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Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

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superboyac:
To me, it still comes down to this simple thing:  people won't pay if they don't HAVE to pay.  Ever.
-superboyac (September 29, 2011, 09:47 AM)
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Not always never...

I do.

Quite often in fact.  :)

(I'm such a boy scout about stuff like that.  ;D )
-40hz (September 29, 2011, 10:15 AM)
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Sure, so do a lot of us here because it's kind of a love of ours.  But you can't depend on that kind of charity and loving attitude as a business strategy, especially when we are in such the minority.  So a shareware author is not going to make a living simply because a few people appreciate his effort.  I wish that was the case, but it's not.  You basically have to put people in the position where they have to pay for this thing whether they want to or not.  Especially with software.

40hz:
Especially with software.
-superboyac (September 29, 2011, 11:00 AM)
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Agree. 8)

hsoft:
Superboyac, I don't know why you persist in saying that it can't work in front of monetary evidence that it does. In september, only with the "plain fairware" system (but with hours to compensate most of the time, so that's why the revenue is higher than other months), there was over 2000$ of income. I'm not a big spender, so this is more than enough for me.

Sales in the last two days (since the introduction of that "dual-license" thingy) seems to indicate that revenue will continue to rise. So again, why persist in saying that it can't work? Wouldn't you take a job that gives you 2000$ to work a few hours a week from home?

mouser:
hsoft, to be fair to superboy's point, if you have this:
The initial popup simply mentions fairware, but otherwise is a standard shareware "you can try it for free, but until you buy it, there are limitations"
--- End quote ---

then we may be back on the shareware turf where we have people paying because they have to in order to use the software.

so i'm not sure it's fair to say that this is evidence that people pay even if they they don't feel like they need to.


I think it may be fairer to say that there is a continuum:

* On one side is the shareware approach where to really fully use the software people have to pay a fixed amount.  This model does fine.
* On the other side is absolutely pure-as-driven-snow freeware, which has no limits, no requirements to get a license key, not even a nag or text saying they should donate.  This model seems to almost never get any financial support -- except in the most unusual cases.
And then somewhere in between are the more intriguing models, whose space we don't understand fully.  That's where DonationCoder and Fairware are trying to find a home.

And the interesting question is what does this space look like? Are there significantly better ways to do things that end up with everyone happier?

hsoft:
hsoft, to be fair to superboy's point, if you have this:
The initial popup simply mentions fairware, but otherwise is a standard shareware "you can try it for free, but until you buy it, there are limitations"
--- End quote ---

then we may be back on the shareware turf where we have people paying because they have to in order to use the software.

so i'm not sure it's fair to say that this is evidence that people pay even if they they don't feel like they need to.
-mouser (September 29, 2011, 12:34 PM)
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The "double license" thing is less than 3 days old. The 2000$ threshold had been reached in september before that new system came along. The problem I was trying to solve with this new dual system is not so much one of income, but one of incomprehension and frustration (but a side effect of it is increased income).

But yes, you're right, it's not quite "pay whatever/whenever you want" anymore, but given what we've said before about "care vs don't care", I think that this system reaches a fair balance.

EDIT: (now that I look at the numbers more closely, the threshold wasn't quite reached, but it would have been, even without the dual thing)

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