Paying for mobile specific apps

Hardware Librem 5
21

A point on this: in my experience, people actually behave through incentives. They sponsor the creation of the app if it benefits their business, for example.
And the same goes for new features on existing apps and fixing bugs.

But a large segment of the audience, so to speak, does not possess the ability to fund an entire app creation and would rather pay an affordable fee instead to get the app.

And the software being open source usually is no problem to small and medium companies. I only know about large companies being allergic to copyleft licenses :joy:

They will even prefer it if you say it will be cheaper that way because then later you will be able to continue profiting from it through other means.

I mean, it seems fair a first, and I started there, but over time I found that relying exclusively on this incentive structure would not give me room for improvements and growth. I was stuck and the software was stuck, you know? Sort of a treadmill for me and entropy chipping away and poorly maintained software.

And working with commission-only marginalized a large amount of people who could and would pay me a smaller fee to get access to a specific software instead.

Also, product only approach (which means no service) requires significant upfront investment, and I see single developers being able to pull it once only and then no longer being able to support it since the returns weren’t, initially, enough to sustain him.

Hence my idea of offering both and also to get value through other means. For example creating a paid course on making apps, in other words, selling the expertise itself. There are other ways too.

This would provide a nice incentive structure for new developers to come in and allow for the audience to serve itself however it would be best for them individually.

22

Yes, I understand the practical difficulties. For instance, going back to my example, I could decide that I charge Alice less, counting on the fact that I will charge Bob too. That would not be wrong, since I am just collecting the same amount of money from more people, each of one pays less than what Alice paid in my example.

But this situation can easily become me requiring fees for doing nothing. Luckily however GPL licenses give people the right to redistribute things, and if your money requests begin to look too parasitic people will do the distribution work for you.

So in the end I only care that new software is licensed as GPL or AGPL (and so I hope that MIT/BSD/Apache licenses loose traction with time, since they do not protect the users or even the software itself). At that point, whatever trick you find to get money I am fine with it, because the GPL offers a good protection against parasitism and you will never be able to exaggerate.

23

The way I read this discission, it sounds more like a maintenance fee than a distribution fee. In that way, it would be pay for work, particularly in Linux software as there are so many distributions and hardware setups.

So it’s not charging Alice and Bob so that Alice and Bob can access the software, it’s charging Alice and Bob in exchange for ensuring Alice and Bob can continue to use the software.

24

That is the point of “reproducible builds” that Purism is working on. So it becomes verifiable that a given binary release came from a given source release.

However you still end up either verifying it yourself (in which case you could just go ahead and build it yourself) or relying on a third party to verify it. Even so, verifiability discourages misdemeanour.

1 Like
25

That is perfectly fine for me, because maintenance is work. I am not that pedantic with what single developers do, or in measuring their work, but I am definitely pedantic with what license developers choose.

26

I don’t think this question even makes sense when raised in the Purism forum.

The point is: We, the original backers of the Librem 5, paid for the development of open source (i.e. for much of Purism’s contribution to FOSS in order to make the Librem 5 work).

Would I have paid a company to develop a new phone that would be closed source?

Very likely not, because:

  • in that situation I would expect the company to issue me shares :wink:
  • the world doesn’t need more closed phones - if you want a closed phone then buy an Android or an iPhone
  • what would be the Unique Selling Point for a new closed phone?
  • heck, Microsoft failed and they can afford to drop a gazillion dollars into the project

I only contributed originally precisely because the phone is open source. That was its market niche, its USP.

Putting aside details, I still think there is an answer for the question: why would someone pay for an app to be developed where the app will be open source?

Let me give an example: Let’s say that I use LibreOffice, and it’s great, but it can’t do X. Would it be reasonable to pay TDF to add that feature, X? Yes. Would there be any other practical way of achieving that goal? Probably not. So the TINA principle applies.

So let’s make it harder. Let’s say that I use a Librem 5 and there is no app for the Librem 5 to do X. Would it be reasonable to pay someone to create an app for X? Yes. Would I want the app to be open source? Yes. Would I pay for it to be closed source? No. No point having a verifiable, trusted phone only to pollute it with black box software.

So let’s make it harder but more general: Does everyone always want to maximise profits?

No. Not everything we do is motivated by profit or designed to maximise profits.

Do we donate to charity? Do we sometimes act altruistically? Sometimes.

2 Likes
27

And that’s fair. To be clear, I wasn’t being critical, just offering another viewpoint.

28

I wouldn’t call it charity or altruism. I paid value for value, for something that benefits me. Still, it’s nice convergence when that also does a solid for so many others.

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29

Yes, privacy has a value. However that quoted line was specifically in answer to my own very general question: Does everyone always want to maximise profits?

30

No, people are different. Some don’t act in their own best interests – even when that is their goal. It takes all kinds.

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31

It’s not. Most people I know pay for Conversations on Android, instead of compiling it from scratch.

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32

On this line, that is what I see in practice too. Almost nobody will learn how to compile something new instead of just clicking “Buy”.
Starting with myself, I am developer too, and even I do not know how to compile from source everything that I use, nor am interested in doing so.

I’m not willing to spend who knows how many hours learning and compiling, my hour is not worth 45 cents :joy: and most people is under this same incentive structure that I am.

That is why I don’t think this would be a problem. Even so, because to get the source distributed to him/her, that person would have to pay too, make a payment then get binaries and source. Then feel free to compile from source etc.

About redistributors: I also do not see this as a problem, we have GPL clubs in Wordpress and it is not a problem there either. Incentive structure strikes again, redistributors also charge something for it, else they would go do something else with their days.
That’s not even mentioning malicious ones, that redistribute stuff with malware for “free” (the cost is only your whole device :joy: :sweat_smile:).

How does all of this sound?

33

https://reproducible-builds.org

1 Like
34

For the redistribution problem, I remember it playing out slightly on a different dimension, where random malware-laden copies of Firefox were circulating. But then Mozilla has the hammer of a trademark for those. You could argue that you can still recompile things without a trademark, but those copies won’t have your reputation attached to them.

1 Like
35

It’s not so much that each customer would compile from scratch but that a distro could sweep it up and include it in the distro, build it and distribute it - if the app is sufficiently widely useful. Or a third party could do likewise (providing that you trust the third party to a level that overcomes the customer’s inability or unwillingness to compile from scratch).

Or the app could get forked (potentially even incompatibly with the original app where that is relevant e.g. for interoperation), particularly if the app moves in directions that are unacceptable to its user base.

The open source app could come with sufficient closed restrictions to avoid those outcomes but then it wouldn’t be “true” open source. :wink:

Compiling from scratch is more likely to be a thing under Linux (c.f. Android) so there is more likely to be information available on the web for how to do it i.e. at least to encourage someone to make an attempt at it. Sure, some people will get incomprehensible errors and give up.

36

Conversations isn’t really relevant because the price is for the account, not the app. CalyxOS used to pre-package it (they don’t anymore, not sure why) and I do use a forked version (Conv6ations), but I pay for the conversations dot im account (I forget how much, its very little). If you buy the Conversations app you get the account with it.

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37

When I tried to set up conversations for a family member, it was totally paid for the download. Perhaps it comes with an account, but it wasn’t prominent at all.

38

Its free to download in f droid. I guess its a pay thing in the google store?

39

Yes, it is paid on Google Play. You’re not paying for any account there, but for the application itself.

40

Ah, they both come with an account you can use for free for 6 months before you pay for it. I forgot about that part. They appear to be the exact same except the google play store one has a google play dependency, but not gcm.

So there’s an idea for you, @vinibrito, if it’s not anathema. Leave it free on the free store and sell it on the google play store.