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Comment by timruffles | Hacker News Reader

Really glad you're thinking about this, and making it explicit, buuuuut...

Why not dual-license, or look at the Fair Source license? The "donate please" button is just going to be ignored, like Sublime's donate nag screens.

Make it so at least big companies who have open-source policies will pay for a non-GPL license or support etc. You don't have to publish the history containing Apache 2, republish, and write all new code with AGPL-3.0.

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> The "donate please" button is just going to be ignored,

I'm sure the "donate please" button will be mostly ignored, but putting a "pay what you want" before the download button will not be.

Way back when, I wrote a windows IME for typing Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks (https://www.pinyinput.net) and for years just had a "Donate" button on the site.

In the first 6 years of release, I could count on two hands the number of donations it received (despite tens of thousands of downloads).

Then I changed the site so instead of having both a download and a donate button that it just had a "purchase" button and a "pay what you want" field with a suggested price of $5, with $0 allowed if you want.

It's still essentially the same setup as before - you can download it for free or you can make a donation, but now by explicitly asking, every day or two someone makes a "purchase" - sometimes only a dollar, sometimes $5, once even $50.

Sure, with this setup, Caddy probably won't make as much as if they offered paid support plans, however they will almost certainly make more than they did with just a "donate" button up the top of the page.

Ubuntu does something similar, but since they work on many things they let you decide how to split things up. What's interesting to me is that they show a cost comparision at the bottom, such as $5 being the same as the cost of a pint of beer. This really helps the user realize something like "I buy a pint at the bar without thinking, why can't I give the same amount to software I use every day?"

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=1...

> The "donate please" button is just going to be ignored, like Sublime's donate nag screens.

Do people ignore when Sublime tell them to buy a license?

I might not be representative but I bought next time I had money and it asked.

Also, if possible I would be happy if you don't go AGPL, I'll be happy to pay without like I do for Elementary and Sublime Text. As long as I can pay an amount that is small enough that I don't have to discuss it at home or with my boss ( ~ < $40 at my current salary / position) I'm happy to support projects I like. For projects I use a lot I do nag my company to buy a support plan.

BTW: Don't everybody do this?

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