Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-paid-proprietary-product-on-linux-db4f9116be08 <comment><USER2> The big thing I see missing from all this analysis is the home vs. work distinction. You have people saying "Linux users choose FLOSS because of philosophy, and proprietary software goes against this", you have users saying "I'd have tried it if it were FLOSS and I could just download it and try it", etc., but the problem is: this is a product for working with an Exchange server. How many individual users have a need for this?

This is a product for businesses. The dynamics are different: businesses can easily be convinced to pay for software, since they do so already. If it solves a business need, this is an easy sell.

The way to make money with Linux software has _always_ been to focus on the business market, because you're just not going to get any significant number of home Linux users or enthusiasts to pay for your software. And then, ignore the home/enthusiast users. No, I wouldn't pay for an email client either, but I don't need to connect to a Microsoft Exchange server at home. If my workplace were trying to switch to Linux, however, I'd readily recommend such a product to management.

<comment><USER3> Hi there, I'm the author of the blog post. Some context you may find interesting, and maybe I should do a follow up post about this.

We were very enterprise focused, but it just didn't work. We were trying to displace MS Outlook. And unfortunately, most people want to stick with Outlook. Not because it's better, but because it's what they know. We found that even if we convinced 8 out of 10 people in a company to buy Hiri, it wasn't enough. IT departments don't want to support more than one email client. 100% adoption is simply not an option.

So we pivoted to the current model. A bottom up strategy that has made the company viable. I would say about 50% of our customers are paying with the department credit card, and the other 50% buy it using their personal card.

Another interesting find - the growth stage of any given company has a role to play too. Younger companies (both the age of the company and the age of the staff) seem to be more open to trying new software. I guess they don't bring any legacy issues to the table. The problem is that a lot of these young companies choose Gmail. This is why we have chosen to support Gmail.

<comment><USER4> > Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is > still alive and well.

This is incredibly rude. You may not like it, but GNU/Linux was built by people for user freedom, not for proprietary email clients.

Instead of using words like "fundamentalist" please instead consider that you are doing something that is not welcomed by the creators of the operating system and a large number of the long-term users.

A little understanding would go a long way.

<comment><USER5> This isn't rude at all. He was describing a situation in the Linux community where a large number of users have an aversion to paid software.

It's a real problem and one of the main reason osx was able to eclipse desktop software usage on linux in such a short amount of time.

Responses like yours are the real problem.

If you want linux desktop software to grow, there needs to be room for proprietary software.

<comment><USER4> I don't want "Linux desktop software" to grow. I want computer users to have zero-proprietary software.

The problem with thinking of GNU/Linux in the same way as Windows and Mac OS X is that it assumes a world where proprietary software is the norm, or is okay. I believe that is isn't okay, and that it is harmful.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it's pretty terrible if consenting adults choose to pay for software, isn't it?

I love FOSS, but people like you (yes, "fundamentalists") can't deal with the idea that some forms of software are probably better as paid transactions between well-informed parties. The laughable state of open source office suites and any serious competitor to most of Adobe's products suggests that this model has its limits.

<comment><USER4> You assume I'm for open source. That's the problem.

<comment><USER6> This isn't really germane to any point I made, but I presume this is the standard point in the discussion where you lob this particular bombshell ("I did so NOT see it coming that the guy who writes 'GNU/Linux' everywhere is a Free Software purist").

Whatever I wrote about the limits of "FOSS" software can be multiplied by a solid order of magnitude for "free only".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quite a neat insight and somewhat confirming what I think personally; Linux users largely don't use Linux for FLOSS reasons. People who do use Linux for FLOSS reasons are however rather loud.

I would probably not be wrong when saying that most Linux users will happily pay a developer for the binary of an application if the dev is "doing it right". Doing it right largely involves "don't treat the customer as a walking wallet" and "don't fuck over the customer".

Most people would probably happily give you cash for that but I suspect Windows people and especially Mac people are more used to paying cash to get software ... sort of and then being treated like a walking wallet. Example: Anti-Virus vendors and Adobe.

<comment><USER8> As one of the "Linux for FLOSS" users--and, yes, quite loud about it--I am inclined to agree.

I would pay good money for a high quality application on Linux. But in large part, one of the less-philosophical, more-practical things that I value about FLOSS is the opportunity to fix things if something doesn't work right. While I would gladly purchase an incredible, closed source application, I would much more value the distribution of the source code (with a workable build chain) along with that purchase.

In that manner, I KNOW I'm not just a buck in their wallet. It protects my purchase, to some degree, and demonstrates a good faith relationship with the developer. Even if I'm not allowed to distribute the code, and much prefer FLOSS, the right to maintain my purchase is incredibly important to me.

Of course, that's almost never an option, but to my mind, that would be a fair compromise...

~A Loud FLOSS Supporter

<comment><USER9> I've always thought that this is the key to bridging the gap between proprietary and OSS, and it's what we do with our software. In our case, the source code _does_ cost extra, but that's because we're selling developer libraries and we typically need to provide extra support to customers that purchase the source code because they are also (typically) customizing the source code in some way.

<comment><USER10> I really like how Epic is handling Unreal Engine 4. The source is available, and the standard license is revenue share. It's not necessarily open source, but it reaped so many benefits from public contributions. You can modify it and extend it for your own use. The revenue share means they are actively interested in your success.

Of course video games are highly public consumer products. So you can't actually abuse their model because if your game is successful it will be well known.

<comment><USER9> I think you may be on to something here. For smaller companies like us that are in niche markets, the source code being available isn't a big deal because the level of piracy is fairly low (and you don't get support).

For larger companies in larger markets, it's much, much easier to see when someone is abusing a license or pirating the software without paying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this piece (along with many, many others in the genre) is unduly discounting the practical implications of a proprietary binary for users, preferring to blame a preference for open source solely on a "fundamentalist FOSS mentality". For example, my next GPU is going to be a Radeon largely because I'm tired of the weird issues that come with installing/updating proprietary drivers, the lack of transparency around bug reports, and the general disconnects with the rest of the FOSS ecosystem.

The specific issues for applications are different, but there are parallels. The key thing is that FOSS on Linux isn't just an ideology, it's also an ecosystem and a set of norms and practices. When you ship a proprietary product, users have to weigh the cost of opting out of all of that, not just the sticker price. Nobody with any sense would ship a Windows package solely as source code and expect Windows users to love it. I can't imagine anyone blaming a weak reception of such a product on a "fundamentalist proprietary blob mentality". But when they similarly sidestep standard practices on Linux, any friction is almost reflexively attributed to the users being unreasonable.

<comment><AUTHOR> The intention of the article was in no an attack on the "FOSS mentality".

FOSS is a reality and is a great thing!

The point that was being made, was that promoting paid linux applications is a challenge. And that that challenge becomes more difficult because we need to operate in an environment where many of the biggest publications do not want to know anything about non-FOSS apps.

