Poll on Doom9 model

[mikenadia]

please, just vote. Do not make comment not to start a heated debate.

[stax76]

I guess FOSS stands for Free Open Source Software, right? Naturally windows users (most here) vote No.

[jj666]

Stop trying to stir up things against Neuron2 with such a stupid poll. The forum already has a DEDICATED section for a paid product since a long time, should that be removed?

You may as well set the poll as "do we want to discourage people writing useful software on here" or "should we ban GUI frontends because they make people lazy" or some other such pointlessness - there are various products, X264, TSMUXER, EAC3TO etc which I totally would pay for if required (and have donated to several FOSS projects which I use very regularly). If someone writes a relatively niche product, why not charge for it? If we really begrudge letting the guy have a few beers on us, it really shows what little appreciation we have for their hard work.

-jj-

[Dark Shikari]

Stop trying to stir up things against Neuron2 with such a stupid poll.
^^^^^

[ChronoCross]

FOSS is a novel idea however doesn't really work well for everyone. As long as the product does something well then sure they can charge. The primary problem is charging the appropriate amount for what your software is actually worth.

[Adub]

Uh, lets see, 15 "No"s. Nuff said.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

OpenSource is important and will become even more important. There is great development going on! Not only (but especially) on Doom9.

However payware has it's right to exist and there are some pretty good products worth the money. Would be nothing but stupid to exclude this sector from Doom9 discussion.
Also note that there are various "Freeware" products that are free to download and use, but still not OpenSource and thus not "Free Software" as defined by the Free Sofware Foundation.

-> I voted "No".

[Dark Shikari]

FOSS is a novel idea however doesn't really work well for everyone. As long as the product does something well then sure they can charge.OpenSource is important and will become even more important. There is great development going on! Not only (but especially) on Doom9.

However payware has it's right to existYou know you're allowed to charge money for free and open source software, right? :p

Open source has absolutely nothing to do with the price of a program.

[mikenadia]

Payware. No problem but there is a conflict of interest. They have a vested interest in protecting their turf and make sure that nobody else is trying to create another alternative to their product. Specially when they are "moderators".
Closed source. No problem either, but they should be more careful with their claims when few people have reviewed their source code and when they are relying on other closed source programs (unless they have access to their source code: conspiracy theory).

[LoRd_MuldeR]

You know you're allowed to charge money for free and open source software, right? :p

Open source has absolutely nothing to do with the price of a program.

If a software is OpenSource, then the source codes are publicly available. So I can download, compile and use them (for free).
Depending on the license in use, they might compile "private" binaries from the public sources and then release them under some restrictive license (e.g. Google Chrome).
But still they can't prevent me from compiling the original sources myself. And of course they can offer support for money...

If you now tell me that they must only distribute the sources to paying customers (so I can't get them for free), then I tell you that this perverts the idea of OSS ;)

[Dark Shikari]

If a software sf OpenSource, then the source codes are publicly available. So I can download, compile and use them (for free).
Depending on the license in use, they might compile "private" binaries from the public sources and then release them under some restrictive license (e.g. Google Chrome).
But still they can't prevent me from compiling the original sources myself. And of course they can offer support for money...

If you now tell me that they must only distribute the sources to paying customers (so I can't get them for free), then I tell you that this perverts the idea of OSS ;)Might I suggest you read the GPL again? :)

[Sharktooth]

@Lord_Mulder: nope... the license tells you the sources must be available, but still money could be charged for the sources download service...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

@Lord_Mulder: nope... the license tells you the sources must be available, but still money could be charged for the sources download service...

Well, that money has to be equal to cost of the download bandwidth and server load or the cost of the media (e.g. floppy) they send to me and the postal charges.
That is: They can't demand 1000$ for letting me download a few hundred kilobytes of code ...

And if somebody buys a compiled binary, he has the right to also get the sources. So this guy can then take the sources and put them on his public server.

[ChronoCross]

You know you're allowed to charge money for free and open source software, right? :p

Open source has absolutely nothing to do with the price of a program.

I know that however then it simply becomes and open source.

FOSS is the term he used in the POLL and the F being FREE.

If the poll stated OSS then your point would be well taken.

[Sharktooth]

Well, that money has to be equal to cost of the download bandwidth and server load or the cost of the media (e.g. floppy) they send to me and the postal charges.

That is: They can't demand 1000$ for letting me download a few hundred kilobytes of code ...
where is it specified in the license?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

where is it specified in the license?

This is what I read on German wiki:

Kopien des Programms dürfen kostenlos oder auch gegen Geld verteilt werden, wobei der Quellcode mitverteilt oder dem Empfänger des Programms auf Anfrage zum Selbstkostenpreis zur Verfügung gestellt werden muss.

It says, they must also give the sources to you if they gave (or sold) a binary to you. Either along with the binary or on request.
And if they send me the sources on request, then they must do this on net cost price. The initial cost for the binary might be much higher than that, of course.

Once I got the sources, I can re-use them under the terms of GPL. So I may change them and/or put them on my public server...

[Doom9]

As already pointed out, this forum has had dedicated subforums for commercial software for a long while.
Most of the tools we deal with here only run on a commercial operating system - if you want to go all FOSS you'd first have to get rid of all those and that would effectively mean the end of this forum.
While I have always prefered free software over commercial ones where it made sense, there are good reasons to use commercial software - some times the free variety is just not good enough. Hence my policy on pushing things or allowing them to be pushed has always been free software first but if there's a commercial variety that is just hands down better, it shouldn't be a red flag and we might as well encourage that people deal with this software in this place.

[smok3]

that is a 'democratic' question, which won't fit onto privately owned forum/site so the results are irrelevant.

[Doom9]

I tend to think the place is run by a benevolent dictator though ;) and as long as the discussion is inside the scope of a specific subsection and doesn't violate any forum rules, it is generally allowed.

[smok3]

oh well :) i actually didn't see that dictator has allready answered, otherwise i wouln't post that 'opinion'.

[Gerard V]

It seems to me the Doom 9 has a good focus as it is, and that for many of us, the optimal answer for our needs wil often be a mix of FOSS and commercial software (in my case I use DVD Lab Pro, virtualdub, avisynth and Tmpgenc) to make DVDs for my show. I think Doom9 would have been less useful by far if it did not help us come up with optimal answers for the situations we experience, and limiting those answers to only FLOSS would eliminate many good, useful and affordable solutions based only on one ideological position.

[Shinigami-Sama]

If a software is OpenSource, then the source codes are publicly available. So I can download, compile and use them (for free).
xchat...

anyways no
I think OSS should be the majority here though
seeing as so many pay apps are horrible and the good ones mostly so expensive...

but this poll won't do anything
look how long it took doom9 to finally add the AVC subsection :P