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bananasquash | 6 years ago

freeware and people like you have killed indie development. Great software should be paid for. Unless or cures cancer or solves humanity’s issues, it should not he made available for free. Otherwise the author of a paid version is forced into office jobs because some idiot makes a free clone just to have something on their cv.

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totaldude87|6 years ago

VLC - though it doesn't cure cancer or anything , its a cure for video player industry(if one exist).. cant think of any other open source video players with billions of installs, and FREE.. calling someone who does opensource as idiot is just ridiculous..

mhd|6 years ago

Meh, if the proprietary software has a good UI, it's going to do well -- open source tends to suck on that front, quite often because it's cross-platform and that doesn't favor the OS X look.

Sure, for programmers and command line users there will be alternatives, but that still leaves a large market.

Y'know what's going to kill Apple indie development in our reality? Apple. A lot of the paid shareware has a long pedigree, and the upcoming de-Carbonization will put an end to many small-shop software.

mercutio2|6 years ago

Indie shops that are still shipping Carbon in 2019 haven’t been making good Mac apps for a long time.

They may be making useful tools, which their customers really need, but they haven’t been good (in the sense most people mean by good on Mac, which is notably different from on other platforms) for a long time.

kuzimoto|6 years ago

There are several perks to paid software that is typically missing from just free software:

* Guaranteed updates/bug fixes

* Better support

* More polished product

There are free alternatives to basically everything, but people still pay for stuff.

NullPrefix|6 years ago

>Guaranteed updates/bug fixes

Such a bold statement. Numerous times paid software produced errors, which went unfixed until the product was discontinued and then you had to buy a new version.

Crinus|6 years ago

Also documentation, when it exists (not all apps have or need it) tend to actually be useful instead of a half-assed, incomplete wiki.

(though some paid software in the recent years also have half-assed, incomplete wikis for documentation... my guess is that the proliferation of open source software made a lot of newer developers think that this is how software is supposed to be documented)

utf985|6 years ago

So you're saying people should stop making free software just so some guy can make a profit off of his overpriced basic utility app?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people making a profit from their dev work but when I see something as basic as a cpu temperature meter costing $30 on the Apple store, I'm going straight for the free version. What's even worse with apps like these on the Mac in particular is that the developers often bloat them with useless features in order to justify the price, so in my case I'd end up paying $30 for something I'm only going to use one small portion of.

mugsie|6 years ago

> Great software should be paid for.

Why?

Great software - Linux - is not paid, and it is taking over the hosting world, and the IOT world.

GNU is great software. nano / pico is great software. python is great software. .NET is great software. it is all open source.

helpPeople|6 years ago

'The best business man serves the communal good.'

I'd be curious to see a survey of founders of FOSS and hear their take.

bananasquash|6 years ago

You wont find too many, as most are either contract workers or just volunteers, because “we want free software” doesn't really translate to pay for hard work and dedication.

phkahler|6 years ago

If the software is simple enough that someone can make it just to have something on their CV, I think a paid developer needs to do something more substantial.

Crinus|6 years ago

This is how you get bloated apps.