<comment><USER12> Then why kick a hornets nests?

As others have noted Linux for home and Linux for work are two completely different things.

At work I use RHEL 7, packages 5 years out of date, don't have access to build tools to incorporate patches myself and a million and one other things I would never tolerate at home. Throwing some more money after a program that lets me not touch outlook sounds like a great idea.

At home I do none of the above things I can't think of a reason why I would ever touch a binary blob.

There are plenty of people who feel the same. Don't come into a hobbyist environment selling corporate solutions expecting a warm welcome. Instead of /r/linux go to /r/sysadmin or some such.

<comment><USER13> What? Do you see no use for proprietary software at a home linux setup? What about video games? Do you expect all video games on linux to be open source?

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty close to being completely free of proprietary software at home.

I have to use the proprietary bootloader for my newer machines and the wifi firmware the machines I haven't gotten around to replacing the wifi cards for yet.

About half of my machines are on coreboot and atheros cards.

Otherwise my user space is pure free software.

For games I play open source ones like 0ad when I have the time, which isn't often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am increasingly happy to pay for software and services as long as the organization producing the software has no relationship with advertisers. I would rather pay money than use something for free that includes advertising. If there are good open-source alternatives I will always prefer those, but there are definitely some things that open-source will never be able to really make work effectively (notably anything that relies on having an attractive and efficient GUI)

<comment><AUTHOR> Out of interest, what linux apps have you paid for?

<comment><USER15> I've paid for RubyMine, and PHP Storm. Not exclusively Linux, but that was the platform I was running it on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't understand, why is there such a hard dichotomy between "commercial - binary blob" and open source? Why can't most commercial software ship with sources, with a sane license that allows a license holder to study, recompile and modify, but not publish derivative work?

90% of the people who want the source would not pirate the software, and 100% the pirates are satisfied with a binary copy. And don't tell me about copy protection, in practice it's just as effective as a line in the EULA: for any worthwhile software, those who don't care about the license don't care about copy protection either.

I have no problem paying for software, but I don't want to surrender all control of my hardware for a 3rd party to run secret code on it.

<comment><USER17> > why is there such a hard dichotomy between "commercial - binary blob" and > open source?

I see at least 2 reasons.

1) Mindset (and ignorance)

I've worked in big telecom companies, in their technical teams, which means people who know about programming in big (BIG/HUGE) projects. Even there, many of their -very- experienced tech people were AFRAID of anything open-source. They were terrified that using anything that had the words "open" or "free" (as in free software) would mean that they would have to "give" their code "gratis" and lose their customers.

The irony? Those programs were BIG projects that were only useable with their hardware (think stuff like devices' OSs & supervision UIs for telecom equipments), it would not have worked with other devices and any attempt at an adaptation would have cost more than developing from scratch. Add to that that they only sold to a handful of companies (those hardware + software solution are expensive) so they would immediately have noticed that something was wrong, and you see how INSANE it was that they were afraid. They had completely bought the FUD from Microsoft and the like.

And thoss were TECHNICAL people, I leave to your imagination the attitude of managers... :-(((

2) Quality (or lack thereof)

A lot (if not most) of code done for "enterprise software" is of pretty bad quality (and I'm being nice). I've seen such horrors that you are left to wonder how anything AT ALL could work. The incompetence was staggering, comments and tests inexistant, no source management, no documentation, "if" conditions spread over hundreds of lines, 10 thousand lines of SQL in a single file, config files thousands of lines long maintained by hand (which I showed contained hundreds of errors), etc.

Showing how "sausages are made" (an horrifying view) would be bad, maybe even suicide (once their ineptitude would be proven) for those companies.

On the other hand, the bad quality would have quaranteed that nobody used their projects (LOL). Even compiling them was a HARD task. Real example: I had just arrived on a project where the most experienced guy was unable to install on my computer the tools needed for development... I had to write code "blind": without linking & testing nor documentation. Am I surprising you when I tell you it did not go well? (And they had the nerve of blaming me for their incompetence!)

<comment><USER18> There's a third issue - support.

I worked for a place about 15 years ago which was trying desperately to retire its previous flagship product in favour of the new version. The new version was better written and more scalable, but the major value for them was that they had made a big mistake with the old one -

The gave away source code and allowed customers to customise the software, but they still honoured support contracts. This had turned into a huge cost, as engineers were having to go out to customer sites and spend days figuring out what the customer had done.

You can't effectively support what you can't see, so you can only really support OR allow modifications.

<comment><USER19> No sensible person is going to be mad with you for asking them to reproduce their issue without local customizations applied if they want you to help them with it.

Write it into your support contracts. Maybe offer smarter customers to review and sign off on their modifications in exchange for a reasonable fee.

These problems can be solved.

<comment><USER16> Actually, it seems like a huge wasted opportunity. If a company is so invested in your software that it's willing to develop a custom patchset and an internal team to maintain it, then it would make a lot more sense to buy the service from the very people who wrote the software, that know it best and can pull together multiple customer wishlists into standard solutions. That's why the open source service model can exist, the original developer is uniquely positioned to profit from these synergies and deliver value for the customer.

So you can have your proprietary cake and eat it too, you can sell "NO WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED" commercial licenses at fixed prices, but at the same time, earn much more profitable support and customization contracts from select customers.

As for the people still opting to customize their own "NO WARRANTY" installation, of course they won't get and don't expect any support for their customization until they also buy a services license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Regarding: "Forge strong relationships with your Linux users. Make it easy for them to get in touch. Listen to them. Linux is a community — word will spread!" Where _would_ be a good place to ask average users of desktop Linux questions?

* Hiri went to Reddit. I would think that the r/linux community is a very tiny subset of users. Young and bored, who just want to be part of something? Criticizing the mainstream like Microsoft, Ubuntu, GNOME. Like goths and punks from before? That was the impression it gave me when I visited it a few months ago. Doesn't seem to be very representative of the average desktop Linux user.

* IRC is likely too technical. Finding sysadmins and developers there should be no problem, but they're likely not your average user.

* Since Linux is such a small section of the market, it probably won't be of any use to try other social media websites. You can find Windows and iOS users in any community, but not Linux users.

Unless there is no such thing as an average Linux desktop user. Maybe there is no mom & pop, without geeky interests, careers outside of tech, who have Ubuntu on their laptop. Maybe it's all sysadmins, developers, nerds, and youngsters. In which case I don't think there will be a lot of reason to sell anything there other than games and tools like Sublime, although the games might be better on Windows and iOS.

</comment><comment><USER21> _" Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. Some Linux blogs and Podcasts simply won't give us the time of day. This is not a problem with the mainstream tech blogs and is a problem unique to Linux."_

It seems weird that this guy will try to promote his product to the Linux community and chooses to do it by insulting its user base.

While not all Linux users have a problem with using proprietary source (and those would be their natural clients), most got attracted to the platform for the advantages of its open and freely usable code. IMHO it would do him good to understand and respect the reasons why his potential users value free- libre-open source software, and learn to communicate without disparaging them.

