Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

Could you explain why they should become mortal enemies? Notice that I am not suggesting DRM. Nor am I suggesting attaching a price tag to every application in the repository. The only difference a user will see is that some (very few, hopefully) applications will be labelled with a coin icon. Clicking on them will ask the user whether he wants to pay or download a demo. How is this going to offend OSS developers?

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

Many will disagree, but the way I see it they're fire and water. Commercial developers HATE to see quality OSS applications appear as they bite into their income, and the only way to battle that is to develop more complex/powerful/polished (and thus costly) software. This is aggravated by NIT users not as accustomed to paying for software than any other platform's users. Add to this the problem of DRM lack, which will further lower your income, and you will see what you have now on the NIT - the handful of commercial apps available for the NIT (some even in extras) are not exactly smash hits...

As for the flip side, if you make a push for commercial apps, any change you introduce to make commercial apps more competitive will undermine your OSS potential. OSS projects build the community from the savvy userbase, so if your userbase is driven to or naturally becomes a commercial app user, the OSS projects will wither (if you have a super-snazzy super-powerful super-supported super-quality app for 1$, who's going to manage to draw enough attention and community to build a quality alternative ?). In this scenario OSS projects whither to hobby projects, carrying little value to the end-users.

The worst case scenario is when you have both effects at play - in that case you don't have either OSS not commercial apps of adequate quality because neither community can fully exploit it's advantages.

Ceterum censeo the AppStore can't work with OSS in the Apple way.

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

Please let's stay on topic about donations for free software. The rest is collateral and useful but, really, it would be good to have first an exploration of the feature itself, potential, alternatives...

I'm not sure how much the lack of success for donation for PC software can be applied to mobile software. Millions of people are paying 0,99 through their mobile devices for the most stup... er... basic things. Why wouldn't they think of it for a piece of software they actually like and find useful?

I'll give you a totally fictional scenario to nurture your imagination:

A developer comes with with a free app based on Qt that happens to be available for the Maemo and Symbian platforms. It's distributed in Ovi at no cost and you can actually get it from 1001 places more if you wish.

When you download it you are encouraged to donate 1, 5 or 10€ that are discounted from your Nokia Money account, your operator bill or your associated PayPal account. The dialog tells you how many people have supported this app already and it has a checkbox for "Don't show me this message again".

Somewhere you will be able to see that Nokia doesn't get any commission and actually covers the % of transaction costs. A % of your donation will be distributed to a pool of well known related non-profits: FSF, Linux Foundation, CreativeCommons, etc.

Do you think a scenario like this is desirable? If so, then let's talk about ideas to get there at http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...gh_emphasized/

If you think the scenario is unreal or undesirable then please discuss.

Commercial developers, DRM and stuff are not really part of this debate.

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

I am a commercial developer and I do not hate to see quality OSS applications. Hell, I am using many such applications myself. Where have you got this idea anyway?

You do understand that if Maemo is to be successful, it has to become a commercial platform at some point, no matter what some NIT users say?

Each developer can come up with his own protection scheme, as they always have done. So I do not see any mortal problems occurring from the lack of DRM.

Sorry but I fail to see logic in this statement. You mean, having good commercial apps is bad because it makes bad OSS apps wither? And how is having better apps bad for the user?

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

I have no idea how desirable this scenario is but, as I previously said, it is not likely to generate enough donations to even bother implementing the needed infrastructure.

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

My worry is if people will be able to make that leap, from perceiving something as COST (=must or even convenience) to have a comparable response as a DONATION. In the first case they have this feeling they now actually own/bought something, that they are entitled to help, support, and that they are really a client, while in the second case, it's much more a moral incentive augmented by the community spirit, which might or might not work out as a surogate replacement for the first case. Plus you have extra factors as donator fatigue (you'll likely donate to the first apps you see and like, the 100th app you install has much lower chances compared to what it would have if it had been #1). I can't say whether it's unreal as it has never even been attempted at that scale (a little market study homework for Nokia :) ). If it works yay \o/, but but I would not expect it to be a game-changer.

Understood :)

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

To stay in line with qgil's request of staying on topic, I'll just say 'commercial patform' should not be synonimized with an Apple style AppStore. There are many, many ways of making a platform commercial. It's not Appstore or bust, there are far more nuances.

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

100% agree. I am not even sure why everyone assumes it has to be Apple AppStore nowadays.

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

Perhaps try a pay what you want approach. Not donate (two different ideas from what people have tested already).

Re: "Donate to developper" in ToolKit
 

I think having a donation system in place on the phone/tablet itself would be helpful and is much more likely to generate donations than simply a Paypal button on the program's website alone.

Instead of the user having to hunt down the official developer's website through Google (and potentially not getting there at all), then going through all the Paypal procedure... the user has to go through a lot of effort to donate that way (figuratively speaking). With a simple donate button in the application manager (or whatever gets implemented) which will automatically donate from the user's Paypal/Nokia Money/whatever account, more people are going to be willing to donate because the donation process is a lot less painful.

But as stated earlier, I'm not sure it would generate enough cash anyways to make it a worthwhile project of Nokia's.