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Comment on [META] Are paid for closer source advertising appropriate?

Producing software is not free. Serious projects need to be able to commercialize, it can’t always be for passion and vibes. But it can be done tastefully, there is a difference between shilling slop and monetizing a serious project.

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i_love_FFT@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Developing hardware also is not free. I still don’t want to see ads for the latest cooling system.

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utopiah@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That’s not what they said. Free software can be paid for, either via users or via subsidies. Nobody is suggesting that developers starve.

To be pragmatic here are ways free software can be monetized :

get a salary from a company or institution that relies on free software

ask for donations via e.g. liberapay.com or Patreon or OpenCollective

get money per project via CrowdFunding platforms e.g. KickStarter or for hardware www.crowdsupply.com

get subsidies directly, e.g. NLNet (International, no need to be European), or www.sovereign.tech/programs/fund or by being part of a consortium, e.g. public/private partnerships on a theme e.g. www.ciiic.nl/en/calls/learning-communities

I professionally do both, namely I get paid to develop free software but I also pay free software developers, e.g. gcompris.net via their www.patreon.com/animtim

I think it is important not to conflate free software with free of cost and indeed free of production. Free software developers need to play their bills but that does NOT have to be opposed to your freedom in using and modifying that software. By implying a false dichotomy by software being either proprietary or funded somehow you are in fact sadly promoting proprietary software, please do not do that.
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TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
You don’t have to go closed source to monetize your software (although it does make it easier)

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ken@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Sure but that doesn’t mean that this community should provide that commercialization venue.

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Hund@feddit.nu ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Paying for software is an exception, not a rule.

And we only have proprietary software because there’s greedy people out there that take advantage of people who don’t know better.

With that said. I’m not saying that developers shouldn’t get paid for what they do. They absolutely should! And a lot of them do, even when the code is free as in free beer and free speech.

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