On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 9:04 PM, Rob Beezer <goo...@beezer.cotse.net> wrote: > On Dec 13, 6:44 pm, kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> wrote: >> More seriously, selling it for $.99 or something wouldn't be a bad >> idea (?) or at least making a contribution possible to do. > > My impression is that the Android user culture is much more inclined > to expect free (as in zero cost). Or conversely (or is it > equivalently?) not many people pay for their Android apps: > > http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-blowing-away-android-with-up-to-90-of-app-revenue/ >
That's an interesting article which says: "The difference is striking, and will mean Apple’s platform is likely to continue to hold a strong lead over Google’s when it comes to the breadth and depth of software selection." They equate revenue with "breadth and depth of software selection". Having used Android now a lot for the last few weeks (and for the first time ever in my life), I would say that in many ways the breadth and depth of software selection on Android is as good or better than with iOS. At least, for the sort of software *I* personally care about (which I realize may not correlate at all with what most users want). Maybe they mean "breadth and depth of games", in which case probably iOS is way ahead -- I don't know, since I have no interest in buying video game software. Another thing I noticed about Android is that a *lot* of apps have two version: one free with ads, and another that is non-free but with no ads. I don't know if the article takes that revenue model into account. I personally think it is a great way to sell apps, because at least one gets to fully try the app before buying. There is nothing more frustrating than buying an app based purely on a description, and finding that it sucks. Regarding Sage, I personally agree with Rob -- culture or not, whatever we make available should be free and GPL'd, but we can make a "donate" version too. -- William > However, I do think that making a functionally-identical "donate" > version, at a slightly higher cost than 99 cents could be a good way > to allow folks to quickly and easily help support Sage development, to > say nothing of being a quantifiable measure of real interest. > > Rob > > -- > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel > URL: http://www.sagemath.org -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
