Buy Once Software
Buy Once Software
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.
Discover FOSS software. Just be sure to toss some donations to your favorite projects.
Imma be straight up. Donations are cool but not a lot of people give donations. partly because some are skint (i used to be) but mainly because people just don't know.
i feel like the biggest issue that foss projects face is the fact that they don't ask for donations in a way that the average user knows about. Kde sends a notification around christmas asking for donos. I haven't seen any other foss app do anything similar.
I give donations, but way less than I'd like (less in terms of quantity of recipients, not the total financial quantity).
What I'd love (not only for FOSS, but also stuff like podcasts and other things I'm donating to regularly) would be a service where I can set a budget and select the software and tools I use and it splits it up automatically.
I don't mind donating, but I hate managing it, having dozens of small transactions for it, and I feel like I'm forgetting to donate to like 90+% of the stuff I'm using. Also, with payment provider's fees it's often not worth it to donate <1€ a month, so bundling transactions would be way more effective - for me as the user as well as the recipients who'd get one transaction once a month from said service rather than hundreds of small ones.
I never really understood why e.g. Patreon doesn't offer this. You can't expect perks with this because the perks probably will start higher than what's the breakdown of each recipient woild be at a reasonable budget, but the advantage would be that (mostly) everyone would get a piece of your cake, rather than like 5 of the 500 different creators/developers/... you're using content/software of. Also, you could reduce or increase the monthly budget depending on your financial situation, rather than cancelling or modifying dozens of small subscriptions.
Until they revoke your lifetime purchase and put the new updates under a sub..
Happened to me with the Android anti-theft app Cerberus, AND with the PlayOn TV recording service.
We should make a shame/do not trust list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_software_packages
Buy never software
Donate when you can tho
And contribute if you can't.
For non-programmers: Yes, reporting bugs, writing docs, and answering questions is contributing.
Edit: Fun story, the best contributor I ever had was someone who randomly reproduced reported bugs and filled in the details about how they did it.
I use almost exclusively FOSS and I have monthly/annual contributions set up for various projects.
Those are not purchases. You are not "buying" them. They are donations. "Buying" requires payment.
Act like a real man. But free and open source software because the devs deserve your money for their free work
FOSS is notoriously low quality and can disappear at any given time when the developer(s) lose motivation. Don't get me wrong, I love them too, but I'll also gladly pay for something more polished and sustainable.
Right, because proprietary software is never abandoned. At least foss leaves you with the source code so you or other folk can carry on the torch in the original dev's absence.
Proprietary software is also notoriously low-quality and can disappear at any time when the developer loses motivation. Additionally, because the software is closed source, nobody else is able to continue the development of proprietary abandonware. On the other hand, abandoned FOSS projects can be forked and continued, which is something I see often.
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.
I boycott anything that has to be paid or is non-free.
I donate regularly to FOSS projects (that I use).
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
If you're into music production, FL Studio has a lifetime license that's stood the test of time, and has kept up with or exceeded the capabilities of packages like Reason, Ableton, and Logic. It was the first to really embrace an open VST plugin interface, and has so many options that even after 25 years I haven't yet explored them all. It also comes with a ton of free instruments you can download (basically free DLC).
I picked up a lifetime license for $99 in 2001 when it was Fruity Loops 2.0. Used it for 10 years as it evolved and was amazed that it was keeping up with the big boys. That encouraged me to drop another $80 to upgrade to the producer edition to start making professional level tracks - and I was not disappointed.
The best part? The base license is still just $99. Producer edition is still $179.
EDIT: side note - the demo is actually the full software package, so you can try it out for free. The license just unlocks the capacity to save projects with the plugins that are covered by your licensing.
Bruh I'm still using my fls 11 license from the early '00's and it still works. Modern hardware has made it work even better really
FL 11 was an amazing piece of software - that's the version that really kicked it into the big leagues.
You should check out the newest version - the download manager is much better since FL Studio 20, and they've got a bunch of new packages and plugins. The Flex plugin is one of the best traditional instrument synths I've ever worked with (think it came in on v 17 or 18).
Even the new version has excellent performance on my 10 year old desktop - you'll love it when you get a chance to upgrade.
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
I prefer the model where you buy updates if you want or need them
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.
They are "buy once" in that their licenses include perpetual fallback. Whenever you stop paying, you retain your licenses perpetually
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
if you want updated versions you need to keep paying periodically.
But you can continue using the older version, yes?
Sure, as long as it works. Software has a tendency to stop working on newer OS:es or become subject to security exploits though.
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.
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.
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.
I use moneydance for finance, it's $50 for the current version, as of now they give you one free version upgrade, with no requirement to upgrade again if you are satisfied.
It has a learning curve and isn't the prettiest but I've been satisfied with managing my transactions and running reports.
What it lacks though is a decent budget extension.
Good enough. Now tell me where it is made and you can call it perfect.
Shady practices.
They make program/editor pay 99$ to be listed and the link all redirect to a subscribe page sling for an email.
I think paid open source like GPL Blender addons from BlenderMarket, Gumroad, etc. is a good option. You pay for it to support the devs while also owning what you bought.
related: !sustainabletech@lemmy.sdf.org
Thanks for sharing, I find it hard to discover new “lemmy spaces”??? On here
Sure.
You might want to subscribe to !newcommunities@lemmy.world, and browse here once in a while: https://lemmyverse.net/communities
Subscribed. 🍻
Does anyone have any good alternatives to glasswire on windows?
Simplewall.
Devon !!!
What ?!?
GET THE TABLES !!
Buy... Software? You what?