An idea for commercial support for D

[Dicebot via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 9 January 2015 at 15:39:13 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> It poses unacceptable risk of company becoming hostage of 
>> ecosystem were "buying" closed patches is only way to use the 
>> tool effectively. In software world where even .NET goes 
>> open-source there is simply no reason why would one agree on 
>> such terms.
>
> See my response to Joe above, most devs rely on closed 
> toolchains.  Funny how they all avoid becoming "hostages."

It doesn't match my observations at all. Of 5 places I worked, 4 
actively avoided any closed toolchains unless those promised too 
much of a benefit and where considered worth the risk. I'd expect 
this probably to be more common attitude among smaller companies 
as enterprise relies on lawyers to address such risks and does 
not care that much.

>> Right now quite some of other developers contribute to D2 
>> toolchain and related projects even if it is not directly 
>> used. It makes sense exactly because project is fully open - 
>> there is a good trust that such work won't get wasted and/or 
>> abused and sit there until its actually needed, encouraging 
>> other people to contribute in the meanwhile. It won't work 
>> that way with hybrid model.
>
> I don't see how other devs selling paid patches will affect the 
> mentioned aspects of OSS devs working on D.  Simply claiming 
> that "it won't work that way" anymore is not an argument.

It is matter of licensing. Right now it is all open and company 
using D can be absolutely sure that it is possible to fork the 
project at any time while keeping both own contributions and all 
stuff that was paid for. Closed patches would need to restrict 
that to prevent simple sharing of such patches resulting in much 
more complicated situation.

It also prevents clash of interests - upstream would be 
interested in preventing open contributions to areas that are 
covered by closed patches to make buying them more tempting.

>> 1) Selling services is indeed much different from selling 
>> software and much more honest. When you sell a program you 
>> don't really sell anything of value - it is just bunch of 
>> bytes that costs you nothing to copy. When you sell service 
>> you don't just sell "access" to same software running on the 
>> server but continuous efforts for maintaining and improving 
>> that software, including developer team costs and server h/w 
>> costs over time. This is actually something of value and 
>> charging for that is more widely accepted as just.
>
> The only ridiculous statement I see here is your claim that 
> building a desktop/mobile program doesn't also require 
> "continuous efforts for maintaining and improving that 
> software, including developer team costs and server h/w costs 
> over time."  Both server and desktop/mobile software are widely 
> considered worth charging for: it is highly idiosyncratic and 
> self-rationalizing for you to claim that one is significantly 
> different from the other.

Building requires. Selling/maintaining - doesn't. And pure 
sell-the-software model pretty much never includes and guaranteed 
support from the developer. Quite the contrary, those are always 
tempted to abandon support in favor of making new major version 
of same software and selling it again for same money. There is 
also inherent economical issue as such model introduces huge gap 
between successful companies and contenders (either you cover 
development losses and get any income on top "for free" or you 
don't and go bankrupt) favoring creation of monopolies.

It isn't about "desktop" vs "server" but about "product" vs 
"service".

>> 2) We don't even sell plain service access - it is more 
>> delicate than that, exactly to ensure that our client don't 
>> feel like product hostages and get encouraged to try with no 
>> big commitment. You can contact our sales department for more 
>> details ;)
>
> You take money and create mostly closed-source software: those 
> are the only details that matter in this discussion.

Nope, this wasn't at all what I was talking about. My objections 
is not as much against the fact patches are closed but the fact 
that you propose to sell _patches_. I despise copyright, not 
closed software.

I am pretty sure company leadership won't me as radical as me on 
this matter but so far our business model matches my personal 
beliefs and that keeps me happy :)

>> 3) There are indeed plans for open-sourcing at least base 
>> libraries we use. It is taking very long because making 
>> something public in a way that won't hit you back is damn 
>> tricky legally these days and it is blocked in legal 
>> department for quite a while. No announcement because no idea 
>> how long may it take.
>
> Sociomantic has always been generous with the D community, I 
> don't mean to imply you haven't.  But unless you open-source 
> all your code, you're employing a hybrid closed-source model, 
> exactly the kind of model you're objecting to here. :) Funny 
> how it's good for Sociomantic but not anybody else.

I hope earlier statements explain the difference.

>> Yes, I am much in favor of paying for actual effort and not 
>> helping make money from nothing like it has happened with 
>> Microsoft. It both more honest from the point of view of 
>> commercial relations and motivates faster development by 
>> paying exactly for stuff that matters. With your proposed 
>> scheme best strategy is to hold off adding new stuff upstream 
>> as long as possible to force more people buy it.
>
> Microsoft is an extreme example of product software, most 
> software product companies didn't connive their way into a 
> similar monopoly position.  Android is the product I keep using 
> as an example, no "actual effort" there?

It is hard to reason about Android business model. It is rather 
complicated and partly so to ensure that vendors won't be afraid 
of unfair competition from Google motivating ongoing trust inside 
the ecosystem. I don't see any similarities with your proposal 
despite the claims.

>> You won't get customers in the long term if they feel like 
>> being extorted money. Your proposed scheme does exactly that.
>
> I see no arguments for why that would happen, simply bald 
> statements with no real reasoning and seemingly ignoring the 
> funding/time limits involved with my hybrid model.

I see exactly the same from your side. Fortunately you seem to be 
the only person for now that thinks something like that even 
remotely makes sense and thus there is no real value in trying to 
convince you. Because of that I'd prefer to respectfully retire 
from the discussion.