this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Buy Once Software (www.buyoncesoftware.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

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.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Until they revoke your lifetime purchase and put the new updates under a sub..

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Discover FOSS software. Just be sure to toss some donations to your favorite projects.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Good enough. Now tell me where it is made and you can call it perfect.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Software maintenance does cost a lot, it's a full time job. Most people don't pay foss or any at all ( winrar or total commander case ). Most people won't be able to maintain or adjust foss on their own... Foss doesn't work forever ( it's a pain to deeply depend on foss which stops being maintained ). It's a reality that 1 year fallback license is necessary evil

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

I prefer the model where you buy updates if you want or need them

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Shady practices.

They make program/editor pay 99$ to be listed and the link all redirect to a subscribe page sling for an email.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does anyone have any good alternatives to glasswire on windows?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Simplewall.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Buy... Software? You what?

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I've bought way too much software that suddenly abandons their product to launch a new subscription based version.

I'd rather choose FOSS than anything payed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I boycott anything that has to be paid or is non-free.

I donate regularly to FOSS projects (that I use).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

also nearly all of the stuff on that site looks like garbage that will do exactly what you said.

and yes I looked at every single program.. there aren't that many

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Fuck paid software, use open source

It's not even for the cost of it, I simply refuse to trust any software that is not open because I know they'll try to fuck me over one way or the other

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Any paid open source software you'd consider to pay?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Jellyfin, for one, comes to mind

Maybe it should be easier for people to donate something to open source software. Maybe on the Linux command line there should be a message from apt that certain projects could use your financial help, of you want to.

I doubt many people would be pissed if projects just ask for a small donation

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I would welcome a utility that makes it easy to find donate links for my software packages, based on my Apt, Flatpak, and F-Droid package lists.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

The one you like the most and give a donation.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I understand sentiment after seeing how a lot of tech companies are. The other side of it is this: Developers still have bills to pay. FOSS projects are great, especially if they're done by a small team and have a supportive community, but there are only a limited number of developers who have a combination of knowledge, skill, free time, and financial capability to truly dedicate themselves to FOSS projects.

If I could support myself by coding for FOSS projects, I would probably try (hell I just might not be aware of opportunities for this) but that isn't the reality in front of me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

It is possible, for example Evan You did it, but he wrote the third maybe nowadays 2nd most popular SPA framework in Vue.js and he is also doing other things with Vite, but at that point he is basically getting paid by companies too to work on that.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 month ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

Act like a real man. But free and open source software because the devs deserve your money for their free work

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I use almost exclusively FOSS and I have monthly/annual contributions set up for various projects.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

own forever

Ownership implies control - being able to maintain/repair, modify or even resell.

To be in control of software you need access to it's source code, and have the right to share changes with others.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

"Ownership" can mean a lot of different things and the things you listed are most certainly not a requirement.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The IntelliJ products are not exactly "buy once" - if you want updated versions you need to keep paying periodically.

Not that I think that's a bad thing necessarily - it doesn't make sense to expect devs to continue working on something year after year when you're not paying them for it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

if you want updated versions you need to keep paying periodically.

But you can continue using the older version, yes?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Sure, as long as it works. Software has a tendency to stop working on newer OS:es or become subject to security exploits though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm happy to pay for software, but I want more than just permission, I want long term security that my investment in the tool will last.

If IntelliJ would open source their oldest versions, I would make my boss buy me a copy of the newest version every year.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That sounds good on paper, but the chances that someone else will pick up the ball if they abandon it, even if it's open source, are very slim. If you care about keeping it alive then paying them is a more effective strategy than hoping for random volunteer work by internet strangers.

You, on the other hand, have good chances of being able to learn new tools. So I think the need for this security is exaggerated.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I'm a developer, so my chances are pretty good. But I take your point.

Even if I weren't, there's enough software options out there that I don't have to pick between paying for proprietary software and living with abandonware.

So I think the need for this security is exaggerated.

Of course. I used proprietary software for a long time. Having things I relied on get abandoned got old, but it worked.

I just expect more from most of my software, now.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They are "buy once" in that their licenses include perpetual fallback. Whenever you stop paying, you retain your licenses perpetually

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Not whenever, you need to be paying for a year and then then the latest version from a year ago is what you get the perpetual license for

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