Imagine if the Linux kernel charged 5 dollars a month to read it’s mailing list. That would be extremely stupid. How is Pretendo any different?
I wouldn’t care if the developer chats were private. That’s whatever. But charging to read them? What the fuck.
You should also stop calling your subscription service a donation, because that’s not what the majority of users pay for it. They pay in exchange for a service. This, by definition, is not a donation.
I was considering reverse-engineering and developing a server for Terraria’s Wii U port, but I’m now having second thoughts because the way you treat your users is horrible. I would not stand for people paying 10 dollars a month to use my code (or they could use this docker thing, yada yada yada)
It is in your best interest to keep the process of setting a Pretendo server up poorly documented and difficult so that people have to use your paid services. I don’t think you would stoop that low though.
Would it make you happier if there were no perks in their donation?
The perks aren’t supposed to be the reason you donate, they are way to thank you for supporting the project, which supporting the project should be the reason you donate.
It would only be a subscription if Pretendo was charging you monthly to use their services.
I just want to personally clarify a few things (don’t take this as an official response or anything). Reading developer chats is a perk, same for testing servers. They are a bonus for donating. I also should add that not all developer chats are public, some do remain private (mostly for sensitive reasons). Also, adding onto the stuff around testing servers, if we made anything that was in testing public, we could get a lot of support issues pop up if those servers are not stable.
I’d like to remind you that Pretendo only has one full time employee and the rest of us are volunteers. Donations allow to pay for Jon to be full time, as well as to keep server infrastructure going. He did a breakdown of how this all works a while ago: May I have an explanation of Pretendo Network's budget/expenses? - #6 by PN_Jon
I hope this clarifies things a tiny bit even though I’m sure you’ll likely disagree with what I just said. These are my own thoughts and views for what it’s worth.
The email service that sends people Forum-related emails
and maybe some extra services I don’t know about yet
I know that it’s tough to not look at the subscriptions as “payment for a service”, but the tester access isn’t a thing given for payment.
Tester access is provided as thanks for contributing to the project somehow. That contribution can be a via a monthly payment towards those costs I listed above, but it can also be via work on the project codebase, help with moderating the services, or other means.
While not an exact one-to-one comparison, nonprofit organisations also need income due to the current nature of the capitalistic world order. However, instead of staying with the organisation, it continues moving. It goes to food, salary, management, and in this case (as @Ondrashek06 said) servers. Considering that owning servers isn’t exactly free, I personally am very glad that Pretendo is free at all. It very well could be reasoned that people should pay for the base services.
Pretendo is part of an LLC that @PN_Jon owns, and he is an employee, and he has to pay income taxes.
I wasn’t going to comment on this thread, but I felt the need to make this very clear. Pretendo is not a non-profit organization. That has a very specific legal definition and has legal implications.
