Hi Nadav, On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:43:25 +0200 Nadav Har'El <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2011, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: Free Software on Android": > > Well, note http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html - I think we shouldn't > > discourage Android FOSS developers from trying to sell their applications > > (as > > long as they also provide the source, which means that other people can make > > The "problem" is that Free Software doesn't just require providing the > source - it also requires that the people who get the source may redistribute > the program or modified versions of it. This means that if you have an > ad-supported app and publish its source code as free software (GPL, BSD > license, or whatever), someone can - legally and morally - remove the > ad showing code and also publish it on the market. Or worse - he can > leave the ads and publish it on the market, making the ad money himself! > > So while it is theoretically possible to try to sell free software on > the Android market, I don't see how this business model can be > sustained. > > I noticed two approaches to try to solve this problem: > > The first approach is to have a free and ad-less app, but in addition > have in the market a "app + donation" variant which costs money. The > free app tells you in its "About" has a link to the donation version in the > market, encouraging you to buy it if you want to give money to the > developers. I like this approach, but I don't know how many people will > actually pay. On one app I actually used, the free version has 1000-5000 > installs, while the $1 donation version had 1-5 (!) installations. > > The second approach is one taken by the "OSMAnd" (OpenStreetMap for > Android) project. It's free software, but they only published an old > version for free on the market, and a newer version for a fee. They do > have a new free version on their site, but it's not on the convenient > Google market so most laypeople will end up paying to get the new version. > The question is, what prevents someone else, legally or morally, from > uploading the most recent OSMAnd, or a fork thereof, to the Android market. > For now, this hasn't happened, but I don't see how they can guarantee > this in the future. > I see. > > and much more other open source apps. Some shareware or otherwise commercial > > text editors appear to be doing pretty well so far, but they face an > > increasing > > amount of competition from open-source text editors. > > Really? When was the last time you saw a commercial text editor?? > I haven't seen one in years, possibly decades :-) But we are digressing. > Well, it's been a while since I saw one used on Linux, but there are a few commercial editors or IDEs for Windows, Mac OS X and even Linux. There's a list of some popular alternatives of them here: http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/resources/editors-and-IDEs/ Of those, Komodo IDE and Wing IDE have Linux versions and the UltraEdit company recently released a Linux version. > > I'm sure your code is in better condition than most of the code that > > beginning > > programmers (and sometimes experienced ones) that I regularly review on > > Freenode channels. I'm never ashamed to make my code viewable, and I've even > > posted some code I've written in high school: > > I agree - when I started understanding the example widget I started > with, I realized that half of the code there was redundant crap. > I guess the guy who wrote that widget also copied half of the code from > other people's code, and also didn't understand very well what he was doing > :-) > Heh. > In any case, when I'm pleased enough with the silly widget I wrote, I'll > find a way to publish it. On F-Droid? On the Android market (I'll need > to shell out $25 to Google for that)? On my website? I'll have to figure > out. OK. > > If you're curious, my silly 50-line widget toggles WiFi on and off, which I > need to conserve battery and avoid annoying hyperlinking ads when my children > play on the device. If you want to complain that, "hey, there are already 10 > free apps for doing that", well, 1. You're right, but that's why I > started with such a simple task, and 2. Mine is better ;-) and 3. All > but one of these 10 aren't free software (open source), and the free one > was the widget I started with to develop my improved version. > Nice. Did you try sending your improvements to that widget upstream? > Nadav. > > P.S. It hurts me (and probably hurts Stallman even more) that when searching > for Android software, the keywords "free software" is useless, and I find > myself searching for "open source" :( I don't mind it much as I use the term "open source" whenever I see fit. (Though I don't completely avoid using the term "free software".). My respect for Stallman and the FSF has declined since the entire GPLv3-vs.-GPLv2-vs.-AGPL compatibility issue and the whole fiasco surrounding his recent visit to the occupied territories. And I was also never a fan of using strong copyleft or weak copyleft licences for the software that I released, for the reasons that I've outlined here and here: * http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/open-source/foss-licences-wars/ * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg56379.html I don't mean to say that I oppose the concept of FOSS (free and open source software) or its ideology, just that I have some reservations from Stallman's behaviour and the philosophy he promotes. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ First stop for Perl beginners - http://perl-begin.org/ Mastering ‘cat’ is almost as difficult as herding cats. — http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/Mastering-Cat/ Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
