[Nix-dev] Packaging free software that costs money

[Philip Carlsen]

2016-07-06 19:12 GMT+02:00 Jookia <166291 at gmail.com>:

> On Wed, Jul 06, 2016 at 06:46:11PM +0200, Profpatsch wrote:
> > On 16-07-07 01:18am, Jookia wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jul 06, 2016 at 04:35:51PM +0200, Moritz Ulrich wrote:
> > > Is it really Nix's job to enforcing the business models of software,
> rather than
> > > just packaging it? Surely the application could just have a nag screen
> (if it
> > > doesn't already.)
> >
> > How about we check whether the NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNPAID variables (good
> name?) is set
> > and supress the abortion in that case? Same as with
> NIXPKGS_ALLLOW_UNFREE.
> >
> > env NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNPAID=1 nix-shell -p ardour --run ardour
>
> Should Nix really be involved in questions of morality like this? For where
> binaries aren't publically available we already have packages that handle
> 'commercial' software, like andyetitmoves. For software that wants the
> user to
> pay or donate, GNU Parallel for one requires you to agree to citing the
> software
> in scientific papers to avoid a nag screen, I don't see why Ardour
> shouldn't do
> the same. This isn't a technical feature, it's a morality feature.


> I also think it's wrong to present software as required to be paid in
> order to
> use when it's not, and making users say they paid for it when they didn't,
> just
> to install free software that they're entitled to install and use.
>
>
While I agree to some extent with this sentiment, I can't help but think
that it's a good fit for a distribution channel such as nixpkgs to take
some responsibility for raising awareness that FOSS software projects need
funding too in order for the ecosystem to grow better, and that in many
cases the most obvious candidates to fund the project are the end users.

What I find appealing about the about the proposed solution of setting an
"isPaid" (in spite of the misleading name) option in the nixpkgs user
config is mostly the simplicity of the solution. But maybe it's too blunt,
because where does it end? It's definitely an anti-feature if the end
result is that people have to check off that they have indeed donated to
every transitive dependency of, say, ardour, firefox, and KDE.

For a better solution I think that we should make an effort of putting
donation information in the metadata of derivations and expose an easy way
(eg. "nix-env --donation-info") to aggregate that information to the user,
such that they may easily donate if they so please. That, and together with
an advertisement that the feature exists.
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