase of the beta for a promise of a crack at the 1.0, and they came through marvellously. There's an example of doing a closed-codebase project for money right.

robertfw 11y ago

Then don't donate. It's their project, their time and effort, their choice.

eyko 11y ago
And our money, which they're asking for.
ggchappell 11y ago
It is. However: (1) People who make things (of any kind) publicly available are often not clear on how the public perceives them. It can be helpful to let them know. (2) This fellow has obviously put a lot of work into the program. But there are limits on how far development by one person, in their spare time, is likely to go. There are two reasonably sustainable development models: establish a clear funding stream by charging for the product, or release the source code and do open development. This fellow is doing neither. If people admire this work, and want it to continue to be developed, then they have an incentive to encourage the original developer to switch to a more sustainable model. and ... (3) Is there anything wrong with offering a trade? "I'd like it if you did X. If you do, then I'll give you money."
- benihana 11y ago
  I agree with everything you said. But this isn't what's happening in this thread. In this thread, a random, semi-anonymous person saw that someone was offering their work for free and asking for donations, and planted their feet firmly in the ground and let everyone know that they refuse to donate unless the code is licensed in exactly the way they like.
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    When you say I'm semi-anonymous, I assume you didn't bother to even click on the profile link. There you'll find more than enough to send me a pizza, if you are so inclined. I do not hide and I am very public about my opinions. In fact, I think this project, being closed, is a disservice to the craft of software creation. It's great work and, yet, all we can see is its results rendered on a screen. It's also limited to a single operating system and CPU architecture. Opening it up would enrich other groups and allow it to be enriched by them. I place no unreasonable condition on my donation. In fact, it's my donation and no legally allowed condition should be deemed unreasonable.
    - ggchappell 11y ago
      > There you'll find more than enough to send me a pizza, if you are so inclined. TIL that Dominos delivers in Brazil. Question: How common is it? I.e., do huge numbers of people in Brazil order delivery pizzas, or is it more of a niche thing?
  - ggchappell 11y ago
    I don't know that there is a clear distinction. "If you do X, then I'll do Y." "I absolutely refuse to do Y, unless you do X exactly the way I want it done." The above two are making essentially the same statement. The difference is one of attitude. And the attitude behind a short online text message, is something very easy to misinterpret -- or so recent history suggests, IMHO.

sneak 11y ago

Not everyone believes in copyleft - or copyright, for that matter.

rbanffy 11y ago
I, however, do. Very much, in fact.
- bottled_poe 11y ago
  It's funny that you were down-voted for this comment. How dare you have a minority opinion!
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    I'm quite surprised it is a minority opinion among hackers.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      You're on a website chock full of users trying to make money by selling stuff. Of course they're going to be pro-selling stuff, even in sub-optimal closed-source forms. MIT licence is pretty popular here for exactly that reason. You may have avoided downvotes if you'd couched your argument in terms of licences. Perhaps.
      - rbanffy 11y ago
        The other thing that surprised me is the marked shift according to timezone. Right now, noon at GMT-3, I see upvotes for my opinions. However, as noon moved to the US West and mid-Pacific, a steady flow of bad karma hit my comments. There is a master's or doctoral thesis in there somewhere waiting to be extracted...

harperlee 11y ago

I like the payment process with a slider that can go to a price of 0, that had Ubuntu at some point (perhaps currently).