"Why would I pay for a program on linux?"

Ask RMS.

Its also not like you cant make something on your spare time untill its at a stage where its something people can use then try and get funding. Again.. Krita is a good example of this.

  1. RMS is a company. I was talking about people. It is easy to find companies who want a software to be created. But crowd funding - getting money for software projects from real persons - is quite hard outside the gaming sector.
  2. Of course you can build something in your spare time but mostly you won't create the whole thing in it. There is a point in time when you simply need to work full time to get it done in a reasonable period of time. And then the question is simply: What pays my bills? - if you got some funding, you're lucky and can push it but if not, you will rather do something else or work on it until you are finished in spare time - what could take you almost forever depending on the size of the software - also QA will be always an issue then.
  3. I was never specifically talking about adobe CS alternatives but about the financial problem for open source developers in general - no funding -> no great software in most cases - hobbyist software is mostly not a great thing - too few engineering, too few testing, too few UI optimizations etc.

Last thing: When this mentality "open source = free of charge" would fade away, open source development for the consumer market would be much easier because people would simply pay for what they use instead of getting a "free of charge" copy of the software from the repository.

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So because there are other alternatives, he becomes a bad person because he doesn't use them?

Im surprised you dont know who RMS is, our benevolent creator of Free Software.

Im not disagreeing that the free software = free in price mentality should go away and people should be encouraged to give back for the software they use and find useful, because they should, if they can. I'm only suggesting that part of the problem is a lot of software don't have the people who know how to market their software or get funding for it outside of small donations. Hence my example of Krita, as they have found out how to do exactly that, get funding and find ways of creating some revenue.

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I agree with all of this but I also want to point out that Krita is an exception and not the norm.

No, he's a bad person because he doesn't want to pay for the software he wants to use.

He pays for using Adobe's products, I can understand that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because why not pay for a program on linux. But at the same time he's running a buissness, he's using a program that works for him. So paying for another program that he will have to learn to use doesn't seem like a great idea imo.

I know him. But I was not thinking of him when reading RMS. So I've thrown RMS into Google and Google gave me some companies with RMS as an abbreviation - Richard Stallman was also showing up but I did not connect the pieces of information to complete this "brain-internal-puzzle" - sorry for that - sometimes my brain is acting in a strange way.

I totally agree with your last reply. I just wanted to point out that it is easier to produce some proprietary software than an open source version. I was working at a research group at another university a while ago. I had to build a Java framework for time series analysis and because time series analysis is needed for many different thinks, I wanted to create the framework as an open source software. My request was refused because even if you license the software under GPLv3, there might be some asshole company taking the code, to build their proprietary - potentially better - product to become a competitor. Funding was not a problem in this case as the state wrote my pay check.

Funding can be a problem for open source software, yes. And yes: sometimes the developers are not good at marketing or getting money outside of small donations. The problem I wanted to point out is more, that you can build an open source software but if your potential customers - who would be the easiest way to get money - only use some "free" copy of what's inside the repository, you'll run into financial problems. If you build some proprietary stuff, you can easily add an license-key feature which makes the software useless if you did not purchase a license. That's not so easy with open source software - people could e.g. easily remove that feature from the software and compile it on their own.

I have to agree with previous posters that "why would I pay for a program on Linux" is a bad thing to say - I also went "WTF?!" as Logan said it during Inbox.exe. I'll gladly buy (or pay for) a good program ... i.e. a video editor that not only works but can also take it on with Premiere or a program that can take it on with Photoshop (and don't come back with "The GIMP" ... that thing's a joke on so many levels that it is not even funny to try and recommend it as a viable alternative to Photoshop (hint: color calibration, just to name one thing that makes it totally useless for professional use) let alone compare it to Photoshop which is orders of magnitude superior).

That being said, I think things yet again boil down to the basic misunderstanding of "Free Software". To put it like oh so many others already put it in the past...

Free Software is NOT "free as in beer", it is "free as in speech".

To put it this way: You get it for free (the source code - which is the "free speech" part (as in "free expression in the form of a programmatic source code speech")) and you are free to do with it as you please. You can use it as you like and you, given you can code, can extend it as you see fit; though you are expected to re-publish your changes to not run foul of the GPL. So, while you get it for free (as in $0 - no matter if its the actual source code you have to compile yourself or in the form of pre-compiled binaries as shipped with your distribution) it is not free ... the "price" you actually pay is your time to make yourself familiar with it ("learning curve") and make it do the things you want it to do - and maybe even fix up bugs not yet discovered or extend it to implement a new functionality (that's the beauty of Free Software ... given you can code you can jump in and be part of it). The other downside is that there's no "support" - the "support" that comes with the software is most likely some community - like this one right here - where users using the software (or "stack of software") try to help other users resolve their problem ... there is no "professional support helpdesk" (unless you BOUGHT professional support).

Free Software was never meant to be seen as "F**k paying insane licensing fees" - it was, and still is, meant to be seen as "providing free software for use and modification". If memory serves me right Linux Torvalds didn't set out to create Linux (the kernel) to avoid the licensing fees for 386 UNIX, he created it to try and come up with something better to do the same job.

