Re: alternatives for funding (was: I want to give you money but it can't be called a donation)

[Felipe G. Nievinski]

Hi again.

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden> wrote:

On Fri, 2013-12-06 at 01:36 -0200, Felipe G. Nievinski wrote:
> So I've done quite a bit of studying and editing here:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-source_software>

Most of these methods are unacceptable to us because they involve the creation of non-free software. In particular, the frequent suggestion to sell non-free versions of Octave add-ons like a GUI or Octave-Forge packages are non-starters.

I was suggesting selling Octave as-is, with the addition of a nice CD and packaging plus a limited-period priority support.

Perhaps we should improve the way we sell support, because even though we're selling it, people like you think we're selling something bad.

Very bad: there's not even a price tag!  It only says something vague like "we can help; email us and we'll talk".  Octave needs a shopping cart with pre-defined fixed-price contracts, like RedHat offers for example:

<https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html>

Marketing 101: you lose customers the moment you require them to think too much -- purchase has to be a no-brainer.

 

We have highly qualified people like jwe offering Octave support, but the webpage doesn't seem to be attractive
enough to buyers.

So, maybe we should focus on improving this bit first?

By the way, remember that GNU is more about free software than "open
source":

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Where I said open source please read FLOSS.

> IMHO, the very existence of xoctave is evidence that selling octave as a box is profitable.

Xoctave is non-free software, and I consider it a GPL violation.
Hopefully the upcoming GUI will make Xoctave obsolete, and it doesn't seem like they've had huge success selling it, so it doesn't seem like we need to make any further efforts to stop it.

I doubt you know how many copies they sold.

The problem is, as of now, xoctave is the only business-friendly no-hassle option for contributing monetarily to Octave.  "Donation" is such a foreign concept to most small-to-medium companies.  Even individuals who would be inclined to make an in-kind donation -- of their time, materials and goods, etc. -- wouldn't make a money donation, especially outside the U.S.  I'm afraid there's a huge cultural gap here.

 

> But I don't want to make a one-time purchase -- ideally it'd be offered for sale at large.

You want to make more than one purchase? I can draft a contract you can show to your employer where you can renew every year.

Alright, please go ahead.

 

We are already working on ways to fund Octave,

If you could please point them out.  I only found that above-mentioned commercial support page.  I assume most developers find their own individual sponsor or customer.  Please note when I suggest something more centralized, it is in addition to the existing decentralized funding sources, not as a replacement, of course.

 

but you have to understand how selling free software can work:

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Thanks.

 

> Assuming you agree, I've done some market research and found this option adequate:
> <http://www.fastspring.com/features.php>

That's not what "market research" means. When you do market research, what you're doing is figuring out who's going to be buying Octave.

exactly same folks who currently buy xoctave.

 

Instead, you seem to have researched infrastructure for selling
Octave. We don't need help with the infrastructure of selling Octave.

you're welcome.

 

> It charges 8.9% for handling all the hassle of payment & refund -- %91.1 of the sell value would go straight to donation.

The FSF already does this for us. We don't need another provider. The FSF will also help us sell Octave if we figure out a way to do so, but the consensus is that we don't want to sell Octave per se. We could not figure out a way to do it that doesn't make at least one of the core developers unhappy. I thought we would be able to sell binaries, but people objected to putting binaries behind a paywall, or having differently-branded binaries, or nagging the users to pay if they
download an unpaid binary.

There's no need to take anything away from existing users, you'd only be offering extras for those for whom a box and timely support matters.  The problem is, developers don't need these extras and erroneously assume no user should either.

 

Instead, we are going to try to cater to the fans. The people who are already using Octave and loving it, those are the people that we want to convince to make donations.

You're focusing on individuals at the expense of most companies which simply don't have a donation budget but would be happy to pay for Octave out of their annual software budget.

 

> Alternatively, there are free though non-customizable sites:

That's an oxymoron, like saying "a free enslaved man".

I meant free as in free beer, not free as in freedom.

> Amazon doesn't serve well

There is no way that we will distribute GNU software or services via Amazon. They make the Kindle, they DRM their store, they mistreat their employees, and they make frivolous software patents.

I'm sure none of you never purchased anything through Amazon...

Guys, please don't get me wrong.  I'm just trying to help Octave flourish even more.

-F.