Which FreeBSD-compatible proprietary software would you buy?

dbdemon

dbdemon

I'm curious about attitudes towards proprietary software: Is there any proprietary software for which you'd consider buying a licence?

To be clear, I don't mean an online service where you're really paying for the storage or CPU or similar, even though it may also be providing useful features like in an online photo album software.
I mean software like e.g. a text editor, a database admin tool or a web application such as Xenforo.
 
There is some proprietary software that I would buy, mostly because there is a void of other solutions otherwise. Like one software category I often have to deal with, is embroidery. This category is very heavily proprietary in everything that is done, even the file formats are all brand/version specific. It doesn't help that community is a so tiny that there is no incentive of a 3rd party company to add an alternative.
 
I wouldn't buy any. But that mostly depends on your usecases. I'd expect to see highly specialized software in this thread. For more "common" tasks, there's a LOT of high-quality free and open-source software to choose from :)
 
Jose said:
US Tax preparation software.
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Well, I already wrote in my PP: "Only the poor pay taxes. The rich donate. I decided to be rich; it just feels better..." :p We have that joke: "Which one is the thickest book on earth? -- The german tax laws..."

Back on topic: Decades ago, I had a license for Sniff++, a full-featured C/C++ IDE. I'd be willing to pay for such stuff iff it outperforms devel/kdevelop (which is hard to do IMHO). But no matter what, open data formats are a must-have, i.e. I wouldn't buy anything that uses proprietary data formats for the data that I want to access. That's a no-go. Internal application data that is of no interest to me is a different story. But OTT, I insist on open data formats.
 
I only pay for software I *want* to run and that almost always excludes proprietary stuff because it is often of a terrible quality.

However if I really had to choose, then probably VirtualBox (commercial extensions) to get the USB 2.x + passthrough. I could certainly make use of that, and I know the quality of the code is fairly satisfactory judging by the rest of the software.

I know MATLAB would go a long way at getting FreeBSD more traction in universities. I don't personally use the software but it would certainly provide an indirect benefit.
 
Jose said:
US Tax preparation software.
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*laughs in german tax law*
Any SW capable of handeling that correctly can solve the halting problem while icing the touring test.

But on topic, I would buy good RPGs. Speech assistants w.o. cloud dependence.
 
Trihexagonal said:
Nothing. Not at any price but free as in FreeBSD Or free as in Law of the Sea for me.
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Clearly OT, but interesting (& we're in OT anyway): You'd be surprised about the complexity of the internationally commited Laws of the Sea... Any ship (de jure called water craft or s/th like that; incl. hovercrafts & aircrafts flying very low!) is under the law of the nationality of it's owner (shown by it's flag), unless in a harbour or "tightened to land" i.e. anchoring or tightened at a pier/dock/jetty/mole or the like. Naturally, any rule has exceptions: when in the 200-mile zone (so-called exclusive commerce zone), the respective laws have to be followed (e.g. foreign fishermen ought to have a license), and when in the 12-mile zone, the tax tarrif/toll/custom/duty laws of the respective country apply, i.e. you must grant the resp. authorities permission to enter & check your ship*; OTT, the laws of the flag of the ship still apply... Now the interesting Q would be: what happens when a poor bastard who is nation-less owns a ship?

EDIT * they gotta check that all that cocaine & ganja is within the resp. legal bounds for your personal enlightenment ;)
 
An office suite, provided that it can print and be used on FreeBSD through wine or another compatibility layer, such as: Word Perfect, or Broderbund Office Suite. Libreoffice as the open source one is good though.


If such a thing exists, a program to read DRM ebooks. Now for some books, there's no way, except to read them on a dinky phone screen. I bought C Unleashed a while ago from the publisher in digital form, because they no longer had the book available in physical form. I'll settle with a different ebook or physical book.

A commercial software licensed by those that have rights to catalogs of movies that would allow me to watch their DRM movies as well, if one came into existence. This one won't happen. This one also isn't necessary as I can change my TV's input to a Roku stick.

Video games perhaps, provided that I know they'll work. Maybe I could buy Sega Saturn games at Gamestop and play them through an emulator.
 
sidetone said:
An office suite, provided that it can print and be used on FreeBSD through wine or another compatibility layer, such as: Word Perfect, or Broderbund Office Suite. Libreoffice as the open source one is good though.
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Didn't we have that SoftMaker's TextMaker et.al. (SoftMaker office suite) in the ports(7) tree? The wikipedia entry still lists FreeBSD as a supported platform.
sidetone said:
If such a thing exists, a program to read DRM ebooks. Now for some books, there's no way, except to read them on a dinky phone screen. I bought C Unleashed a while ago from the publisher in digital form, because they no longer had the book available in physical form. I'll settle with another ebook or physical book.

A commercial software licensed by those that have rights to catalogs of movies that would allow me to watch their DRM movies as well, if one came into existence. This one won't happen. This one also isn't necessary as I can change my TV's input to a Roku stick.
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We have that idiom/phrase: "Copy kills music" i.e., artists/creators have to pay their bills, too.
 
kpedersen said:
It is sad because I used to pay for a lot more stuff before DRM entered the equation. Now, I simply will not engage with it. I can't imagine that is helping anyone.
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Absolutely right! I remember I went crazy when I wasn't able to download again a (song/movie/book, don't remember) that I paid for, after a fresh installation (system crash, L*x...) on the very same machine. That's offensive! Theft! Robbery! They fooled me! There have to be smarter ways than this crude DRM crap.
 
Mjölnir said:
Didn't we have that SoftMaker's TextMaker et.al. (SoftMaker office suite) in the ports(7) tree? The wikipedia entry still lists FreeBSD as a supported platform.
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The port editors/softmaker-office expired in 2014. WordPerfect is really good. I'm also familiar with the brandname Broderbund, so its worth a try.
Mjölnir said:
We have that idiom/phrase: "Copy kills music" i.e., artists/creators have to pay their bills, too.
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To pay for it of course, with the same service I pay Hulu, Redbox, Sling or Netflix. That's why I said commercially licensed software by those who have rights to the movies. It won't happen.
 
aragats said:
Don't they get just 25-30%?..
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I did NEVER state that capitalism is "the best system invented by mankind" like some other guy did (namely, he imploringly interceded publicly on TV (I'm referring to 11:40+) after the 2007/8/9 financial crash*: J.W. Bush jr., then POTUS, now (within the regular meeting of former POTUSes) co-psychotherapist to that T-clown; FWIW the german Treasury Secretary/Finance Minister stated publicly: "I looked into human abysses" in a press conference). Please donate anonymously in memoriam The Honourable Elinor Ostrom (feel free to scroll & read up & down) like I did. 1-25US-$ is better than nothing. It's about the statement, right?!
EDIT: I do not know how much (in ¢) marketing & all that stuff is necessary for one $ turnover/revenue in the music/movie/entertainment world. Eventually, that 25-30% is justified?
EDIT *) also interesting what the wizzards say (just scratching the surface; many wise guy state: Karl Marx was a brilliant analyst).
 
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