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0 pointskybernetyk9y ago0 comments

Oh, I don't begrudge him either.

I run a small software company myself. We're selling our software on the internet. But our website focuses on getting people to download the free trial first. The "asking for money" is then done once the trial period ends.

It's already hard to get people to download your stuff for free. With obviously visible download buttons.

If we did what Elementary is doing we would be closing our shop rather soon.

0 comments

embik9y ago

As far as I know the GPL does not allow trial periods and asking for money later on, but feel free to correct me. That's why elementary cannot do such a thing.

paulryanrogers9y ago

GPL doesn't prohibit payment. It just implicitly undercuts payment because the first to pay can redistribute for less or nothing.

Yet some projects still squeak out some money: Synergy, DOSBox Turbo, etc.

acomar9y ago

GPL just requires source to be available to anyone who receives the binary. It has to be available on request. You can ask them to pay for the cost of postage to ship it to them.

toyg9y ago

Hell, you can ask them to pay anything, like RedHat does, regardless of costs. It's perfectly legal and GPL-compliant. You just have to provide sources.

kybernetykOP9y ago

No, I didn't mean a trial version. I just suggested they should ask for a donation once people actually had the chance to find out if they'd consider donating worth it.

pmontra9y ago

The GPL and payment are orthogonal. They could GPL a piece of software that stops working after 30 days if you don't pay. You decide if to compile out the code that checks for the payment (and possibly distribute your version) or pay them those money.

john619y ago

If it stops working it violates the GPL:

Freedom 0: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose."

1 more reply

teddyh9y ago

If Elementary wants to alter some program to add a time bomb, the GPL cannot stop them. The GPL only ensures that the user can take the time bomb out (either by themselves or by following instructions on the internet, or by hiring somebody to do it).

mohanmcgeek9y ago

No. Gpl has no such thing. But you'll have to provide the source code with your software, so I'll just modify the source to give myself infinite trial.

_that's why it won't work_

mikeash9y ago

It'll work, it just won't get quite as many conversions as it might otherwise. The same principle applies to closed-source software, after all: you have to provide the binary, so I'll just modify the binary to give myself an infinite trial. This is entirely doable, but enough people still pay to make it a viable business in many cases.

Damogran69y ago

The number of people that would bother to do that is relatively small. If it's a good product, and reasonably priced, people would much rather just pay to have it. (See music streaming.)

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