Austin Web Designer - Adam Freetly - Latest Comments in Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:35:02 -0000

I still pay the ten bucks though. I look at it as supporting the software and the development of it.

that's why I thought it worth it for x-chat. it's just a shame i didn't realize the money didn't go to everyone involved. It basically amounts to a suggested donation.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

drmike — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:48:45 -0000

PHP-Nuke does it as well. To obtain the most recent version, you have to pay ten bucks to download it from the main site.

Of course you can also go to one of the hundreds of PHP-Nuke support sites and download it from there for free. It is GPL'ed and can't be prevented.

I still pay the ten bucks though. I look at it as supporting the software and the development of it.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:15:45 -0000

yeah, I knew there was a lot of noise about it. I didn't realize he didn't get permission from patch submitters. :sad:

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Mark — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:24:39 -0000

X-chat was free. The person compiling it then decided to make it a paid program. There was a lot of noise about it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... - hence the silverex version.

It was more it had to happen rather than might have happened.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:11:26 -0000

Not only that, but people's time is more valuable to some projects than others. I understand wordpress enough to write specific bug reports and develop themes. the same isn't true of hydraIRC or X-chat, nor will it ever be.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Matt Mullenweg — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:27:05 -0000

Some people have more money than time, and some people have more time than money.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:26:54 -0000

@mark -
cool, I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like that showed up. nonetheless, x-chat was on my list of open-source projects I'd always meant to donate to.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:48:40 -0000

As far as the marketplace itself, I completely agree. As far as the licensing; I suppose you could wait for it to come to a head, but it'd be much better to start off with a plan that scales well.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Matt Mullenweg — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:41:57 -0000

It's silly to debate a marketplace like this, it will either work or it won't. Like everything Automattic does, we'll iterate based on feedback (we already have a few times) and more importantly based on usage.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Mark — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:07:12 -0000

X-chat for Windows being sold. Yep. But you don't need to buy it: http://silverex.org

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:36:17 -0000

Cost-wise, yes, it's a bad deal. I suppose the only advantage to buying a custom theme rather than custom CSS would be that the theme will be "supported". Matt sees wordpress.com bloggers as people who don't want to fiddle with cPanel or fantastico. I don't think they mean to take advantage of them that way. Nor do I think he means to put designers in the position of defending GPL abuse. I think he's actually just not thought it through.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Andrea_R — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:05:52 -0000

To me, it smacks too much of taking advantage of wp.com users who don't know any better, really. First, they charge them to do pretty much anything useful, and if you can't be bothered to learn a bit of CSS (which isn't that hard, really) they are going to charge you again.
If it were me, and I was in that sort of position, I'd be pissed.
Not to mention it doesn't take much of a leap to realize that cost-wise, you could set up the standalone wp if you're willing to learn it. Or heck, jump ship to blogspot.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

sunburntkamel — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:59:46 -0000

I think the idea of a marketplace will work well on wordpress.com, I can even see it being useful for plugins (share this, etc). It's a nice idea, to have a store that pays the designer/coder, and also gives the (WP.org) community something. The license will probably not matter to most designers, which is why Matt's GPL requirement is so strange.

Re: Selling A GPL product is a bad idea

Arpit Jacob — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:55:37 -0000

you are right on the money.

Personally I think their business model is a bit bizarre.
But only time will tell.

I think matt is hoping that most users on WordPress.com will pay to get better themes.

Like I said I really don't mind what the licence is a long as I get back the actual cost of the theme.

But this will benefit people who give away free theme.