

The "Everyone gets the source code, donations get you binaries" software model - TroysBucket
http://lunduke.com/?p=3606

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gergles
I hate hate hate hate this model, because it just splits off people who could
be using, advocating for, and contributing to your product (by documentation,
by bug reports, by leaving positive reviews, ...) into two groups of people:
those who are willing to pay for the program before they get to run it, and
those who will just google "program name +free" and click on the first link.

It also eliminates significant amounts of feedback that would be sent to you
as the developer and instead splits your mindshare among you and whoever
compiled your program and has the best SEO. In the worst case scenario,
somebody compiles your program with a suboptimal set of optimization flags, or
with a bad library, or any number of things, and it makes your program look
terrible. People start posting that "Foosoft makes terrible software" because
they downloaded a version that is terrible, and you get all the blame for that
- do you think they'll even remember that they downloaded their binary from
free-foosoft-binaries.com.net.mx.biz.cc?

I also take umbrage to calling this a 'donation'. If you get something in
exchange for it that people who don't donate can't get, it isn't a 'donation',
it is a purchase. Call it a purchase. Say you're buying the binaries. It isn't
a "contribution", a "donation", or "feel good warm fuzzies", it is a cold hard
transaction of cash for something of value.

~~~
kintamanimatt
How hard is it to run ./configure && make && sudo make install (at least on a
*nix-compatible OS)? Most of the time the defaults work fine.

I have no idea how this would translate into the world of Windows though.

~~~
kstenerud
For 98% of the world's population? Very hard, approaching impossibly hard.

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malkia
We have top-notch programmers which have never heard of configure, and to them
anything opensource that does not compile straight in Visual Studio is not
worth it.

You can't even get them to learn a little bit about make, but then again some
of them glamorize XML as the best thing ever.

~~~
kintamanimatt
I'm genuinely curious and I'm not being antagonistic, but why do you call them
top-notch if they refuse to learn and shy away from a problem that should be
(to them) relatively easy?

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joesb
Because they are the best at what they do?

Someone are just the best programmer in Windows/Visual Studio environment. And
being "top-notch" should not be reserved to only those who use command line.

~~~
npsimons
I think he was referring to the "top notch" developers being unwilling to
learn, which to me would disqualify them from the category of "top notch", no
matter what how good they are at using their preferred toolset. I'm curious,
if they are so resistant to learning new things, how well do they deal with
changes in MSVS? Like for instance going from 2008 to 2010, the solution file
format changed (and the importer is far from perfect), and things were moved
around in the GUI.

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droithomme
Hopefully he will be able to maximize his income by making it as difficult to
compile on a given platform as possible, with all sorts of specific dependent
libraries needed and not specified from a variety of locations. It also helps
to make sure that it breaks instantly when you try to compile and fixing that
takes days of work and research to find out all the problems.

~~~
jason_slack
Interesting that you say this because that is what I was thinking. Giving away
the source, but not dependencies, makefile, etc.

Another possible model:

\- Source (stripped) = free

\- Source + dependencies and build instructions = small donation/contribution.

\- Binaries = larger donation/contribution to save the hassle.

~~~
justincormack
This is not allowed under the GPL, which he is using.

~~~
jules
Sure it is. Under the GPL you are not allowed to distribute a binary without
also distributing the source and dependencies. But it is fine to distribute
the source code without bundled dependencies.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
The problem is that you also need to supply the dependencies that you used to
build it (makefiles and such).

~~~
zem
not to people to whom he's not distributing a binary

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georgemcbay
But once he distributes them to one person who gets the binary that person can
distribute them freely to everyone else.

~~~
zem
and he's perfectly fine with that

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tjoff
Well, for me to donate I definitely want to try it first... This creates an
unnecessary barrier to even trying, meaning I will try a 'competitor' first
and only come back if I didn't find anything else of interest.

And I probably won't be as inclined to donate if you forced me to compile it
first...

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fromhet
Hold them horses. There are many applications distributed ONLY after payment
(called commercial) who are doing just fine. To sell an app and then let
people have the source is just nice and kind.

~~~
tjoff
Well, just as I'm skeptical about donating to an application I haven't tried
I'm skeptical about buying an application I haven't tried.

Most commercial applications allow you to try them in one way or another
before buying, if I'm not allowed to do that (which by itself smells bad)
commercial applications more often have reviews (at least user reviews) and if
I'm ultimately about to buy an application that I haven't tried or really got
a feel for you can bet that it is because I'm becoming desperate and haven't
found anything else decent (in other words I've put in quite some time in
exploring alternatives before even considering to buy that application).