<comment><USER3> Hi there - I'm the author of the post in question. I chose my language carefully. I do think FLOSS only is a fundamentalist position. The word is used to describe a religious believer who interprets scripture literally. I did mean to bring the baggage, but to provoke thought rather than to insult. And I must stress, this only applies to those who believe in FLOSS ONLY, completely turning their back on proprietary software. It's my opinion that this is not a rational position. Proprietary software can complement FLOSS. This is for the people who write to me and say "Not open source? Forget about it!".

Personally, I am a fan of FLOSS. What's not to like? But sometimes private companies compelled to compete in a free market produce better software. Seems to be especially true of consumer facing software. Think Gimp vs. Photoshop or Sketch.

Also, I don't think this is true anymore: "most got attracted to the platform for the advantages of its open and freely usable code". It used to be true, but I think Linux has wider appeal now. And I think that's a good thing.

<comment><USER22> This shows you just do not understand either free or open source software. Plenty of companies in open source are "private companies compelled to compete in a free market." Indeed, this describes nearly all the money that drives open source development. Red Hat isn't running a charity. Neither is Google.

RMS is as fundamental as they come and even he has no objection to selling software.

People are taking insult from what you say because you misrepresent their position.

<comment><USER3> "This shows you just do not understand either free or open source software." \- Please. Read my comment above for clarity on my position. If you reject ALL proprietary software based on ideology, I think it's fair to say you have a fundamentalist position.

We looked into open source models and couldn't find one that made financial sense for us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a Linux user, while I would certainly _prefer_ to use a FLOSS app, I'm perfectly willing to pay for proprietary software if it scratches an itch that free software simply can't. I bought a license for SublimeText, because I believe it still blows all other code editors out of the water. I purchased InSync, because there's no comparable Google Drive client for Linux that just works. I'd very much like it if the apps were FLOSS, and be allowed to donate or something to support their efforts, but I believe it's important to be willing to compensate the developer on their terms rather than on mine.

<comment> at-fates-hands > I bought a license for SublimeText.

I did the same thing about six years ago and it was $75 then. Since then its only gone up $5. For me, this is really impressive. As adobe continues to increase the cost of their software seemingly daily, it's nice to see a company invest in their product while still maintaining a very, very affordable product.

I agree on the paid side as well. I just recently went "full Linux" and have no qualms about buying quality software that makes my job as a developer easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would insta-buy a lot of linux proprietary software if it fit my needs. No question, no hesitation.

Things like: lightroom, sketch, omnigraffle,

Your email client looks very well done! Doesn't apply to me, but if I had to use outlook/office 365 I would probably snap it up.

<comment><USER25> How many people are actually free to use this product? My work uses outlook+office but, due to 101 different things, we are locked into windows and ie. How many people use outlook+office for email but are also free enough from other restrictions to be allowed linux?

Our office is so locked imto win7 that the ongoing upgrade to win10 is killing things. People are migrating to the few win7 machines to complete essential tasks that now seem impossible on win10. Win7 laptops are being hidden from the IT guys in padlocked security cabinets to prevent the upgrade. We are doomed.

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of people can use Hiri because runs on Windows and Mac too.

<comment><USER26> Then again, so does Outlook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am trying to make a living with a software product, a database in particular. RediSQL, SQL steroids for Redis: [http://redbeardlab.tech/rediSQL/](http://redbeardlab.tech/rediSQL/)

So let me share a different point of view.

I find it extremely, extremely difficult.

As far as I know, if you need a solution for in memory SQL as cache layer or also as main persistent layer it is the only available solution, on top of that it works on top of existing, widely deployed solution.

But still I haven't received a single request for support or I have been able to make a single sale.

Of course, I believe is mostly my fault, because similar businesses models (sidekiq) seems to work but, if you ask me, it is definitely not worthed to enter this market.

I will try to focus more on marketing for the following months but if it doesn't work neither I am just going to remove the open source part and use it as an internal advantage for my consulting business. I found it just too convenient respect to Pg or MySQL or Mongo.

I really believe it is a pity, but I believe that if this product, by the end of the year, doesn't work I will just stop developing product for software developers. It is just not worthed.

<comment><USER28> A small amount of hopefully useful feedback from someone who purchases business software:

1/ Your website gives a 'open source hobby app' vibe over 'professional, dependable software business'. Selling support contracts in particular requires some expectation that there's a solid business standing behind it that won't just be gone tomorrow.

2/ The 'redirect to an external store to download / purchase' will probably be making any sales funnel leak like a sieve. There's a complete discontinuity between the design of the two sites, and along with trusting you with their information / card details, they now have to trust a random third party.

3/ For a ~€1000 piece of software, I'd expect at least some period of eg. email support, rather than just supporting through Github issues.

4/ I'd remove the option of having the open source edition available through sign-up and just link clearly to the latest release. If you're struggling to even get any interest on the commercial side, getting it out in front of as many people as possible would be my priority. A clear and unambiguous 'Get started' section that doesn't worry about open vs. Pro is probably a good idea too. Worry about converting those to paid users later.

<comment><USER27> Definitely good feedback, thanks.

A major restructuring of the main pages is necessary, I agree.

I definitely need to re-word most part of the website, because selling support should just be a small part of the closed source version that adds the replication feature.

I would re-think again about selling it in a different platform, but setting up a shop is not as easy as it is to just use plasso, maybe I can work better on the platform to make the two more similar.

I am definitely more than keen to provide email support, but also skype or any other meaning of support, I should definitely make it more apparent.

The idea to require a signup is to start building some sort of mail list, as I said I didn't focus on the marketing side so much...

Thank you a lot!

Your feedback was really really helpful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I believe having more proprietary software available on all platforms (including Mac) improves the situation - especially something "basic" like a mail client.

Yes, FOSS and Linux are "a more natural" match than proprietary and Linux, but the truth is: You can't get everything you might want/need for free at an acceptable quality .

Working for a company which sells niche-software for both Windows (most customers) and Linux (some big $$$ customers), I am happy to see more mainstream developers doing the same. If you're a making consumer software: Please try to follow suit!

Internally, we develop on and for Linux, but our code is cross platform enough (thanks Qt) to easily build on Linux and Windows. The biggest issue for me is remembering which C++ constructs work with GCC/clang but not with the MS compiler (which improved a lot in the last years - and which our CI usually notifies me about).

</comment><comment><USER30> Other than being engaged by Canonical, is there a reason the Snap platform be preferable to the Flatpak one?

<comment><USER31> Snap does not even support systems where the home directory is not /home/$user (e.g., a lot of NFS setups) so I'd be very careful. It's a long standing bug and not even the (so far useless) error message has been adjusted.

