> And it's not like buying your stuff solves this problem anyway. This very site is filled with complaints and reports of proprietary software failing to work the way its users intend too.
I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us.
I've had proprietary software break and got money back for SLAs. You get a fix real quick when there is an SLA.
I've had proprietary software have release dates pushed back because we couldn't handle the time to rewrite to the new version and we still had a support contract for that version. We could have choosen just to keep paying for support on the old version at a higher price but obivously choose to rewrite to the newer version.
At the same time, I've had pull requests go unmerged even though they had tests and fixed bugs.
For me, even if it's just the ability to complain I thnk paying is worth it. You complain to an open source project they're screwing with your stuff you're an entitled user. You complain to a vendor that they're screwing with your stuff, you're an rightfully angry customer that gives them a reason to spend time to fix the issue causing you problems.
> I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us.
I write open source software for a living. I've had users come to me with problems that turn out to be bugs in their code. I fix their code for them. This happens pretty much every week. I don't see the distinction, one anecdote is as good as another.
Obviously, yes, you can write big checks that ensure people take you seriously, which is fundamentally what you're talking about here. You can write those checks to anyone though, including many, many excellent companies who would love to take your money to maintain their open source projects. It's an orthogonal problem.
> I write open source software for a living. I've had users come to me with problems that turn out to be bugs in their code. I fix their code for them. This happens pretty much every week. I don't see the distinction, one anecdote is as good as another.
I have a feeling the difference is you told them how they were using it wrong and/or wrote code in a comment that they could copy and paste. While the vendor's developer literally made modifications to our codebase themselves. There is a difference from providing the solution and implementing the solution.
Fair enough, but to repeat: this has nothing to do with "proprietariness" of the product you bought, it's because you Wrote Them a Big Check.
In almost all cases, if you want to write big checks for your open source dependencies to ensure support, you can do that! The world is filled with companies doing consulting like this. But many people don't, because on balance it's more effective to get stuff for free and do the support yourself[1].
Just don't whine if you chose to be in category #2 but want to be in #1, just write the checks.
[1] By Writing Big Checks to your expert employees, of course.
The issue I have is for most open source projects you can't even write them a big check.
Out of the open source projects I use:
* Symfony - It's 50/50 on if you could write them a big check. Symfony is a legal entity but it's well known they're affilated with SensioLabs who you could write a check to.
* PHPUnit - The maintainer runs a consultancy group, so possibly but maybe not. It may not be worth his time to provide support even if you're willing to part with lots of money.
* Doctrine - You can buy a support contract via a third party but that is a very minimum support set up from what I see. And honestly, I don't know who would honor it since it's a group project and doesn't have a legal entity.
* PHPSpec - Not possible
* Brick Money - Not possible.
* Behat - Not possible
* Guzzle - Not possible
* Gorilla Websockets - Not possible
* PHP - Not possible - Maybe via Rougewaves but they're not part of PHP development any longer.
While many larger open source projects it is indeed possible to get support from third party companies and sometimes from the original developers. For many large open source projects it simply isn't.
Commerical products that are open source you can get support for.
Sorry, but because the dissonance is really confusing me: If you genuinely don't want to be using "open source software" and would prefer to pay for stuff, why on earth are you building your app on top of an ancient legacy platform like this?! There are copious proprietary/paid frameworks and toolsets with the sophistication of PHP (which is hardly a high bar). Just buy one of those.
I thought this was going to be an argument about Linux or clang or k8s or React or something. Not... 90's web stacks. No wonder you think open source doesn't work, you're trying to use the stuff open source developers abandoned years ago.
I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us.
I've had proprietary software break and got money back for SLAs. You get a fix real quick when there is an SLA.
I've had proprietary software have release dates pushed back because we couldn't handle the time to rewrite to the new version and we still had a support contract for that version. We could have choosen just to keep paying for support on the old version at a higher price but obivously choose to rewrite to the newer version.
At the same time, I've had pull requests go unmerged even though they had tests and fixed bugs.
For me, even if it's just the ability to complain I thnk paying is worth it. You complain to an open source project they're screwing with your stuff you're an entitled user. You complain to a vendor that they're screwing with your stuff, you're an rightfully angry customer that gives them a reason to spend time to fix the issue causing you problems.