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Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

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hsoft:
So rather than go through the hassles of coming up with yet another alternate development model (since we have freeware, shareware, adware, open, and commercial models already) why not try going with a standard "closed commercial' license approach and see where it leads?  You might be pleasantly surprised.
-40hz (September 10, 2011, 02:09 PM)
--- End quote ---

Hardcoded Software has been a closed source business for nearly 10 years before trying the fairware thing. It was successful and in 2004, I was able to leave my day job for it.

My concerns -- the reason for trying fairware -- are more of ethical nature than of monetary nature. But of course, you can't eat ethics, so that's why money's gotta come in at some point :)

The problem is that you see the whole thing as an alternate business model. Of course the closed source model is more profitable at the individual level. The business model of Goldman Sachs is also highly profitable, but they're crooks and liars. But the question is: which model makes the world a better place?

steeladept:
I personally don't see why this can't work.  My concerns as a potential user have already been addressed, and I see where you are coming from in your approach.  I also see how it is a perfect fit for the DC community here.  I commend you and am glad you found us. 

I do hope you stick around and join us for all there is to offer here.  In return, I have no doubt you will get a lot back.  If nothing else, you will find a ready and friendly place to announce your software, though I hope you participate more than that.  This is how I found out about your software; and if my personal PC didn't decide to blow a capacitor on the motherboard, I would download some of your wares and check them out (moneyGuru, oddly enough, is the most interesting one to me).  So until I get a new MoBo and can get back up and running, I have to wait.

Again, welcome and enjoy.

mouser:
40hz, many of your points are good ones, and if money was the sole or even main goal, it might be more cut and dried.

But many of us who are interested in this model have other interests and goals.

Ethics is one, as hgsoft mentioned.

But for me i think it's mainly about the kind of experience I want to have as a coder -- and the kind of experience I have always valued the most.  I get a lot of pleasure out of having a "relationship" (for lack of a better word) with the community of users that use my software.  I like the feeling of knowing that people are able to pay what they feel is right -- and I like the nature of the interactions I have with those kinds of users.  I think that's a large part of what DonationCoder is all about and why I love it here so much and why I appreciate everyone here.

That is a very different experience than one gets when selling software at a fixed price, or when one is focused on maximizing profit, and when dealing with "paying customers".

I'm not saying it's an all or nothing thing, I'm just saying that when you start considering a wider spectrum of goals and realize that profit is not at the top of the list, then these other approaches may start to make more sense.

One frustration has been coming to terms with how hard it is and how much energy must be expended to find a middle ground alternative approach.  I had a naive belief that if one started out with the position that it wasn't important to make lots of money -- that just making enough to survive would be sufficient -- then life would be a lot easier.

Unfortunately it seems to me that that's not been the case.. Our world economy in general, and software economy in specific, seems to have carved out these niches for commercial products that people expect and are happy to pay for, and "free" stuff that no one is required to pay for -- and that they therefore refuse to spend money on -- and it seems very hard to try to carve out a stable niche somewhere in between where people make voluntary payments.

One of the nice things about being on this site is meeting so many people who are supportive of the attempt to find an alternative approach, and who don't make you feel like an idiot or a sell out for floundering around struggling to find new ways to do so.

vlastimil:
After reading all the posts, I am still not convinced that adopting the fairware approach is the best way for someone, who wants to start a self-sustainable software project.

hsoft, you said, the dupeGuru was a successful product before you switched to the fairware approach. I think this is a very rare thing, usually people switch from free/donationware to commercial if they feel like the second alternative would be to quit or fade away.

When you were switching to fairware model, you were in this unique position and you knew there were many people ready to pay for dupeGuru. You already had a proven and established product that paid for itself and all you needed from the donors was paying for the additional work. When someone starts a new freeware project, the situation is very different. Almost no one knows about the software, it does almost nothing and they have no money for marketing. Many people also implicitly consider freeware inferior when there is a paid alternative. To summarize, you had the right community of people when you started, because you built the core of it while your product was commercial.

Maybe the path you took was more important than the final destination. Maybe successful commercial applications can be turned into successful fairware. (And it is a wonderful thing, don't get me wrong. I am just doubting the fairware approach itself is the silver bullet.)

hsoft:
hsoft, you said, the dupeGuru was a successful product before you switched to the fairware approach. I think this is a very rare thing, usually people switch from free/donationware to commercial if they feel like the second alternative would be to quit or fade away.

When you were switching to fairware model, you were in this unique position and you knew there were many people ready to pay for dupeGuru. You already had a proven and established product that paid for itself and all you needed from the donors was paying for the additional work. When someone starts a new freeware project, the situation is very different. Almost no one knows about the software, it does almost nothing and they have no money for marketing. Many people also implicitly consider freeware inferior when there is a paid alternative. To summarize, you had the right community of people when you started, because you built the core of it while your product was commercial.
-vlastimil (September 11, 2011, 01:54 AM)
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True, when the project was closed source, I ran some adwords ads and this helped my exposure, but the thing is that, as I wrote before, I never had as much exposure as when I turned fairware. Just two weeks ago, dupeGuru was on LifeHacker's download of the day. That was so much exposure that my bandwidth limit exploded (before I found out it was LH, I thought I was being DDOSed or something). That would never have happened before.

That being said, you might be onto something. Since dupeGuru started its fairware adventure as a successful project, there's no fairware nag most of the time, so I think many people think it's simply freeware. You see it in the way people describe it, like "check out this great free app!". It irks me a bit, but well... But the fact of the matter is, when hours needs to be paid, users pay.

Maybe that a better nagging approach would be to wait a bit before nagging, but I'm hesitant to do that. I prefer to be upfront about the app being fairware.

Oh, thinking of exposure, PdfMasher is my first app which is "100% fairware" because it started out as fairware. Well, it got some pretty good exposure too :) (yes, another Lifehacker download of the day, among others). The contribution level is not great yet, and maybe it never will because I suspect that not that many people need to do what PdfMasher does. But still, my point is: the problem is not a lack of exposure-due-to-not-being-closed-source problem. When people refer to PdfMasher, they also say "check out this great free app!" most of the time, even though the nag in PdfMasher is always there.

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