Random thoughts and serendipity

7 thoughts on “”

1. Arguably, users “purchase” ad-supported software, albeit indirectly, by watching the ads that pay for the software to function. Certainly, that wouldn’t include FOSS desktop apps, but could include, say, Gmail.

2. It’s worth noting that in the context of Open Source philosophy buying and selling software is irrelevant to the freedom of the software.

   There is nothing inherently good or bad about “not buying software in the past ten years.”

   If you put value in it, there is nothing wrong with that value being a monetary one. Open Source only talks about the freedom to use it; not the freedom to place whatever value (even monetary) on it. If a person wants to purchase software that he/she finds useful (and we’re talking of ‘purchasing’ outside the situation of being locked into a closed-source product) then there’s nothing wrong with that.

   And the corollary is, that if a user genuinely admires a piece of closed-source software and wants to use it — even pay money for it — there’s nothing wrong with _that_. You can’t take away the value he/she puts on that software himself, or say that he has misplaced his value — value (and software value) is obviously subjective.

   The fact that you haven’t bought anything means you’re quite satisfied _not_ buying anything. But it doesn’t mean other people can’t find satisfaction in investing monetary value in a piece of software. This doesn’t contradict the FOSS development model at all.

3. Many of the power users are not watching ads at all. Even though Firefox is essentially ad funded as well, the number one extension ironically is adblock.

   Some of us use gmail but via a desktop client that shows none of the ads. Maybe the value of gmail is more in brand propagation and custom deployments for enterprises rather than ads.

4. Absolutely, in the context of Open Source/Free Software as a development model for software it isn’t important (or even relevant) that people buy/purchase software. However, what is somewhat of note is that the model lends itself to a society where infrastructure can function without ‘paying for software’ and ‘subscribing to services/support’.

   The nub of that statement is that the world of lock-in software or, a stage where binary bits are priced isn’t quite true. There is an alternative that sometimes most people who begin to use-consume FOSS tend to miss.

5. Ahh but how relevant is ad-support when Gmail is accessed via a MUA ?

6. I can’t figure out where your rss feed is. Am I missing something or am I just going blind 🙁

7. Thoughtful post and well written. Please write more on this if you have time.

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