The same goes for this software model, only when I buy an application I
usually get some support etc. If I donate, I usually, already have what I'm
donating for. Quite a big difference.

And honestly, if the author is deliberately trying to make my life difficult
just to trick me into donating I'm going to be annoyed, and since I deeply
disagree with that type of model (donations should be earned, it's not a form
of annoy-ware) I will, out of principle, be _very_ hesitant of donating (I'd
like to say that I'd never donate, but if the application was truly
exceptional I'd probably donate anyway (but I'd attach a comment describing
that I dislike it)).

I can put up with quite a bit of tinkering to get something to run, but not if
it is because the author have deliberately kept the make-file to himself (as
he implied in the comments) just to get people to donate. Huge difference.

I'd probably be more recipient towards a commercial application with a decent
trial-version. I much rather pay for something than getting it for free from
someone being rude about it.

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1880
XChat does this for Windows. But inevitably, free-as-in-beer alternatives
appear, like XChat-WDK.

~~~
protospork
I think it's worth noting that even with several free alternative builds, some
of them more frequently updated from source than the official binaries, people
still buy and pirate the official one. I'd be really interested to compare how
many people have paid for Xchat against download numbers for Xchat-WDK and
Silverex.

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jules
This model only works for unsuccessful software. As soon as the software gets
popular somebody will redistribute his binaries in an easily accessible place.
Also, like the support model, this creates an incentive for the developers to
make their software worse (in this case making it harder to compile).

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phogster
So it's not a "donation".

~~~
jrockway
By that logic, PBS sells a lot of $100 beer-can insulators.

~~~
gerts
It's self-evident that people aren't giving $100 to PBS because they really
want the PBS-logo beer cozy and can't find it cheaper or easier elsewhere.

That's a donation, and along with it the donor does some advertising exposure
via the cozy.

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jonathanyc
> wants more donations from users

> makes users compile software by hand

> because new users will want to try his software so much that they'll
> manually build or donate cash to try it

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dllthomas
One problem is that I'm happiest when I can install software from software
repositories I'm already pointed at, and here I either don't get that
convenience or the donations are irrelevant when someone else builds it for
the distro.

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eternalban
"Donations". Programmers are collectively very stupid, as far as economics
goes.

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soup10
I really don't like the software as a service business model since it under-
values the coding part of things. I wish more people would experiment with
partially commercialize open source projects like this.

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SudarshanP
Another possible variant is: Paid users get the newest version + support +
immediate patches/bugfixes. Everyone else gets it with an n month delay +
GPLed source code + binaries.

~~~
georgemcbay
This is basically the model Couchbase (though Apache licensed, not GPL) and
some other products already use.

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tawm
I really, really don't like this guy. But the idea is very neat, it's
basically the "sell support, no licenses"-model, just with support beginning
in the pre-distribution stage.

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drivebyacct2
You don't like the model he chose to use or you "don't like this guy"?

~~~
tawm
I do like the model - I don't like the person. @jason: My dislike for him is
based on his apperances on the Linux Action Show.

~~~
jason_slack
I see.

I can understand being displeased with someone.

In this case your comment is sort of not relevant to the content of the
submission.

But your point about the model is taken.

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AznHisoka
Will the links be nofollow, or follow links? If follow, I imagine you will get
a lot of potential donators from people who aren't even interested in your
software.

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njx
This is what MySQL implemented long time ago. They stopped providing windows
binaries download but provided the full source code access

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Danieru
Are you sure? I see a giant Windows banner here:
<https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/>

You can download that without even registering (tiny link on second page).

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eli
I think that must be new. I also remember a login prompt when attempting to
download binaries from MySQL. I remember it being non-obvious that there even
was a version without paid support.

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lukevdp
He's basically just selling his software for a monthly fee, same as loads of
other software companies. I don't see what the issue is.

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NeutronBoy
Also know as the Red Hat model

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sliverstorm
You may want to review the Red Hat model, I think you must have it mixed up
with something else.

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lhnn
Uh...

Red Hat gives its source out for free as it is legally obliged to do (which
CentOS and others take and build).

To get official RHEL binaries (which also come with support), you must pay for
a subscription.

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K2h
side note, that is so cool that you have an old bbs running! that sent me back
about 15 years. awesome

<http://lunduke.com/?page_id=1316>

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cooldeal
Interesting model. Is the binary free to distribute?

Even if it's not, someone will just make something like lunduke-free.com and
put up compiled binaries.

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tomjen3
It has to be, since it is GPLed.

(If not, he could sue himself for copyright infringement).

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ryanpetrich
As long as all the source is his or has been contributed under a less
restrictive license, he should be free to release the binaries under another
license.