To distribute to Ubuntu users it's good though, due to being well integrated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "First stop, reddit"

Dont go to reddit for market research. You will only find extreem views on reddit. They are the younger crowd. Try the ubuntu or mint forums if you want to talk to average linux users.

I myself would pay for such an email client because no good foss one exists atm. But i find it very odd that such basic software isnt yet free. I dont like the idea of having my email handled by propietary software.

<comment><USER32> > I dont like the idea of having my email handled by propietary software.

Fair point, although I'll point out that you're commenting on a story about a client specifically designed for Microsoft Exchange.

<comment><USER25> I'm a bit extreme when it comes to my email. Work insists on outlook so I use it there, but for private email I forgo dedicated software. I use webmail on my phone (husmail.com). It is slower, but when the airport security guy asks me to "unlock my phone" I can do so without revealing my email conversations. I don't trust my Andriod phone in the same way I do my ubuntu/mint/kali linux machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am optimistic about snaps even though after using them I found a lot of kinks that still need to be ironed out. But for the users downloading free software which is the main use case they are targeting first it works great. I say "for users" because wrestling with snapcraft (the command used to build snap packages) can be pretty frustrating for non-trivial programs. Cross compiling for arm was one thing that I was struggling with and ended up just doing my arm builds on a Raspberry Pi. A think many issues could be resolved by having snapcraft use it's own repo sources rather than whatever the host OS is using. Also for proprietary apps there is currently no way to have a private "store" so you are limited to installing from a .snap package using --dangerous --devmode flags and lose a lot of the benefits of using snaps in the first place (mainly automated updates).

</comment><comment><USER34> As an old school Linux desktop person from back in the day: whatever happened to Evolution? The whole reason it was created was to sell an Exchange client plugin.

<comment><USER35> I use Evolution every day with the evolution-ews plugin for accessing an Exchange server. It's still a bit clunky as it always was, and has some issues when switching between wired/wireless networks, but otherwise works fine for email, calendar, and contacts.

<comment><USER36> Same, once or twice a week I have to close evolution and open it again to get it to resync but otherwise it's less painful than Outlook 16 on W10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Turns out there aren't a lot of email clients for Linux users that work with > Exchange / Office 365

Has Linux on the desktop really fallen so far in the last years? When did the decay really set in?

How does open source friendly Microsoft not see Linux email clients support falling behind at least as a problem in MS documenting its APIs, if not an opportunity to participate in the major open source clients and influence and attract developers?

<comment><USER38> Office 365 comes with a very good web verison of Outlook, which supports more modern features than most email clients do (such as Office 365 Groups).

I suspect it doesn't bother them hugely that desktop client support is falling behind on any platform.

edited to add: Oddly I can't find much marketing by Microsoft of the browser Outlook, otherwise I'd link it here, but I'd say it's about 85-90% feature complete compared with the desktop client.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do agree that the Outlook web app is good and is getting better all the time. Personally though (and I think a lot of people would agree), I like to have a standalone email client that doesn't constantly get lost in tab clutter.

<comment><USER39> Having used webmail for about 7 years (I used Gnus before), the tab clutter problem is easy to avoid. Right click the tab, select "Pin tab", and you're done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Did anyone in here actually try?

I installed the snap, from there on it went downhill:

* after start, I get "Nouveau is known to cause crashes" -> restart for fixed rendering

* after I login, there are no mails showing up, but there is also no "Something went wrong with your login"

* when I click on the calendar, there is a "Sorry. We are unable to load your calendar"

* when I try to send mail: "Yikes, something went wrong."

<comment><USER41> Any particular reason you are using Nouveau? Nvidia users on Linux overwhelmingly [1] prefer the official binary blob.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/mL98GZA.png](https://i.imgur.com/mL98GZA.png)

<comment><USER40> It's an experimental Fedora Atomic Workstation install - GPU drivers are the least of the problems on this system ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > And before you cry "support model!" — it isn't going to work for us — our > product simply doesn't require that much support.

Indeed, a well-designed product aimed at people who would balk at putting the product's name on their CV shouldn't.

</comment><comment><USER43> `"Hiri" can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.`

Is it really expensive for a dev to get a cert from apple? I don't develop so i've never looked.

<comment><USER44> $99 per year.

<comment><USER45> $67/y from K-Software if you buy 4 years' at once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've wondered how proprietary software vendors distribute their software on the myriad of Linux distros and their package managers. That is if you want to keep the workflow of using the package manager to automate the installation and uninstallation. Unlike app stores, there's no linux package manager that allows payments before delivery of software.

<comment><USER47> It depends on the application. Many either deliver a generic binary of a DEB + RPM. Or more recently a Docker container or one of the other containers (Snap, etc).

Then that has a proprietary license checker based on either a license file or a license service, basically the service phones home to check the license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Well, I would be more than happy to buy a decent Linux IMAP client.

1\. I never heard about your product 2\. Can I use it as a regular IMAP client?

I am waiting for a linux version of this:

[https://www.ivelope.com/invite/RunItUpTheFlagpoleHackerSeaCh...](https://www.ivelope.com/invite/RunItUpTheFlagpoleHackerSeaChange)

(shitty invitation link that gets me ahead in the queue)

</comment><comment><USER49> I would happily pay and already did in some cases, as long as it's not proprietary.

(initial title was: "Will Linux users pay for apps?")

</comment><comment><USER50> I hope some people from Adobe are reading this. Me personally and my friends are holding back on Linux as a daily driver only because it does not support Photoshop and You have to learn GIMP

</comment><comment><USER51> _> This is going to be a very hard sell being a proprietary closed source system to Linux users_

I agree. Closed source communication tools are not a good proposition in general and especially for Linux users.

That said, Exchange itself is a closed mess and existing FOSS tools are trying to working around a problem of MS lock-in.

</comment><comment><USER52> People that use Linux and people who frequent Linux related websites don't necessarily have a lot in common. I use Ubuntu daily, couldn't care less for what some zealots have to say on Reddit. I use it because it's the least wrong platform, not because it's FOSS.

</comment><comment><USER53> What about suse, rhel and other distros?

<comment><USER54> Install snap and off you go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I just recently payed 300 euros for bitwig studio, because it's really good software and works nicely on Linux. I looked at the OSS DAWs out there and found them all unusable or just no fun to use.

</comment><comment><USER56> This was a great read. I've been using Linux since 2005 and I've always wondered what selling paid-for software is like on Linux. Thank you for taking the time to build a venture for Linux users, I really appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER57> I'd imagine for most Linux users (not all, of course) that they're not interested in paid proprietary products, which is why they chose Linux in the first place.

<comment><USER58> There is little to no evidence of this.

I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work).

So in that sense, a Linux user might be less likely to use a product if they care most about the openness of the platform.

<comment><USER59> > _I don 't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free > (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it > has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work)._

Then those people are lying. Free is absolutely a factor for many.

<comment><USER32> I'd wager that over 90% of desktop Linux users are running it on a machine that came with a Windows license and Windows preinstalled, and went to the effort of wiping it despite the fact that they paid for it and legally own it.

