this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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The cost of switching to an unfamiliar Interface and workflow is high enough, charging money to do it will further increase the barrier to entry.
Paying for open source software sounds good on paper, but if it is required, the software will never accumulate the users to make the development have any meaning.
There has to be a "try it before you buy it" too. Otherwise the permutations of scams are obvious and nobody will fall for that. Idk how you would prove that the software works, without giving an actual copy of the software.
Also, legalities between different countries. You will just not get your money back from "trustworthy nigerian software dev who just needs 50$ to give you some software".
So no.
Do donate if you can though. If you value the software you use, you will pretty obviously recognize the utility and the cost to you, should it go away.
You could go the Grayjay approach and have it be "paid" software but not stop you from using it without pay, not even anything other than a small buy button which stays until you pay.
That is most likely going to generate less revenue than promoting donations, or a comparable amount at best. WinRAR is the meme example.
From a PR and marketing perspective, if I wanted to maximize my revenue as a single developer I would set up a Patreon or encourage recurring donations through the software by providing bragging rights stuff (merch, insider access, early access to unfinished builds and so on). Single mandatory payments simply reproduce the piracy/license access of commercial software and shaming people into paying without coercion just makes you seem less appealing to people who would donate anyway.
Free Software can be legally distributed (it's one of the 4 essential freedoms that it gives you). It doesn't matter if it's commercial or not, someone can always give you a copy.
There is a game called Mindustry, which is a libre game that is sold one Steam and it seems to be doing fine. This is just one example of a commercial Free Software project.