Alas, in the history of open source, Red Hat decided in 2003?-ish to focus on the enterprise instead of the desktop, which made me sad way back when. Apple adopted open source at its core (BSD/Darwin) in 2000. Linux finally made it's way to mainstream desktops with ChromeOS and to mainstream mobile with Android.
Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. Norms need a desktop that is maintainable by non-technical people. That means MS and Apple (and Google, though Joplin is not natively available for that -- hmm, I should experiment).
...
@laurent -- FYI, I have not forgotten about the wikipedia article. It did get reviewed and rejected as too ... PR/markety (the community is holding new articles to a higher standard). I just haven't had time to refresh it and have another go of it. I will tackle that soonish.
The Linux stats for Joplin aren't doing too bad if you consider package managers that might be preventing downloads from Github directly.
For example the Snap alone has about 6000 people running on v1.3.18, meaning Linux for the latest release is actually about on par with Windows, and that's not considering all the other packages that might available, AUR, t0dd's, etc.
In snap an active user is a unique machine instance that has checked for updates in the past week, so it's a reliable metric that suggests that the Linux base might actually be bigger than the MacOS base for example.
I'll let @laurent speak officially regarding the project but what im about to say is generally a universal truth
Projects, like Joplin, are costly. They take lots of time and energy - and the level of funding provided results in direct, tangible benefits that end users see. Faster development. Less bugs. More features. Better support.
That being said - we as a community need to think about how to monetize Joplin while being homogeneous of all prior promises and desires. What model and how that looks - im not sure. I do know that historically - the donation model isn't sufficient.
So - does that look like users paying directly for specific features prior to their development? That's something the community will need to figure out. Free tier and a pro tier that costs as a one time fee or subscription model? Yearly subscription? Maybe the app is free but you can buy into additional features ...
Note, FLOSS does not preclude keeping the lights on and expediting development. And - I would prefer that the app be designed in a way where its entire purpose isnt to lock people into reoccurring subscriptions. But the point remains.
How about remaining open source but simply charging for the app?
I don't have an IT background. If the main place I obtained Joplin from said something along the lines of "the source code is on github you can compile it yourself for free, however if you just want to click download and have us do it all for you, we charge X amount" id suck it up and pay for the convenience.
Interesting idea! It would kinda work, though it also has some major downsides:
Right now, it's important marketing that we can say that Joplin is "free and open source". This sends a strong message about what it is, and why you should use it. Imo "pay money for a somewhat immature note taking app" is much less easy to sell
Tbh, there's a non-zero chance that a person may have to pay for their file hosting. So the fee that you might normally pay to Evernote must in part go to ex. Dropbox. That said, I think it's also quite possible to find free hosting, especially using tools like rclone. Anyway, there's no world in which Joplin should cost as much or more than Evernote
One time payments on app stores and stuff aren't very good for developers overall. It's much more comfortable to have a subscription system, where you can expect regular income (ex. patreon)
Explaining that this is actually a free app while charging someone a fee (in the way that you suggested) would be pretty hard. Users don't usually read so much when they're trying to install/try apps on the app store. The only place you could put this info is into the description, but then you're also taking away space from explaining what the app is. So people would just assume it's a paid app and not look any further
Huge thanks to @laurent — I know his job involves a lot of support work, along the lines described by the OP. Dealing with user issues is very draining, which I know first hand from my own indie project. It really takes the patience of a saint to walk through a frustrated user's complaints, to figure out if they just forgot to plug in their router or whatever
Anyway, we could also use some more people over on reddit.com/r/joplinapp. I am currently taking some time daily to check up on that forum and reply to questions / cross post with the discourse. I have also spent a fair bit of time telling people that Joplin exists over in the Evernote reddit — this is a unique moment where a ton of people are looking for alternatives
There is certainly a class of people that cares about what I've recently taken to calling "Public Software". I.e. software that's actually owned by you, and serves your needs rather than corporate. We should all feel like we own Joplin — because we do. Just like we really own our data!
I can confirm that. Donations aren't quite enough to make a living but, at least recently, it's enough to take a small break from "real" work, and work full time on the app. It's not sustainable to keep doing this I guess, but for now donations definitely allowed me to make many changes and improvements that I wanted to make but didn't have time for.
In terms of recurring revenue, a model that I like is to offer services next to the app, for example an offer to host Nextcloud instances or a Joplin-specific server (like has been discussed in other threads). It allows keeping everything 100% open source, as users who prefer to self-host can still do so, but for those who don't like or don't know how to manage their own server, this service could be useful.
Thanks for the support Huge, I haven't been checking the Reddit sub much lately but might try to do it a bit more as many users prefer to post there since they already have an account.
Yeah, tbh this was one of the first things I thought of when I saw the project. There's a huge business opportunity for making services in and around Joplin. It might actually end up being better than expected for users, since we may have multiple providers competing for them eventually
Don't have to give us a public figure, but relative to how much Joplin earns now, how much would you need to switch over to it full time @laurent? From my rough napkin estimate, it looks like about a 2x would do it? Which is, btw, already a huge accomplishment!
Yeah, I'm not really sure. I mean, ultimately, the admin is laurent, but the other guys who are there? Not sure. Either way, the reddit looks a bit under-administrated, with the sticky still saying that they're looking for mods, which may or may not be true?
Current mods:
lau2222
rtevans-
calicosculpin
tristinDLC
Not sure who those guys are. Anyway, I'd be willing to help out with moderation / administration there. I have a fair bit of experience on Reddit: reddit.com/u/hugelung
Sorry, I don't have admin access to the reddit channel, otherwise I'd make you a mod. I don't really use reddit myself. But I don't think that Laurent created the subreddit or however that is called.
Update: according to this, Laurent created the subreddit.
@rtevans is in charge of the sub and was the one who promoted it when it started (if I created the sub it was most likely at his request). I don't know who are the two other moderators though.
I'm going to make you a moderator over there @Huge.Lung so feel free to make changes to the sub.
I haven't thought about this to be honest. If I were to do that full time, I'd earn less than with a regular job, but of course with the bonus of working on something I really enjoy. Now how much exactly, I don't know. It might also depend on whether selling services around Joplin makes financial sense.
Thanks for the financial insight, and getting me mod status on reddit! I'll clean things up over there, get some better css customizations going, info etc.
one other option, not sure if there's interest in this or not, but having users pay for access to dedicated support channels (via email instead of just posting here). this may be a bit of an added incentive to support this great product.