<comment><USER59> The cost of Windows is assumed to be part of buying the laptop (and it's the OEM version anyway).

I never myself cared for the sub-$100 Windows license attached, given that I bought a $1500+ laptop. Since there were always few (and usually subpar) selection of Linux-first machines (especially here), having a Windows license was just the normal across all laptop brands -- so it was not a deciding factor in comparing prices. It was either paying that, or being constrained to pick from 1/50 the machine selection.

This doesn't extend to buying software in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I just don't buy it. I'd pay you if you opened your komono and had a github. I just can't trust a tiny startup like you with my email.

</comment><comment><USER61> FYI website is unreachable through [https://hiri.com/](https://hiri.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Aww man :(

Thanks for pointing that out.

Please use [https://www.hiri.com](https://www.hiri.com) instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Nice: half price offer

Not so nice: expires in about three hours so you give up the ability to try the software first

</comment><comment><USER63> It's good to have a working Exchange client for Linux, proprietary or not. I'd hope that they polish Hiri a bit before they implement Gmail and IMAP support though, because it does have some rough edges, mostly with the UI.

As for the FOSS enthusiasts, I'd recommend ignoring them.

</comment><comment><USER64> Definitely interested in a Gmail web client alternative

</comment><comment><USER65> The app looks very nice. Which UI toolkit does it use?

</comment><comment><USER66> If Sketch was available on Ubuntu I'd switch.

<comment><USER67> There's a bigger chance Figma comes to Linux faster than Sketch, Figma since is based on Electron. Sketch is heavily dependent on Cocoa and Mac.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Thank you for your honest thoughts, Dave, I appreciate you openly talking about both the positves and the negatives.

</comment><comment><USER69> Completely unrelated to the contents:

Please, publishers, I beg you: walk away from medium. It's terrible for us, your readers. Set up a static blog, with a domain, go WordPress, Grav, Typo3, anything, but without stupidly large sticky header/footer and without heavy javascript _.

EDIT: _apparently 121KB javascript is not heavy. I still believe it's an overkill for 30KB content.

<comment><USER70> Why is it that I only ever hear those complaints on HN and never elsewhere... Are you all still using Pentium 3 PCs and 56k modems?

<comment><USER71> Maybe it's the same reason why you hear professional designers complain when they see Comic Sans used for body text, but laypersons rarely will mention it.

A pro will notice things about implementation that interfere with the content, while the layperson often can't articulate it even if they sense it's not quite right.

<comment><USER72> A lot of people don't even realize that better is possible.

I've had plenty of friends and acquaintances observe that browsing the web on my computer is very zippy compared to doing it on theirs, and ask what I do. I hate to then have to explain to them that it's because of a fairly hard-won set of JavaScript-blocking rules and suchlike.

I especially hate it because the best alternative I can suggest to someone who doesn't understand tech well enough to manage such a thing is to just keep on trying to keep up with whatever fancy kit Web developers are working with these days. Which invariably means sending ever more money to Comcast. And regularly giving money to Best Buy to replace a computer that isn't really broken; it just can't keep up with the latest fashions among ad networks and reactjs developers.

<comment><USER73> > I've had plenty of friends and acquaintances observe that browsing the web > on my computer is very zippy

Wait, how often are people peering over your shoulder to even notice? Have been a programmer for 30+ years and no one has ever made an observation either way about my screen responsiveness...

<comment><USER74> sometimes people in a social context will share my laptop to change the spotify song or settle a google-able debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> > There is a lot to be said for products that have been shaped by free market > forces.

So, not only are Linux users "fundamentalists", they are communists as well?

> If Linux as a platform is going to succeed, Linux users [..]

So adopting proprietary software is going to make Linux "a success"?

> think about the richness of the entire ecosystem rather than seek to limit > it.

FOSS "limiting the richness of the entire ecosystem"? That's rich, indeed.

</comment><comment><USER76> The authors thought "..tracking exactly where those Snap installs are coming from isn't possible at the moment.." was interesting. My opinion is that this is a good thing and I don't ever want it to be possible to see where those installs are coming from.

</comment><comment><USER77> Step 1: excited. An email client I've never heard of?

Step 2: interested: read article, read webpage

Step 3: meh. They call it email client, but it's only for Exchange/Office365

Some additional notes on the website: it's nice that there's a 50% discount, it usually helps to show the before/after prices ;)</comment>


Beat Your Website into Submission with .htaccess - <AUTHOR> http://bitsonewmedia.com/permalink/beat_your_website_into_submission_with_htaccess

<comment> daniel-cussen I can't remember the last time I bought a newspaper.</comment>


Rich Hickey on Datomic (2012) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TYfcyvSpEQ <comment><USER2> I love Datomic, think it can be revolutionary and use it in my side projects. I understand their need to make a living off of their (brilliant, unique) labor and so keep it closed source. But the big bananas at my company are reluctant to try something so different. With Clojure I can push them over that hump since it's open source. But they are not willing to introduce proprietary lock-in of such a fundamental piece to an otherwise OSS stack so Datomic is out.

It would be nice if Cognitect could do even better with a Red Hat business model, selling support for an open source product. I don't know if that is plausible for Datomic or not. I suppose that's a function of how popular an open source version would be compared to the current version, and I can't even guess.

If Ions is successful enough that could be their profit source, allowing them to set standalone Datomic free.

<comment><USER3> My current job (primarily a Java shop on the backend) is the first where I've been able to introduce a little Clojure after years of having it relegated to being my 'side project' language.

Datomic looks neat from a distance, but not being open source means I'm probably not even going to look at it (since I wouldn't be able to use it in any case).

<comment><USER4> There's an open source 'version' of datomic with a lot of the same features (Datalog, immutability, as-of queries etc) called Crux, I've played around with it on side projects and think it's pretty awesome

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Clojure and like Datomic, but that thing needs some documentation. Really good documentation. I think that is one of the main reasons why it didn't achieve much penetration for something so good. Be different if you must, but document. Look at something like Kafka, where every little thing is documented. You can find documentation for every shell script! that ships with it, not to mention excellent api docs. They also specify how the clients work in detail, not to mention how Kafka works. With datomic, even though everything works well, most of the time I feel like I am driving blind. I don't know if something I wrote works in every case.

<comment><USER6> Having great documentation would mean less sales in support contracts.

<comment><USER7> I upvoted to counter because the morally hazardous incentive does exist with proprietary tech that you become super dependent on. This risk may not apply to the founders (Rich, who we all love), but to a future acquisitor like Oracle, IBM or AWS.

I predict that AWS will buy Cognitect. I think they are aiming for that exit and is part of why Datomic Cloud is so closely integrated with DynamoDB and other AWS services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So Rich's talk about Datomic's architecture is taking place _at Oracle_? I love the radical openness. There's something cheeky about going to your competitor's office and inviting their engineers to learn about how your product works and how they can make better databases.

