Programmers have got to be the only people who think giving away hard, creative work for free is the only right way to do things. We all gotta eat and programs take time and expertise to build and maintain. Wouldn’t you like to be able to make a living from something you built rather than having a boss and working for a company where your future will never be in your control? I sure would. If people can pay for literally every other product/service in the world they can pay for programs too. There’s nothing wrong with charging for your labor.
I have no idea what you’re getting at. How are movies a counterpoint? Movies and streaming services are paid products. And no one is forcing you to make software that spies on people as an indie dev? In fact if you are able to make a living through selling software you have less incentive to collect user data and sell it as a revenue stream. Most products that are free are those where the your data is being sold for is exactly that reason.
> And no one is forcing you to make software that spies on people as an indie dev?
This is the problem with your argument. You're looking at it from the developer's perspective, rather than the user's. As the developer you have this choice, and you know which choice you've made. As a user, all I have is your word (which is worth nothing if I don't already have a good reason to trust you).
As a user, source code access is important, for a number of reasons:
1. It gives both users and third parties a way to verify your claims
2. As it turns out, transparency tends to discourage bad behaviour in the first place
3. Users can fork if you no longer maintain the project according to their standards (abandonment, price hikes, bundling malware, and so on)
None of those reasons are direct improvements for you as a developer, but they're a big part of why I am reluctant to adopt proprietary software (free or paid).
> How are movies a counterpoint? Movies and streaming services are paid products.
Yes? I am less reluctant to pay for a movie because they don't demand the same privileges.
> In fact if you are able to make a living through selling software you have less incentive to collect user data and sell it as a revenue stream. Most products that are free are those where the your data is being sold for is exactly that reason.
On the other hand, reality shows that many (most) commercial developers are perfectly happy to pick both.
> This is the problem with your argument. You're looking at it from the developer's perspective, rather than the user's
The developers need to make the apps, otherwise there's no marketplace. Gotta satisfy both, albeit imperfectly.
> As a user, all I have is your word (which is worth nothing if I don't already have a good reason to trust you).
That's not true at all. Experts can audit closed-source software to see if it's phoning home, etc. An App Store (like Apple's) can have strict rules where developers will be banned if they do malicious things. You can install tools to monitor apps. Apps are sandboxed to prevent access. You have much more to go on than just the developer's word.
> As a user, source code access is important, for a number of reasons
Sure, it would be nice as a user to have the code. Most app developers simply won't give it to you.
> The developers need to make the apps, otherwise there's no marketplace.
Why is publishing the source code such a burden, when the apparent target are unsophisticated users? Are developers afraid that users will start cloning repos and build their own binaries?
> An App Store (like Apple's) can have strict rules where developers will be banned if they do malicious things.
Apple will rat you out to the cops if you take a picture of human skin on "your own" phone, why should they be a benchmark for anything security or privacy related?
Totally ignoring the developers POV is not healthy either.
Something matching the quality of Excel/Final Cut/Photoshop/90% of games/(lots of my favorite misc. iPad/Mac apps) does not exist in the FOSS world because they have been built on millions of hours of work (and not only by developers, but people spanning many industries and skillsets), which needs payment. In the only FOSS model, huge classes of software (e.g a AAA game) simply won't exist because they will be economically impossible. There's TONS of software requiring cross-domain teams to build, that is unglamorous and unfun to build/maintain, and those kinds of things don't get built to free. This whole purist FOSS model dates back to a very different time that honestly makes no sense today.
In fact by your argument, we can extend to many other things that should be completely open source and free. There should be no need for any intellectual property - the proprietary ingredients and manufacturing processes of Coke (and 80% of everything else in a grocery store) should be free (how can I trust whats in it otherwise?), the complete schematics of every car and airplane should be open (how will I know its safe otherwise?), the innards of every piece of electronic that could conceivably contain a mic/speaker/GPS should be free (what if they track me?). You think this would lead to a utopia of free and awesome stuff. I think it would lead to 90% of that stuff never being built in the first place.
I guess you are one of those purists who somehow uses ONLY FOSS software and is satisfied with it so I won't argue further. To me and many others the quality and breadth of commercial software is orders of magnitude better than free software, and we recognize that's because we pay people to work on it, even if that work is not fun enough to do for free.
Sure, you can have a for-pay open source app, but if it's a consumer product (as opposed to, say, some B2B thing with special licensing), then it isn't going anywhere as a business. Many people will just download the code and compile it instead of paying you (or find someone else who packaged it up). That's why open source has been more successful with software-as-service.
??? Maybe if your userbase is tiny. As soon as it reaches even a 100-200 people someone will compile the source and distribute it for free or copy and resell it cheaper. they sure as heck aren’t orthogonal concepts in practice.
if you live/sell in a country that respects software copyright/license, then you can sue them or get a cease and desist for using it against your license (say prohibiting commercial derivative or violating your copyright without authorization)
and your software, if popular or lucrative, its going to get ripped off anyways like in the real app store (just look at the many clones of many apps), or just plain pirated like the myriad apps (photoshop, word et all) have since basically forever
> if you live/sell in a country that respects software copyright/license, then you can sue them or get a cease and desist for using it against your license (say prohibiting commercial derivative or violating your copyright without authorization)
Prohibition of derivative makes your software not open source
But you can use trademark, instead of copyright to prevent someone else to sell copies of your app. Sort of what Red hat does but that doesn't prevent clones with a different name to pop up.
> Prohibition of derivative makes your software not open source
hmmm right, maybe my understanding was a little different, i was assuming "if you pay me, ill give you the source if you ask for it" would make it "open source" but that would be incorrect ...
