[pjmlp]

Which is why I grew disappointed with FOSS and decided I was happier working for the enterprise overlords, where such tools are common.

It is incredible how so many devs don't want to pay for tooling, yet expect people to pay them.

Here is an idea, what about being paid in the exact amount that one is willing to pay for their tooling.

[ris]

> Here is an idea, what about being paid in the exact amount that one is willing to pay for their tooling.

A better idea: what if all companies had to pay for all the software they expect to make money using, right down to the metal? No leeching off linux for you. Also no gcc, llvm, postgresql, mysql, python, ruby...

When people try introducing proprietary software into the FOSS ecosystem, I find it equally "incredible" how little they acknowledge that most of their piddly 10k lines of "magic" depends on the tens of millions of lines of code underneath being written by people who decided to take the other path.

It sounds like you're better off out of FOSS, but I can guarantee your job is propped up by its existence, almost no matter what you do.

[pjmlp]

My dear, that was exactly what used to be when I started programming.

Plenty of successful companies used to live from selling all the stack.

In fact GCC only picked up steam the day Sun decided to start charging for the Solaris C compiler.

Thankfully the GPL hate crowd, by pushing MIT/BSD licenses has just brought us the future that will be the reinvention of the public domain and shareware of the 80's.

[dvdkon]

Computer systems have gotten much more complicated. The closest you can get to the "full stack" ideal is probably Microsoft, and even they've given up on maintaining a web browser. Full-stack worked for a while, but nowadays you'd need to be a goliath. You can't even pay for all the components you use, since many parts of today's critical infrastructure are community projects with no corporate backing.

[pjmlp]

Those of us on Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, IBM, Unisys, SAP, Oracle,... platforms mostly do pay for the whole stack, even if it means paying to various vendors.

[pabs3]

I'd rather they pay with employee time than donating money. Developer time is most of the time the more scarce resource.

[theamk]

But so many of proprietary tools are horrible! Some years ago, I worked in embedded space and after experience with Nordic's small devices and Analog Devices IDE for Blackfin, I dread using any sort of proprietary tech.

Those were pretty expensive products (we are talking $5k-$10k price range) and they were working way worse than just a single emacs window with command-line uploader.

The amount of time I wasted fighting with those tools was huge. And the worst thing, this was really time wasted. If I spend a week setting up OpenOCD I can at likely apply this knowledge to my next project. This was not the case with proprietary tools.

Paid is not always better, and we should not feel obliged to pay people just because they are in the same industry.

[pjmlp]

I should use that perrogative the next time I take the car to the repair shop, maybe they will provide it for free for my well being and happiness.

Then I will go into the bakery that give a cherfull morning to the baker so that he can give me a couple of breads for the evening.

[theamk]

you are using the wrong analogy. You are implying that people are using proprietary products, but not paying for them - pirating or stealing them instead.

This is very much not the case. True, people are not paying for tools, but they are not using them either.

It is like a person went to fast food place and got a food poisoning. From now on, they are avoiding all fast food places and cook their own food instead.

You could argue they are missing out or wasting their time, but there is nothing immoral or un-ethical there. Even if I am a commercial cook, I don't have a moral obligation to go to restaurant. And if I have working open source tools, there is nothing wrong with saying "let ADI keep their overpriced IDEs, I will stick with Linux, gcc and gdb"

[pjmlp]

If you are a cook I expect to be able to eat gratis at your place.

And I gladly will place a RFP for you using Linux, gcc and gdb, which I expect to be delivered gratis, regardless of the works put into it.

[theamk]

Yes, if I am a cook and I am voluntary giving out food for free you can expect to eat gratis. (Perhaps the place has recently opened and they are attracting new customers?)

If I am a cook and I didn't invite you, then this a theft and you are breaking the law.

You are welcome to place any RFPs you want, but you might not get too many proposals for them if you won't pay ehough. You are still welcome to do so, there is nothing illegal or immoral in doing this.

---- I think we have too many similes in this thread, so I am going to say it directly:

When choosing a software tool, there are many factors: monetary cost, time spent getting the license, time taken to get started, time doing the primary task (like writing application code), time reading documentation, time spent fixing bugs, experience learned, how easy to transfer knowledge for other people, and so on.