</comment><comment><USER9> Having dealt with Datomic at work I really have come around to the way thinking that Datomic promotes. Having history that you can query along with having datalog and a graph database as opposed to a relational database has its benefits.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is an open source alternative to Datomic being currently developped: Datahike.

[https://github.com/replikativ/datahike](https://github.com/replikativ/datahike)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The "Java" Youtube channel has a few "new" videos from the Summit in 2012 (e.g. on Graal, Truffle, Lambda Expressions):

[https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/jvm...](https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/jvmls2012-1840099.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmRtPmgnQ04CMUpSUqPfhxQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmRtPmgnQ04CMUpSUqPfhxQ)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm still considering Datomic, or DataScript at least. I'm sold on concepts, but having hard time using it. Note that I don't have prior DB experience so YMMV.

The state of documentation is a dealbreaker for me. I could not understand how to use Datomic just from docs. It lacked code snippets, examples of different ways to use it.

The ClojureDocs solved this in a beautiful way with crowd-sourced collection of use-cases. ClojureDocs API pages manage to seamlessly present the core principles along with user-contributed annotated code snippets. Learning from examples is most effective way of learning.

My favorite: [https://clojuredocs.org/clojure.core/reduce](https://clojuredocs.org/clojure.core/reduce)

[https://clojuredocs.org/examples- styleguide](https://clojuredocs.org/examples-styleguide)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm using the AWS hosted version of this (Datomic ions) to talk with the Monzo API it's been a lot of fun so far

</comment><comment> awinter-py have always wondered why this didn't succeed on a larger scale

Maybe in a v0 release, most applications can get away with created & modified fields. Maybe the storage overhead of immutability scares people for some applications.

Maybe datomic is something that should be part of a powerful DB plugins ecosystem rather than its own database, or as an external audit log that can be written separately while keeping your main DB in SQL.

<comment><USER13> It seems to me that you need to be all-in on Datomic to get value from it. So that knocks out anyone working with a legacy system.

You also can't really hire Datomic people in bulk so that knocks out anyone trying to scale their eng org.

I can see it working well for companies who are trying to do a lot with a small very bright staff, but that's a small category. And even then it would only be places where the staff has consensus around immutability as a value.

Which... immutability, like many forms of strictness, is both a PITA and not actually that helpful unless you go all in.

It's just a major commitment and for what benefit?

Maybe for a product where you need rewind everywhere.

Maybe for a product where you need extreme auditability.

I don't know... what's the killer feature that would make someone sacrifice everything else to use it?

Personally I think Datomic needs to be paired with a hosting system, debugging tools, basically some kind of integrated development environment that's immutable-first in every respect.

Something like that would be powerfully differentiated.

<comment><USER14> You don't need to be all-in on Datomic, it's unsuitable for some kinds of data (eg binary blobs, or generally text due to the 4k string limit, PII due to missing delete support, etc). It seems designed to be used along with ancillary data stores.

I think the benefits have been pretty well laid out and are quite attractive, your restatement of them is just damnation with faint praise :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to obtain a semi-accurate appraisal of a business entity? - <AUTHOR>

Hello, all,
I have a question that we've been struggling with recently:
Do you know of any known, established official (or even completely unofficial) useful metric by which a brand or website, or a web application, or perhaps even something like (what I refer to as a) 'business entity' (such as an LLC or Sub-S Corp, for instance) can be appraised of it's worth?
For instance, say that when you re-brand a business entity's website by investing several thousand dollars into graphic design services, or otherwise "upgrade" a site by investing an equivalent amount of money or sweat equity, what are some ideas for establishing ballpark figures for:
A. How much the re-branding initiative costs overall,
B. Approximately what you consider the business (or website) to be 'worth' before the project,
and,
C. What the business (or website) is subsequently valued at after the investment in rebranding.
My firm is currently dabbling in a very low-tech method by which we can fairly and accurately establish reasonable estimates of site/brand/business valuations, and we're having a tough time because many of the projects we are involved with are much smaller than the established market journals recognize. (i.e. I'm pretty sure that TechCrunch won't run an article on the last website we built, because it was a pretty cookie-cutter site for a large national law firm, and subsequently of little to no interest, even though we were adequately compensated in our opinion)
We feel that although our sites aren't standard "startup" fare, (or at all even slightly interesting to the hardcore developers of HN) the sites in question hold considerable value for their owners, even if they are not massively popular like TwitBookSpaceGoogPokerStarzWhatEver is; they generally get steady streams of high-quality, discerning visitors that are sincerely interested in the content, they don't have a lot of overhead in terms of hosting or server hardware, they have solid, recognizable logos, typography, & content, consistent and acceptably "catchy" brandnames and/or domain names, and aren't shabby on Web 2.0 functionality like tag clouds, social networking widgets, & regularly updated content that auto-refreshes the site when the owners get too busy to post original work.
(Some of our other projects are actually pretty cool, like Perl/Catalyst-based user-submission driven news sites similar to Reddit or HN, but assisted in content gathering and refreshing by a bunch of Perl/Plagger modules, but I digress...)
So, anyway: I hope this isn't something that's been covered extensively in the past (if it was, I missed it, sorry) but I think these are interesting questions as not all web developers aspire to build the next Big Thing.
Do you have any advice?
What do you do, when a business person who owns a website asks you to place a value on the website, or, (to make it even more complicated), do you get asked to appraise, say, businesses who own not just one domain, but rather, collect 'portfolios' of websites and operate them under the corporate umbrella provided by the primary (typically incorporated) business entity?
Maybe the best way to phrase a question of this nature would be to say, "How does Y Combinator make semi-accurate, ballpark-ish guesstimates when evaluating the value of the smaller projects they fund?"
(which also then leads to the question, "Um, I'm not trying to compete with Y Combinator here or anything, but, uh, if a hypothetical company was trying to compete with PG, uh, what's a good equation to use to evaluate sunk costs and stuff?"
Don't laugh - I'm really curious about this stuff.) <comment><USER2> Last time I did this (10ish years ago) the standard was a product called "eVal" that was basically a huge Excel plug-in.

It took FOREVER to enter all the data/variables, but it gave you a pretty good valuation idea.

A quick Google search shows there are many similar tools out there today.

For what you are describing, a modified/simplified template could probably be developed in a week.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a little more research and there were indeed quite a few resources to be found that I had initially overlooked when I last pursued it. And, coincidentally, before I posted this I spent a long while working with a Google Docs spreadsheet to see whether or not I might be able to hack together some sort of rough guesstimation tool or primitive convolutedValuationCalculator or something, which turned out to be a little overly optimistic in my case due to my somewhat limited spreadsheet chops.

(Which is not to say that I didn't learn a lot from playing with the data. Also, it is impressive to me that Google Docs has a spreadsheet application that is actually pretty usable and responsive, I was kind of expecting the worst case scenario but ended up making 3-4 additional spreadsheets for a couple other projects.)

