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by netsharc
1577 days ago
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I downloaded an open-source software today, and all over the UI were the buttons to upgrade to their paid closed-source version. Freaking hell. Since it's open source obviously someone is going to chime in that I should spend my time removing these stupid UI elements... |
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Open source software requires that developers have the ability to spend time to contribute code. People need to get paid so they can support themselves, and as they get older, their families.
There are very few successful open source models, basically: * advertising * professional services related to the OSS offering * enterprise licensing * direct user support and contribution
Anything that is not one of these four models is either a student or hobby project, or is subsidized by the businesses that are paying the developers to contribute (either explicitly by hiring folks that work on the projects, or by employing and assigning people to work on features that eventually make their way back into the ecosystem).
If you don't support people getting paid to contribute to open source software, you are ceding the role of OSS developers to people in privileged positions, or demanding that they be paupers.
And in the interest of keeping the conversation non confrontational, folks suggesting patches shouldn't remove the UI elements from the code, they should provide a UI toggle to disable the nags; choosing to support the software or not, financially speaking, is an option for users, but be very explicit if the user chooses not to support it :)