A lot of times we can ignore "monetary cost" because work will pay; but even then proprietary software does not always win. It often has much better "time to get started", but it is often worse in other aspects. We should choose the best tool for the job, and let the market decide.

For example, in embedded world, proprietary software is common, expensive, and for some reason, very bad. If I had to start a project on Blackfin, and my company would be ready to pay for whatever ADI SDK licenses I need, I'd still choose Linux/gcc/gdb if I could. This is not because "I don't want to pay for tooling" -- my org would pay anyway. No, this is because ADI SDK is horrible and ignores all modern software development practices. And ADI IDE is slow, crashes and does not support threaded debugging.

On a more minor front, I have an expense budget, and I am sure my work would be happy to Beyond Compare license for me, but I keep using open-source kdiff3. I am sure BC is nice and I wish them all the best; but I like to be able to teach other developers on my team, and they are not likely to have a BC license.

[pjmlp]

> You are welcome to place any RFPs you want, but you might not get too many proposals for them if you won't pay ehough. You are still welcome to do so, there is nothing illegal or immoral in doing this.

Ah, so you don't want to play by the same rules, thought so.

[hinkley]

It’s so weird watching tech people drool over 3D printing hardware, raspberry Pi stuff or woodworking tools.

I suspect there’s overlap between “but your own software tools” and this group but I’m fairly sure there are at least some experiencing a degree of cognitive dissonance.

[wruza]

happier working for the enterprise overlords, where such tools are common

Which tools brought the most of happiness (or convenience), and how’d you rank them among other, free or “cheap saas” tools?

[pjmlp]

Visual Studio Professional/Enterprise, Delphi/C++ Builder, Qt, Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, Enterprise Architect, Windows Professional, macOS, Tableau, Aix, HP-UX, Solaris, Turbo Pascal, Turbo C++, Sublime Text, jAlbum.

Regular donations, Notepad++, Eclipse, Thunderbird, Firefox, VLC, Ubuntu.

[wruza]

Thanks! But honestly I used most of them and expected some life changers instead. Borland’s VCL was the one indeed, but now it’s gone.

The issue with paying for all of that is that as a developer, I simply don’t need it for that price. If the world of FOSS suddenly became expensive, we’d just rewrite few tools from scratch, cause it’s not so hard. It only takes few man-years to implement a decent scripting language with ui toolkit and then you have a world of developers who, like you, do not understand what’s in these 10gb monsters that cost $$$$/year that cannot be done with that FreeLang+FreeUI+FreePackageManager+FreeEtcEtc. FOSS and Enterprise are not competitors, these are natural ways of developers life and of enterprise life.

[pjmlp]

The way I see it people producing tools are developers as well, and they need to put food on the table.

[wruza]

I agree, and then they set up a price. Piracy is especially bad when you’re pirating from a particular person.

But not all developers have that “I made it and I will charge them the maximum equilibrium out of it” mindset. That’s where “free” part of FOSS began. Do you think that it’s unfair to use things which someone published for everyone to use?

[pjmlp]

Depends, only when accepting to be paid exactly the same way.

What I don't agree is the expectation to be paid, while refusing to pay other developers for their work.

Even the gratis stuff I use, back in the early FOSS days I bought CDs and magazines that distributed the software, the few times I went to FOSDEM the full volunteer package, nowadays books written by community members and occasional donations on stuff I use regularly.

So it is just not empty words about what is right.

[ipaddr]

Developers write developer tools. Developers wants to be paid to create the tools not pay someone. If they can't find someone to pay them then they will use a foss product and at times contribute back.

Why would you expect a toolmaker to buy someone else's tools?

[dmingod666]

The same reason cooks have to buy ingredients. The same reason a factory making tools first needs to buy other tools.

A backend developer will not write an IDE, heck, he probably won't even write most of the code in his own codebase even if he's a single dev.

[ipaddr]

The best ones grow their own ingredients. It changes the product.

They may source locally but they avoid national chains.

But yes most backend developers will never write an IDE. Most backend developers would love to be on a team creating one.

[dmingod666]

"To make an apple pie from scratch, you first need to make the universe" :)

[Godel_unicode]

Developers are not a monolithic group, there are tons of developers who want to work on things that have nothing to do with making developer tools.

There are plenty of toolmakers who gladly buy others tools so as not to have to make them for themselves. CNC mills sell quite well, for instance.