A number of brand new accounts have popped up shilling their paid for applications.
Is this within the rules? Is the community happy with this? Could mods clarify this in the rules?
Either allowing advertising, or banning it entirely.
my point is - there is a difference between an open source homegrown project that might be useful, vs closed source paid for projects from brand new accounts
some replies are misunderstanding, somehow.
I am against
brand new accounts who:
- first post is a brand new project
- project is closed source
- project will cost money
- is asking for free testing
- the post is literally an advertisement
Ban all advertising for proprietary software.
Producing software is not free. Serious projects need to be able to commercialize, it can’t always be for passion and vibes. But it can be done tastefully, there is a difference between shilling slop and monetizing a serious project.
That’s not what they said. Free software can be paid for, either via users or via subsidies. Nobody in this thread suggested that developers starve.
To be pragmatic here are ways free software can be monetized :
I professionally do both, namely I get paid to develop free software but I also pay free software developers, e.g. https://gcompris.net/ via their https://www.patreon.com/animtim . I also until recently worked in a public institution and was paid to write free software.
I think it is important not to conflate free software with free of cost and indeed free of production. Free software developers, like me, need to pay their bills but that does NOT have to be opposed to your freedom in using and modifying that software. By implying a false dichotomy by software being either proprietary or funded somehow you are in fact sadly promoting proprietary software, please do not do that.
You don’t have to go closed source to monetize your software (although it does make it easier)
Even so, it does not follow that this community should provide that commercialization venue. If you want me involved in solving your business problems or monetization strategy, we should discuss terms and rates first.
Developing hardware also is not free. I still don’t want to see ads for the latest cooling system.
Paying for software is an exception, not a rule.
And we only have proprietary software because there’s greedy people out there that take advantage of people who don’t know better.
With that said. I’m not saying that developers shouldn’t get paid for what they do. They absolutely should! And a lot of them do, even when the code is free as in free beer and free speech.