tl;dr: if you don't have time to read it is a long post...
Sandeep Panda Thanks for invitation for this post. I was hoping that you won't ask me and I kept ignoring this one but here we are :) I want to point out two perspective and I hope I won't get roasted here.
Perspective 1, my personal feelings and opinion. I am not against anything on your list above and I do believe at some point if a project's expenses are overcoming income then someway it should be monetized and 2 bucks with those benefits above is nothing and nobody should complain about it.
Perspective 2, reality and my observations. Monetizing a project is really delicate subject. As human beings we don't like to pay for the things we used to have for free. This scares people. Yes even 50c is too much for someone. That's mostly ignorance or not really thinking the requirement behind it. Simply, now I need to pay, forget it thought process. Sometimes even discussing it can cause same effect.
Quick example. Early js days. jQuery is barely known, or maybe it wasn't even out yet. one big library out there was YUI provided by Yahoo. I think script.aculo.us was out, maybe not long time ago I can't really remember. Anyway, someone I know from newsgroups ( for millenials old email style forum/chat thingy ) Jack Slocum, came up with this idea that something look like YUI but much simpler, full javascipt that will allow you to create desktop application like web apps. He called it ExtJS ( Extended Javascript) in few months it was all over. Everybody in industry was aware and talking about it. So many huge companies like IBM, Compaq, Adobe you name it immediately implemented. At the time I was working in a company as IBM solution partner and we have used in so many enterprise level applications like Toyota, Phillip Morris SA, DYO, DrOetker ... and of course he got hired by some big development company, given a team just to focus on ExtJs. I forgot to mention, also it was open source. So now it wasn't just him but also any programmer working with it was also contributing into ExtJS. beta, v1, v2... crazy.
Then it happened... ExtJS acquired by another company. And Jack now was not in charge. They said. we spend this much money on this, and it is pretty popular, we need our investment to make money. Let's put licensing. First it started with minimal amounts, then by the time Sencha released the ExtJS we fall in love at first sight was already dead. People were so frustrated in extJS forums. They all left, all big contributors like Animal, Sanjiv and others. They were frustrated because they build major applications with it thinking this is an opensource project, it will grow and will get even better but now I have to pay 3000 per seat. Of course this timeline also collapses with jQuery and Bootstrap's peak as well. another open source, free product.
So I think, and this is my personal opinion, from all those discussions from extJS forum, Jack's biggest mistake was taking something free, open-source from people's hands thinking they will always stick to it. He should have release Sencha as a separate, better commercial project and not touch extJs. maybe here and there some updates etc to keep people happy. Since it was open source it was already growing by itself and he didn't even need to anything about it.
wow, too much to read :) anyway long story short, Hashnode is a great community awesome product, but I would suggest to be careful what are you asking for. like I said for some people paying 1cent to something they used to get free makes a lot of difference in their minds. Good luck
if anyone interested to know more about ExtJS and what happened you can read more in detail in this medium post hackernoon.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-ext-js-c9d727…
and here is some of comments people left in his personal blog where he is making peace with himself
Jack, I don’t know you or Sanjiv in any way but for this exchange, and I can tell you (and Sanjiv who a really hope is reading this) that we have very serious project underway using GWT and Ext. We started using gwt-ext. We are now DUMPING GWT-EXT and forever avoiding anything ever touched by Sanjiv. Thanks.
another user
Ugh, you should not have done this ‘he said, I said’ rant, this reflects very badly on the project, regardless of the facts. Changing the license is kind of sneaky even if the reasons are good. I don’t care why you did it, only that you did it. Since you can’t beat free, you will lose users over this, but they are not paying customers anyway. However, by blogging in this way, you could also lose the paying customers.
and another one
Well, this is sad for everyone especially for the customers. We’re going to loose. Basically everyone is a bit right but not all right. Jack just buggered up Ext GWT 1.0 since it hasn’t established itself yet. I feel for Darrell since the day before it was released on the extjs website he said it will be released as LGPL (mygwt.net/forum/viewtopic.php). You made him look like a fool. It is a real shame. So much potential. In the end, extjs will do ok since it has a number of customers using the library and is a good library. Not sure if you will attract new customers this way though. I was about to be a customer but luckily I only invested 3 weeks into your product. It is also a shame that you and Sjivan are conversing on this level since both of you would benefit tremendously of having a good relationship. We understand both of your viewpoints but really Jack what did you expect when you changed the licensing that way without telling anyone including Darrell and he started to work at your company! The link above proved he didn’t know (on April 21st for Christ sake) I don’t like the personal attack and there shouldn’t be. I do think it is the result of frustration, surprise and everyone’s unwillingness to compromise. #