Weekly Edition
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Quote of the week
Keep in mind that Free software can be sold, and on devices such as
these getting software that is tested and well packaged is a
service much like bottling water. Yes, water can be had at no cost,
but the convenience and safety of bottled water makes it something
you can sell. So while we are shipping a ton of great Free software
applications by default as part of Plasma Active (and therefore the
Vivaldi tablet) so that it is useful out of the box, we are also
going to be encouraging developers of Free software to think about
putting a small price tag on their applications in the catalog.
— Aaron
Seigo(Log in to post comments)
Quote of the week Posted Jun 1, 2012 15:52 UTC (Fri) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
I am concerned that this will create a conflict of interest if applications are available at different price tag from different distribution channel especially if one of the price is 0, and that might change the way authors see independent redistribution of their work.
Quote of the week Posted Jun 1, 2012 19:39 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Distributions should collect software that is packaged by the authors upstream and not try to repackage it themselves.
They can then use the package management system to provide a way for the authors to price their software according and specify how funds should be transmitted. This can be done as a extension to the package metadata.
Distributions then can add their own 'tax' on top of that price and that price is what users will see when viewing their package management UI.
Once the basics get worked out then that can be used to create more creative ways to distribution and collect funds.
For a example of a complex system:
For projects that produce a lot of smaller software packages, but don't want to charge enough money to make direct deposits worthwhile distributions can setup a escrow on their behalf to collect 'micropayments'. Due to high transaction costs it doesn't make sense to charge less then a few dollars for a package otherwise. More money would be going to people like paypal then to the authors.
Users could donate 50 or 100 dollars to their distribution of choice per year and then the micropayments would be deducted from individual accounts that into individual upstream escrow accounts. All of this managed on behalf of the distributions. Then, based on some criteria, those funds from the escrow accounts can be deducted and set to the respective upstream projects. The Micropayments could be as little as 2-3 cents.
Quote of the week Posted Jun 1, 2012 20:34 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
I happen to think along the same lines as well as a way to make more projects self-sustaining. Many projects are run by ad-hoc consortiums of companies who can throw developer resources at problems but there is a significant minority of uncompensated labor. I don't think this is a popular opinion though.
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