However, while fun, my efforts still didn't feel like they were yielding results that could be held up to even minor scrutiny by one of the alternate solutions hawked by most of the top Google results. You know how there are some areas of software where Open Source has for all intents and purposes been able to provide options that mirror the feature sets and overall functionality of their proprietary analogs? Well, unfortunately, to me it seems that Business Analytics is still something of an Open Source ghetto, with few viable options to be found, and those scarce resources and projects that do exist don't seem to have the features I'd most benefit from.

Wrapping up, though, I was able to come up with a few _very primitive_ views and models for this project that were slightly helpful; however, as I mentioned before, I am no spreadsheet shaman by any stretch of the imagination, and although I'd love to take the time to practice those skills, it is honestly not a viable option this month and we need software with this functionality quickly.

My feeble efforts did "work", (well, sort of), which was interesting, but I lack confidence in the way I approached the problem and overall my efforts still felt like I was doing a lot of voodoo-powered guesswork, which is probably accurate, and I think that even if I practiced for a few days, I'd probably not be able to handle incorporating the hardcore number crunching and quantitative analysis features necessary to make a project successful.

I know in the banking industry there are some standard valuation methods for this sort of thing, although I don't remember much from my Principles of Banking classes now that it's twelve years later. It would be really nice, however, to be able to build something with a strong core foundation, and I suppose the only way to succeed with an approach like that is to work with industry-accepted formulas & methodologies.

I forgot to specify another particularly important point, as well: specifically, my main concern (and an area that was conspicuously unrewarding in terms of search results) as I mentioned before, my ideal "goal" would be to find an algorithm or set of algorithms that are (if not universally) accepted by the banking industry, the business valuation industry, intellectual property appraisal services, trademark appraisers, etc. It is important to me that these valuation methods are transparent, as I'd like to develop some Open Source software that utilized them, and I'd like to be confident in the methodologies and formulas before wasting any time writing the software rulesets.

But I'm not even sure that such metrics exist. Is the valuation software market as fragmented and wildly variable as it appears? I will probably never know. :-)

I did find a few books on Amazon that seemed to contain this type of information, but holy mackerel, I cannot currently justify shelling out $250.00 for a single title! I had no idea that this type of information was still entrenched in proprietary solutions, or even if the theoretical texts are available, they are still prohibitively expenses for my particular situation.

Long-term, I think I'm going to attempt to collect a decent sampling of the formulas and algorithms involved, because I think Open Source projects could eventually be made to rival the best of the proprietary options. But short- term, I do have an immediate need for something that can provide decent valuations without being too laborious or convoluted.

You're not aware of any Open Source projects that handle this type of thing, by any chance? I did spend a little time Googling for such a project, but it didn't result in anything worth pursuing, unless my search queries were not using the correct verbiage, which is possible.

I understand that business analytics in general is one area where the Open Source software equivalents are still not compelling alternatives to the proprietary offerings, and I am trying to explore the reasons why this is so. I understand that the legal expertise is an expensive problem domain, and probably represents a large barrier to entry, which is also probably true of the MBA & higher-level education involved in enhancing the rulesets and programmatic routines, and also that analytics projects may not be appealing to Open Source programmers necessarily due to the fact that they are not very glamorous compared to certain other projects.

And quantitative analysis of the data sets is also quite clearly a highly specialized and difficult realm, I'm sure, which is to say nothing about the subjective stuff that might be involved - I'm thinking stuff like "user group studies" to measure brand impact and loyalty trend information, which is probably overthinking it of course, but any additional thoughts into what might would yield insights and statistically solid data points might be useful.

However, maybe that's overthinking the problem, which I tend to do sometimes. I guess I'd be happy with a super simple scoring method that provided a little feedback about "consumer's overall brand satisfaction score", or something.

Back to the old drawing board for now - thanks for the response and information, brk.

\- Mark</comment></comment>


Show HN: Appgage.io - mobile app automated engagement tool - <AUTHOR> http://appgage.io/

<comment><USER2> Looks good, I may use this- but hope its not gonna be pricey.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would love to get some feedback from app devs.</comment>


Fall of the Brothel Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/10/the-decline-of-the-american-brothel/411682/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I find it strange that prostitution is illegal in much of the world. Many people basically seem to be like this: if they don't like something, then they want to ban it. They don't seem to think much further than that. Alcohol prohibition is probably the best example of what happens when you ban something: it doesn't go away, but you get lots of crime etc.

<comment><USER3> People noticed that crime happened around certain types of establishments.

<comment><USER4> And then ignored what they noticed and implemented their prejudices/aversion/"moral values" as laws.

<comment><USER3> It's funny how pragmatic decisions you keep having to make turn into social norms after a while, and then you don't have to keep making them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The internet is not the main culprit for the decline of both the brothel and prostitution; it's only helping to accelerate it. The main reason is probably due to the Sexual Revolution, as well as the lowered importance of marriage in modern society. It's no longer taboo to engage in sex outside of marriage and divorce is commonplace and no longer a scandal.

<comment><USER6> _It 's no longer taboo to engage in sex outside of marriage_

Oo

I don't know what planet you live on, but I'm fairly sure, side from open marriages where the couple mutually agrees to this, sex outside marriage isn't so much taboo as explicitly ruled out by definition.

And while divorce may not be a "scandal" per se, its certainly not considered desireable.

In short, you seem to have a bizarre view of marriage in the modern world.

<comment><USER7> It sounds like you're taking "sex outside marriage" to mean "sex with outside partners, while married."

I think the intended meaning here is "sex without being married" (or at least that's how I interpret it).

<comment><USER6> Doh... You're absolutely right...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's time we legalize prostitution to bring it out of the shadow's. Its naive to pretend it does not exist, the illegality of it only hurts those who engage in it for a living whether they are doing so willingly or not. Keeping it illegal on moral high grounds leads to unintended consequences like sex trafficking and criminal charges the effects which last a lifetime.

Path2Freedom is trying to raise money for a $20 million dollar 100 acre refuge/community for victims of sex trafficking

[http://www.path2freedom.org/](http://www.path2freedom.org/)

<comment><USER9> Brothels are legal where I live (Australia). It's always a bit strange to see U.S. TV shows where prostitution is a crime.

That said, just because legal brothels exist, doesn't mean illegal prostitution stops. Pay attention to the news for a few years and you'll still periodically hear about arrests for illegal types of prostitution (sex slavery, underage prostitution, etc).

<comment><USER10> True, but in places (like Australia, or Amsterdam) where you go all the way and _unionize_ prostitution, it's much, much easier to catch the illegal types: you just raid anything that looks like an unregistered/unlicensed prostitution operation.