While it would be great if Logan could elaborate on his line of thought leading to the sentence in question I assume he didn't mean it the way he expressed it (badly phrased). I'm pretty sure that if $company would release a program (for Linux), and be it closed source, able to take it on with Premiere or Fruity Loops (or After Effects or Photoshop or ...) even Logan would actually pay for it given he really would want to bid Windows farewell.

This is a real shame and just shows the complete mis-understanding of how free software works. People are so ingrained with possessions and profits at all costs they cant see any alternative as viable. Its a shame because you could have quite easily licensed it as GPLv3 and not released it to the public (there is not requirement to do so, only to the people who use it). And if anyone did take the code and make a better versions what do you do? You get their modifications back or sue them for it.

Its a shame people have that mentality at all.

Youd still have the problem of getting people to use it. Fortunately for propitiatory software it almost always is made by large companies with an already large cash flow so making the initial software isn't a problem. But if you think about it.. excluding specialized software and games I dont know of any new software thats paid that there isnt a good free software alternative for.

to part 1: I could not even put it under GPLv3 because certain groups eventually also companies will get access to the code. The software is also used to build some other proprietary software. Therefore GPL cannot be used because that would violate the license - LGPL would have been an option but I did something else. I only wrote specific functions for the project and pushed them to the internal repository of the university - this is not good as well but now I still have the option to build the real framework I wanted to build later on. ;)

to part 2: That's for sure. I would never like to build a software without any real sense. Therefore I refused a request from a company to work for them to help their team building a PHP-based online shop - there are thousands of them out their and they all look quite similar - We are in tech/dev business - we can build stuff to shape the world of tomorrow, to make changes to the status quo - why should we try to re-invent the wheel over and over again? - makes no sense to me.

I agree, though there is one place where I would say an exception is acceptable. To make a few software alternative :D

Unfortunately I don't see companies or people changing their mindset on 'property' any time soon, especially these days where you no longer own software you subscribe to it online. At least this has been seen for some time and there are free software licenses that cover those scenarios for people who want to make that kind of software but also make it libre.

A few alternatives are mostly a good idea - but who the hell has a requirement for 2000 almost identical online shop software solutions??? - maybe amazon is using them all :D

Only if they would give away copies of the program to you, which they also don't have to do. Any company can take a GPLv3 licensed product, modify it to their liking and just keep it in-house. It's sad when it happens but completely legal.

Anyway, not really on topic anymore, but I don't think I've got anything else to say here.

Nice attack on me... though you are way out of line and your viewpoint is beyond nonsense. You are making no sense at all... it just seems like an attack because I'm not using and donating to FOSS... and you are using the fact that we make money as a way to say we are hypocrites? I have always been behind the idea of paying open source devs. We constantly reference this. I do not believe that developer time should be abused.

We have also talked about using some of our income to help open source projects. Is that what you are saying that we should do? Stop using Adobe stuff and donate to some open source project? The trouble is that nothing competes with Adobe. Blender is powerful, but I would have to take a few weeks off to learn it. That would mean no content from me.

So, what is it that you want us to do and why are you insulting me?

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The biggest challenge I see to selling software for Linux is your program will not be available in distro repositories. They can't distribute the package or anything because it costs money.

You end up needing to host your own package downloads, or have a installer script (which no one likes)

Uhm, okay. How did I insult you? How did I attack you? Can you please restrain from going into a completely defensive victim role and take the arguments here seriously?

You literally said "Why would I pay for a program on linux". I have a problem with this statement. I tried to explain why this statement and the mindset behind it is really harmful to free software in general.

Then why did you say that you would not pay for a program on linux? Maybe this is just a big misunderstanding but I can't think of another way of interpreting this sentence.

Nowhere in this thread did I suggest what you or teksyndicate should or should not do.

I really don't take offense often. I mostly really don't care if someone insults me or anything I do, but here I do take offense: accusing me of attacking and insulting when I clearly wasn't but instead tried to have a conversation about a topic you seemingly disagree on with me.

This is indeed true. xdg-app should solve this issue, though.

imho this is why linux has been lacking in high quality software since like forever.

Developers have families, mortgages etc just like everyone else (like op says), spending all their time writing code for free aint going to put food on the table. But working for a software firm that charges for their applications does provide them with the lifestyle and pay they deserve for all their hard work. There are some very bright minds in places like Adobe like Abney Parasnis, brilliant minded gentlemen thats worth his weight in gold plus some. Why should someone like him go without reward?

I have no qualms about paying for software - its a tool just like a hammer. I dont go into hardware stores and demand that the hammer be free because building is open source.

Same as I have no issue with website ad's. Google ads & the like = money for content creators I respect.

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Are you that oblivious to what you type. I don't think anyone would mind another's view point, but the way you phrase things is just trying to be antagonistic. You seem like a very knowledgeable person, but at least have the common sense to not start threads that are going to spark anger.

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RMS is everything to FOSS. He is NOT a company... RMS is what we get when a Sufi Sage learns to program and hack like a supercomputer with sentience, and mixes that knowledge with profound wisdom. He is all that stops companies from taking over. RMS for life!