- Buy Once Software
www.buyoncesoftware.com
Discover a directory of one-time purchase software. Find perpetual license alternatives to subscription-based models across productivity, design, business, and developer tools.

Buy software, once Say goodbye to subscription fatigue! Discover software you can buy once and own forever–no recurring charges, just tools that work for you, for life.

  • airglow@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    2 days ago

    When you look at any app store, you’ll find that the many apps that are infested with ads, spyware, malware, and dark patterns are pretty much always proprietary. Conversely, any FOSS application that tries to introduce such garbage would be forked to remove these offending attributes, which makes FOSS much higher-quality than proprietary software in general.

    You are using false equivalence by incorrectly implying that proprietary software is commercial while FOSS is not. Both FOSS and proprietary software can be sold and commercialized with various monetization strategies. For example, you are currently using Lemmy, a FOSS social network whose development is funded by donations. Nobody here believes that Reddit is better on the basis that it is proprietary adware instead of FOSS.

    Free and open source software licenses provide users the right to use, modify, and redistribute the software. Proprietary software does not. That difference makes FOSS inherently better for users than proprietary software.

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
      17·
      2 days ago

      When you look at any app store, you’ll find that the many apps that are infested with ads, spyware, malware, and dark patterns are pretty much always proprietary

      Right, because FOSS software never has any of that…

      which makes FOSS much higher-quality than proprietary software in general.

      That’s not how that works. There’s plenty of paid software that doesn’t have any of those things.

      Both FOSS and proprietary software can be sold and commercialized with various monetization strategies.

      You’re just arguing pointless semantics now.

      Nobody here believes that Reddit is better on the basis that it is proprietary adware instead of FOSS.

      You’re cherry-picking.

      That difference makes FOSS inherently better for users than proprietary software.

      No. It absolutely does not. Why do I care if you can “use, modify and redistribute” trash software?

      • airglow@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        FOSS adware and spyware apps are rare because it’s trivial to fork it and remove the undesirable elements. Users have every incentive to use the ad-free and spyware-free forks, which eventually causes the superior user-friendly forks to overtake the originals. However, proprietary adware and spyware apps cannot be forked in the same way, preventing users from stripping out the ads and tracking. The ability to use, modify, and redistribute “trash software” allows anyone to transform FOSS with undesirable elements into excellent software by removing such elements, whereas proprietary “trash software” remains trashy.