Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

FOSS in no way means "free of cost". We use a piece of FOSS software where I work, and it costs 4 figures per seat.

what is it, how many seats, why not maintain it yourself if it is so useful? i can't believe that there is no closed source doing the same thing

FOSS means free, depending on what you want from the software - if you want more than the FOSS offering does, you may have to pay for improvements, or you may not.

All good questions, asked by all the devs here. I'm not about to defend the use of this particular product. I was just pointing to an example of FOSS that not only isn't free, it's very expensive.

sorry, but i really can't believe this. to start with how can foss manage a per seat license? i get needing support, but if you have the code (which you must else it is not foss) why can't you strip out the per seat code (which is a no-no in my experience on closed code) and just pay a one-off/per problem support contract?

We could, of course. But it would be a license violation and legal wouldn't stand for it. We can each use it without charge for our own, personal purposes, of course -- just not for the company's purposes.

I can't help you with your disbelief, but it is true that nothing in the FOSS philosophy prevents companies from charging for their work.

of course, you know your business far better than i do. and as you say nothing stops people making money off foss - i've done it myself. but the normal route for this is via people finding the software useful,consultancy, support and adding paid-for features. i have never, ever seen per-seat licenses for foss software. if this software actually exists, you could at least point to its web page.

My guess would be something like Docker Desktop for Mac. It's free for personal use, but if you are using it from a company standpoint, it is not free

Reply on news.ycombinator.com