{"id":15,"date":"2007-10-20T05:51:28","date_gmt":"2007-10-20T10:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/2007\/10\/20\/whats-wrong-with-this-picture\/"},"modified":"2012-12-05T00:57:03","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T05:57:03","slug":"whats-wrong-with-this-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/2007\/10\/20\/whats-wrong-with-this-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s wrong with this picture?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ISO<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, there’s nothing seriously wrong with that screenshot – I’m talking about the picture of me working on a reasonably popular open source app for Linux (ISO Master<\/a>). What’s wrong with writing open source apps for Linux? Nothing, unless you need to make money to pay your bills :)<\/p>\n

Linux users are so used to getting applications like this for free that they’ll never even consider paying for it. I thought of supporting open source by paying for it once but then I realised I use a couple of dozen programs regularily and there’s no way I can pay for them all so I just payed for the distribution I use (distribution being the entire collection of software).<\/p>\n

Having said that – it’s not that one can’t make a living from donations – it’s that one can’t make a living from donations for a Linux app. But Linux is not all there is.<\/p>\n

I sometimes get requests for a Windows port of ISO Master. After discussing it with a few people I have a plan in mind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Port my ISO read\/write library to use the Win32 system calls (right now it’s using POSIX)<\/li>\n
  2. Write a GUI for Windows. This is harder – since the GTK and Win32 GUI toolkits are so different a port won’t work, a complete rewrite is needed<\/li>\n
  3. Keep it open source and free, but make it come up with a nag screen asking for donations<\/li>\n
  4. Sell a code to get rid of the nag screen for as much as they’re willing to pay, from 5 to 25 dollars<\/li>\n
  5. Force the other ISO Editors to either innovate (be better than ISO Master) or go out of business<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Hopefully there are enough users alltogether that there’d be enough of them willing to pay that I’ll recover the expense of making the Windows port. A shot-in-the-dark estimate for how long it will take me to finish it is 3 months part time, so if I make a few thousand dollars that will pay for my time, and anything more will be profit.<\/p>\n

    One concern I had is that, ISO Master being open source, anyone can take my source code, get rid of the nag screen, and release a rebranded copy. After thinking about it I decided it’s highly unlikely. Since the program is free already it’s pretty hard to compete with, so anyone attempting it will fail.<\/p>\n

    Another concern is that my competitors may steal my code and use it in their programs. Though technically this is illegal (the GPL licence I use doesn’t allow it) I would never catch them myself, so they may be able to get away with it. But then I decided my competitors’ programs can already do everything ISO Master does, so my competitors won’t get an advantage.<\/p>\n

    There are some advantages to free software. The biggest one being free promotion. When someone wants to recommend a solution for fixing an ISO, the free program will be at the top of the ‘recommended’ list, since it doesn’t require payment or looking for a crack. Also there’s half a million directories of shareware\/freeware out there that will happily list ISO Master.<\/p>\n

    In the end – this is a small business venture, and (as it is with all startups) I have to put up with the possibillity that I won’t get a return on my investment. In the worst case I will have lost some of my time, and I can live with that risk.<\/p>\n

    I would like some comments and criticism about this idea, there may be problems and solutions I didn’t think of.<\/p>\n

    If it works – Barb<\/a> and Mary<\/a> will be proud (ISO Master started as a systems project at Seneca<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Well, there’s nothing seriously wrong with that screenshot – I’m talking about the picture of me working on a reasonably popular open source app for Linux (ISO Master). What’s wrong with writing open source apps for Linux? Nothing, unless you need to make money to pay your bills :) Linux users are so used to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-andrew","4":"post-15","6":"format-standard","7":"category-opensource","8":"category-safeforseneca"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/littlesvr.ca\/grumble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}