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Comment by rhubarbquid | Hacker News Reader

I have no problem with them charging for their software, but it's kind of lame that you have to download and run it before they even tell you it requires buying a license...

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Sorry you had a bad experience :/ I can somehow see why and I guess I should make it clearer. There's a "Buy" link in the navigation and on the separate download page [1] it says that a license is required.

[1]: https://fman.io/download

I think, paying attention to the comments here, you should consider that your communication is an issue. The whole license in general, the need for it, the "it feels OSS, but its not" ... the artificial license limit... lots of red flags, and a lack of clarity.

The person who said the thing about OSS corrected himself (I assume it's a he) and admitted he just hadn't read the page properly.

I just explained why the limit isn't artificial.

But you're right, I'm sure my communication can improve. I've been spending a lot of time on this project so am somewhat "blind" to mistakes. All I can do is listen to the feedback here and improve.

I think we'll just have to disagree on the "artificial" thing. It "appears" artificial.

I think the combo of the nag screen and the inability to pay to get rid of it is a big part of the problem. If you're not going to let people buy the software, you shouldn't add a penalty/hurdle/annoyance to their usage.

You're right that the combo sucks. I'll have to come up with something. I didn't think this through properly in advance.

Until I read these comments, you home page made me think it's OSS. I went back and read what Open Source Promise actually means. It means it's NOT opensource right now. That's not obvious, especially when stating it on the home page.

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