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>1. What is the alternative for user facing open source projects? The icentives for GitHub are even more misaligned as they want to attract developers and not u

>1. What is the alternative for user facing open source projects? The icentives for GitHub are even more misaligned as they want to attract developers and not users. I am wondering how long it takes till they shut down their binary release feature again, once everyone puts their binary releases there. At this point I have to wonder - why not have a paid download service for OSS builds - like 1-2$ or whatever symbolic price minimum - this will probably cover the download costs and maybe leave your project some tiny bit of cash. At the same time provide a free build link on torrents so that your users can access it trough torrents if they don't want to pay - it doesn't cost you anything (even the bandwidth if your project is hosted on something like GH pages). So you pay 1-2$ for convenience or go download trough torrents or if you can't use torrents and you're brave search google for mirrors.

JohnTHaller 11y ago
The simple answer is that 98% of users won't pay it. Source: I manage an open source project used by a few million people.
- moonchrome 11y ago
  But I'm not saying provide free download as an alternative - I'm saying provide binaries only with the 1/2$ fee - if the person doesn't want to pay they still have the torrents and the source. For example if github provided this service instead of binary releases - you would receive say 50% of the income they keep 50% for bandwidth/service. If the person uses alternative means than you're not spending resources anyway.
- espadrine 11y ago
  98% seems like a very generous user-base. Getting 20k$ from the 2% in your million users would maintain the download server for at least twenty years. I assume it's much lower than 2%, which would fit my experience. From about a thousand users (a conservative estimate), I get around 10m$/user on average, and 0.3% of paying users.
  - justizin 11y ago
    And the SFLC will help you to create the onerous organization you need in order to collect, possess, and spend that money by committee. And that is why everyone turns to the ASF for help in this situation, since they already exist, but that's probably not sustainable. The answer is not clear.

JohnTHaller 11y ago

The simple answer is that 98% of users won't pay it. Source: I manage an open source project used by a few million people.

moonchrome 11y ago
But I'm not saying provide free download as an alternative - I'm saying provide binaries only with the 1/2$ fee - if the person doesn't want to pay they still have the torrents and the source. For example if github provided this service instead of binary releases - you would receive say 50% of the income they keep 50% for bandwidth/service. If the person uses alternative means than you're not spending resources anyway.
espadrine 11y ago
98% seems like a very generous user-base. Getting 20k$ from the 2% in your million users would maintain the download server for at least twenty years. I assume it's much lower than 2%, which would fit my experience. From about a thousand users (a conservative estimate), I get around 10m$/user on average, and 0.3% of paying users.
- justizin 11y ago
  And the SFLC will help you to create the onerous organization you need in order to collect, possess, and spend that money by committee. And that is why everyone turns to the ASF for help in this situation, since they already exist, but that's probably not sustainable. The answer is not clear.