Mastodawn

aeva Aug 14, 2024

#poll Have you ever paid for software when it was optional to do so?

EDIT: If you only occasionally pay for software when it is optional, please reply with what sorts of software you typically do and don't pay for.

yes, always

7.9%

yes, but only rarely

78%

no, but maybe some day

9.6%

no, lol

4.5%

Poll ended at Aug 15, 2024 at 5:18pm.

I think it is probably safe to call it here. The overwhelming majority of you support the development of software you use to varying degrees of "sometimes", which is pretty cool.

From the replies to this thread, I gather it's relatively common for people to only support projects that are already relatively mature and popular, which is an interesting chicken and egg problem. Also you don't get anything if you don't ask, but it works better if the asking doesn't feel extractive. Not surprising

Show thread

aeva Aug 15, 2024

Lots of people also unsurprisingly strongly prefer one-off donations or payments instead of recurring ones to support long term development, but are also often vocal about how they are entitled to updates and improvements long term. That seems to imply that "growth" is the unsaid expectation of how a project should be funded long term.

Show thread

aeva Aug 15, 2024

It seems like applications that people interact with directly have the best shot at being funded through a pay-what-you-want or donation based model. Within that, games have a bit of an advantage over regular applications by more commonly having an end date to their development without being considered "abandoned".

Show thread

aeva Aug 15, 2024

Not a lot of mention of funding libraries, middleware, and critical infrastructure though. I guess most folks just assume that's someone else's problem

Show thread

ackack Aug 15, 2024

@aeva I like to work on libraries and you're right - nobody seems to fund them. One library I maintain is used by several multi-million/billion dollar companies and they haven't contributed one iota - no patches, no documentation, no issue submission, and certainly no funding.

That (& AI companies willfully ignoring licenses) has me really jaded & I've pulled back from open source contributions after 30+ years.

(Struck a nerve - apologies for rant. 👺)

Show thread

Grant Gould

@ackack @aeva I've been trying for years to get mpow to donate to all of the libraries we depend on (which since we use a hermetic build system I can enumerate with extreme precision). But everything always fetches up on finance nonsense -- tax implications, nonprofit status, blah blah.
I really, *really* wish I had a decent best-practices doc or toolset to address all of those issues -- I bet it's that more than expense that blocks a lot of otherwise prosocial decisions.