The main problem with catching sex trafficking and other sexual exploitaton, usually, is that there's so much "grey market" prostitution that isn't really hurting anybody, that law-enforcement tends to just ignore the whole mass as something they don't have the resources to confront or enough information to prioritize. Creating a whitelist and getting all the voluntary sex workers on it gives you a manageably-smaller set of non-whitelisted cases to investigate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _It has one star on Yelp._

At the time of writing, there are only two reviews total, one of them obviously post-Odom.

 _just 12 of the state's 16 counties_

Just? 12/16 = 75%. That's not "just."

Who is editing this stuff?

<comment><USER12> Why isn't this the top rated post? No matter what you think of the subject matter, the newspeak is running bold and thick in this piece. It's like the dihydrogen monoxide scare without the irony.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Las Vegas, the Times Square of America

isn't Times Square the Times Square of America?

<comment><USER14> Times Square is the Times Square of NYC. One small part of a larger whole with lots of flashing lights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The was a Conservative attack ad in the recent Canadian election that says in Chinese that the Liberals will make brothels open in Canadian neighborhoods.

Obviously this was a really stupid move. Good thing the Conservatives lost.

<comment><USER16> I find this ironic, as I've lived in a few cities in mainland China and it was almost impossible to walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a "massage parlour" or the like. In spite of it being nominally illegal there, China seems a lot more tolerant of prostitution than the average US/Canadian city, so I don't imagine an ad like this would have much effect.

<comment><USER17> this is not ironic at all.

do you know why people immigrate from places like china to places like canada? maybe the fact that there's a brothel every 2 blocks in china has something to do with it.

<comment><USER16> >do you know why people immigrate from places like china to places like canada? maybe the fact that there's a brothel every 2 blocks in china has something to do with it.

None of the Chinese I know here in Australia came here for that reason, and I certainly can't see them changing their votes based on a party's attitude towards brothels. Although I suppose prostitution being legal here may have something to do with that; the ones who were hated it enough to migrate away from it obviously wouldn't migrate to a country where it's legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> But what about the rise of Backpage prostitution?

<comment><USER5> Well there's the question of how much of it is being provided by sex slaves. Still, prostitution is not as wide spread as it was in the US before the 1960's.</comment></comment>


Examples of Fibonacci Numbers in Nature - <AUTHOR> http://www.scienceray.com/Mathematics/Examples-of-Fibonacci-Numbers-in-Nature.125307 <comment><USER2> "In mathematics, the limit of Fibonacci series is called as Golden Ratio."

Uh, no it isn't. They're related, but not synonymous.

Third grade writing ability and love of the mysterious? I bet this guy loved the Davinci Code.

<comment><USER2> Ha, from another of his posts:

"Every creature, as the art of the God, keep secrets and miracles inside it."

Clearly belongs on a science site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Knuth's TAOCP, Vol I (page 79 on the 3rd edition) has a very nice introduction to Fibonacci numbers.

The article doesn't mention the classical problem proposed by Fibonacci: "How many rabbits can be produced from a single pair in a year's time?"

(each pair produces a new pair of offspring every month, each new pair becomes fertile at the age of one month).</comment>


How do you guys protect your repositories? - <AUTHOR>

I just finished setting up a dev server (Apache 2, SVN).
How do you guys protect the repository from outside viewers? Right now anyone could (theoretically) navigate to the trunk and look at all of the yet-to-be-written code. They wouldn't be able to download it because I restricted that, but is there a way to prevent them from seeing it at all? Is this something you'd edit in Apache?
I'd really appreciate specific instructions.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I had it password-protected with .htaccess and then accessed via HTTPS, but I switched to using ssh+svn. There were some odd bugs with the WebDAV interface to svn where it wouldn't update my working copy properly on 'svn update', leading to a lot of manual deletion of .svn/wcprops to get going again. I finally said enough is enough and just switched to accessing it over SSH.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could: -password-protect it with .htaccess, or better yet: -make the repository only accessible via ssh, and -set up Trac or something similar if you want bug tracking and friendly svn browsing over http.

I haven't set up either of these myself so I can't help you there, but I would be willing to bet that Google can answer your questions :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure I understand the question. Look at yet-to-be-written code? I know version control systems have been called "time machines", but they show you what's in the past, not what's in the future.

Generally speaking though -- if you don't want people to look at files, don't put them only a web server.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can protect you repository with apache http authorization. Just search for a tutorial, here's what I found: <http://svn.spears.at/#3.2> You add the users/passwords with htpasswd and then in httpd.conf add Auth entries.

</comment><comment><USER6> Password protection withhtaccess might be the way to go if you are hosting your development code on a web host instead of having your own server on your local network that is not web accessable.</comment>


One year living on Airbnb in nyc - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/realestate/our-year-of-living-airbnb.html <comment><USER2> So this guy had 3000 bucks a month for rent and most of the time was living in illegal rents. Congrats.</comment>


Pair Programming website - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys, I've built this small website (http://letspair.net/) for people who want to find pair programming partners.
It's simple for now and not 100% finished yet, but I'm still working on it and hope to complete it soon. Of course, it depends on how much people care about this project.<p>Please, share your thoughts and leave suggestion here - http://letspair.userecho.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Coworking spaces help you to find someone local. Letspair helps you to find someone remote and work on their or your own projects.

</comment><comment><USER2> Isn't this an issue coworking spaces solve?</comment>


HackerNews full feed for your reading pleasure - <AUTHOR> http://preona.net/2010/12/hackernews-full-feed-for-your-reading-pleasure/ <comment><USER2> I'm conflicted about this. On one hand, I like to have the full text in the RSS feed.

On the other hand, if someone makes or writes something that is interesting enough to get in HN feed, why not have HN send them the traffic spike, regardless of whether it's ad supported or ego supported.

The current way doesn't seem broken for me. In fact, I enjoy seeing the design of the various sites (even if it's fugly) as well as the presentation of their info.

Either way, kudos for a nice coding exercise.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to be conflicted about this as well. But then I realised something: If I like an article, I always click and read it on the original site.

But until I can see the first few paragraphs or an image, I can't quite decide whether I like it or not, or at least it would seem my decision isn't as accurate.

The thing that really bothers me about the current HN feed, though, is that it looks sooo spammy. Just a quick succession of same-looking entries. It's psychologically discouraging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm doing something similar but it works with any RSS feed.

Example:

[http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://news.ycombinator.com/...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://news.ycombinator.com/rss)

It also works on single webpages (like redability).

</comment><comment><USER4> This is nice, but the items in your feed seem to be missing links to the relevant HN comments pages.

<comment><USER5> I've been reading HN through [http://andrewtrusty.appspot.com/readability/feed?url=http://...](http://andrewtrusty.appspot.com/readability/feed?url=http://news.ycombinator.com/rss) for a long time. Similar full-content feed, automatically processed (so sometimes it's a bit wonky), link to comments page at the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing, this has been on my todo list for a long time. Thanks for making this!

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank you. I miss <http://i.imgur.com/1P67U.png> (postrank).</comment>