Jul 25, 2018 07:00:00

Is the sale of paid software acceptable in a 'free is basic' open source culture area?

'

Hiri ' is a paid email client software compatible with Outlook, but one of its features is that it runs on Linux in addition to Windows and macOS. David Power, a co-founder of hiri, has written a blog post on how it started providing closed source, paid email clients for Linux in the open source culture.

A year on — our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux.
https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-paid-proprietary-product-on-linux-db4f9116be08

A year ago, a company called Canonical, a company developing and supporting Ubuntu, told David that he wanted you to create a mail client that could use Microsoft's Exchange / Office365 for Linux users. However, it seems that this was a story that Mr. David didn't care about very much. That's because I created a test version of the Linux version half a year ago and asked Reddit users to use it, and I didn't get much positive feedback.

Most of the comments were positive, but David didn't feel very well. In the comments, 'it would be very difficult to sell a closed source system to Linux users. Many people use Linux for evaluating the idea of open source', 'If it is open source If so, I downloaded and compiled it 20 minutes ago, 'said David, who wanted to stop selling Linux clients.

But Canonical's idea was different. Canonical wanted Ubuntu to support its development to as many people as possible, which meant that it needed to have more software in the operating system. As the development of Linux version hiri progressed in response to the offer from Canonical, and finally it could be offered at the Ubuntu Software Center, while looking back on that time, David said, 'I miss the chance of getting into a new market. Was too big. '

Thus, 'hiri', which began to be sold a year ago, says David feels that 'it was worthwhile'. Sales are considered to be enough to develop apps specifically for Linux users, and David said that the Linux market is big enough to keep the business going, hiri will continue to do so It states that we will carry out development.

David found that Linux users are willing to pay for software just like Windows and macOS users. In addition to that, Linux users are mostly developers, so they get better feedback. 'If you're going to develop another product, you'll start with the Linux version,' said David.