Summary
Eclipse should have a price tag. Reason: for many customers, it is much easier to pay than to provide a committer. There should be a discount system that allows for different discounts including getting eclipse for free. But the point is users have to explicitly apply for a discount and give reasons why they think they cannot pay the full amount. This is psychologically very different from donating voluntarily.The tragedy of the commons
Recently, there have been some blogs about the tragedy of the commons [1],[2]. The tragedy is that there are not enough resources to work on some core parts of eclipse. There are many contributions but many of them are in the interest of some companies not in the general interest of eclipse. My "road construction analogy" blog four years ago explains the problem. I cannot say if things have changed since then (I don't want to make a judgement here). But I want to throw out an idea that I have been thinking about for a while...The solution: the eclipse IDE costs $300
Imagine the eclipse foundation would sell eclipse for $300 (see below) with lots of discount options down to $0 (see below). The foundation would use the money to hire developers to work on common infrastructure to prevent the tragedy of the commons. Customers who pay could assign half of the money to specific projects or bugs. The other half is used to maintain the eclipse common part.Who should pay?
The payment is for anyone who uses eclipse, but is not contributing back. If you are a committer or making contributions to eclipse, you have already "payed".Why pay instead of contributing?
For many companies payment for software is a standard procedure but contributing is an exceptional case that requires a much more complicated approval process. Contributing back by writing code is limited. Even if a company decides to give let's say 80 hours of work back to eclipse, how efficient would that be if the contributor has to learn all the process and the code etc? 80 hours for a full time committer are probably much more productive than 80 hours for a project newbie or for someone who has never written java code. If a company wants to spent the equivalent of N hours it might be more efficient to pay for licenses instead of appointing a person within the company to contribute.Why would anyone pay?
If you can get it for free anyway, why would anyone pay? I think there is a huge psychological difference between voluntarily paying (friends of eclipse) and choosing an option like "I believe others should pay for eclipse". The key is, if you wan to get eclipse for free you have to acknowledge that you are not paying for something that otherwise costs money. This is very different form making a donation. To donate you really have to love eclipse. To refuse to pay, you really have to hate it.The problem with donation
I wonder how many of the friends of eclipse ask the company they work for to pay the fee? I didn't and my guess is that many donations are private. With an official price, it should be very easy to ask your company to pay the fee, much easier than to say "I want to make a donation to eclipse, can you pay this for me...".Payment allows you to determine the direction of eclipse
Half of the payment goes to development determined by the eclipse foundation. The other half the paying customer can distribute on bugs, features op specific plugins or projects (a kind of crowdfunding).Lots of complaints
No doubt, there will be lots of complains when eclipse would suddenly start adding a price tag to the eclipse IDE. Well, if you thing this is wrong, you can apply for a discount or refuse to pay. This is totally legitimate. But if you feel guilty not paying then this may say something about you and your attitude.... So, there is no reason to complain, if you think it has to be free, you can get it for free (period).Another reason for payment: give the competition a chance
Here is another reason why eclipse should cost: Do you remember how many IDEs existed 10-15 years ago? Do you remember how expensive they were? Who survived? How can a company create a commercial IDE and make money when they have to compete with free tools like eclipse? I think it is not good for the future of IDEs in general that eclipse is free. What happens if you offer something for free until all competitors run out of business? You create a monopoly. But is that the goal of eclipse, to kill all commercial IDEs and become a monopoly? A monopoly that eventually will die because of the tragedy of the commons...Price
I just made an assumption of $300 but it could be $50, $100, $500 or $1000. This has to be determined. The amount of discounts is also open but there must be a 100% discount to get eclipse for free. It is important that there is a discount option that allows employees to choose a price that it is easy approvable within their company. If the internal limit for easy approval is $200, you might get a "special" discount to reduce the price to that amount.One time or subscription price
Extending the licence to new versions of eclipse should be discounted and maybe there is a subscription licence (the exact conditions have to to be determined)Discounts
Here are some possible reasons for discounts the user can choose form. Yes, some of the reasons are a bit cynical, but I think they reflect reality (I'm not sure if all the reasons end up in a real implementation of the idea, and maybe there are better ideas for good discount reasons)- I am a committer (discount of 100%)
- I made contributions (10%-100%)
- I reported bugs (5%-100%)
- I use eclipse only for open source projects (up to 100%)
- It is too expensive (you choose the price)
- The price is above the limit I get approval for (you choose the price)
- I cannot afford it (you choose the price)
- I come form a poor country (10-90%)
- Eclipse member companies should pay (100%)
- In my country/company we never pay software licences (100%)
- Eclipse sucks, but I have to use it (100%)
- Others should pay, not me (100%)
- It is my right to get it for free (because it used to be free) (100%)
Implementation
The eclipse webpage should allow to pay directly or get a free (trial) download. After using the trial version for while (30 days of usage) a licence dialog will pop up and ask you to enter a licence or pay (like many commercial applications). Sure, you can remove the plugin or apply for a 100% discount.Conclusions
The intention is to create a constant revenue stream to found eclipse ground work. The payment should be worded that accountants in companies pay the amount without much questioning. As employee to make your company to donate or asking for time to contribute might be difficult. Getting approval for a software purchase might be simple.What do you think? Does any of that make sense?
