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Tobias Hunger

@BrodieOnLinux I do not know why the maintainer saw the need to sell. Maybe the money was direly needed and those were the terms of the contract that was offered?

Yes, this could have been handled better in an ideal world, but not knowing the situation the person is in: I do not feel comfortable to judge.

maybe we would see less of this if we had a financially viable support model for maintainers? Not that I have any idea how that would look like.

9 comments
Brodie Robertson

@hunger He recently added in 14 day trials to a bunch of the apps which were very poorly received so I think possibly he was struggling financially and now he's taking the bag and bailing before it all collapses

Tobias Hunger

@BrodieOnLinux Whatever you do as an free software person to raise money: People will yell at you. That's unfortunately a fact of live 😞

Maybe grabbing the bags and run is the best you can do in that situation?

Brodie Robertson

@hunger I'm more than happy to have popups asking you to donate personally, but I know a lot of people aren't

Tobias Hunger

@BrodieOnLinux You need a *huge* and popular project for donations to pay the rent.

Donations will not cover the costs (if you count in developer time) of 99.9% of all projects out there. Many projects do not account for the time spent as the people running it can afford the time.

That breaks down as soon as something unforeseen happens in live and excludes a big chunk of the population from participating in FLOSS, too.

Brodie Robertson

@hunger That's true but burning your entire userbase also doesn't pay the rent lol

Tobias Hunger

@BrodieOnLinux Do you know contract details of the sale? It might pay the rent for a long time, or might just fill in a short term budget hole that urgently needs filling.

I do not know that. I am sure a steady stream of income above minimum wage from the project would have moved the needle towards "don't sell" a bit though.

Brodie Robertson

@hunger What we know is he is no longer going to be involved, whether that means royalties or a lump sum is unclear

Apan

@BrodieOnLinux @hunger Its also an exellent opportunity for a forkproject to take up the project and revitalising its funding somewhat some what like Thunderbird did.

Dawid Rejowski

@hunger @BrodieOnLinux

I, and maybe many others, would happily pay some money for those apps. But app payments are broken.

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