Ask HN: Which software do you value immensely but never pay for it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which software do you value immensely but never pay for it?

7 pointssanta_boy7 comments

I am a big fan of Sublime Text (ST) and have been using it from the day it launched. I love its speed and extensive community plugins. I've tried many editors but always reverted to ST.

I seem to always dismiss its "buy" popup. I might end up buying a license after so many years to get over this guilt! (It's just $99 a license)

Any similar experience you have had?

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99% of the toolchain I'm using is free. I have donated, but not regularly. The paid s/w I have to use is universally depressing, and almost impossible to seek improvement for.

(large corporates, changed dynamic. It's not like free doesn't also get #WONTFIX in the issues log (signal: I'm looking at you) but at least there is something close to a dialogue)

I was just thinking about this! For me it's "All build tools". I rely on them so heavily, and they have started putting nag/beg messages in them and everything. I know they'd really appreciate the funds but still I've never even thought about doing it.

I kind of don't understand why anyone would ever work on a build tool/package manager for a language: I expect them to be bug-free, stay out of my way, be fast - and even if it is all those things - I'll jump ship to the next big thing as soon as it's available without any appreciation for all the work that went into it!

The question is about commercial closed source software. A lot of initial answers are about open source software.

For me a key insight is that (for a certain ethos of open source software) the most desirable contribution is technical or community rather than a financial contribution.

"Bring your code, not your dollars."

and

"Become a partner in the product, not a consuming customer."

Everyone else are the "freemium"-part of the model.

Who has ever paid for anything? Me only once in 70 years. I buyed DVB-TV program for my Android for 3€.. And once my boss paid for better Emacs-clone for MSDOS.

I have thought of buying better weapons for GS:GO, but I truly do not understand how the Steam shop works. So I just shoot de polize with AK-47.

Audacity Firefox Ubuntu 18.04

OpenOffice but I’m valuing it less over time.

I would have said Sublime, but I paid US$85 for a registration a couple of months ago, first time and for only one of my machines. Gotta support the things you use.

I love this question, let’s see what the answers expose.

Emacs I've only donated to the GNU project once... but emacs is so useful in my life that I should do it at least once a year.

Xmonad the only sane window manager in this age of "point and grunt" interfaces.

Ubuntu linux

emacs

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