HACKER Q&A
📣 santa_boy

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


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?

  👤 ggm Accepted Answer ✓
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)

👤 mrspeaker
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!

👤 philipswood
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.

👤 timonoko
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.

👤 quantified
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.

👤 elviejo
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

👤 leed25d
emacs