Gumroad’s license wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source

Posted by ssddanbrown 4/4/2025

Gumroad’s license wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source(danb.me)

122 points | 50 commentspage 2

saranshsharma 4/4/2025|

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skrtskrt 4/4/2025||

[flagged]

abc-1 4/4/2025||

The owner of Gumroad is a millionaire, but for some reason decided to crank up the cost of charges from 2.9% to 12.9% a few years ago. Needless to say, most people who don’t like being screwed switched to Stripe or another provider. That’s all you need to know about Gumroad.

redkoala 4/4/2025||

As a marketplace platform, it’s still lower than Apple/Google/Valve’s 30% cut. You pay for distribution, security, pre-integrations, shopping cart and other capabilities if you don’t want to do your own software development.

jokethrowaway 4/4/2025|||

Given they're a merchant of records, cost of compliance increased, mainly thanks to europe (that seems to have as a mission to ruin working people' lives as much as possible).

Stripe + Lemon Squeezy was a competitor.

Paddle is a competitor (which I use precisely to avoid having to deal with worldwide regulations) and they charge around 5%.

Gumroad also gives you a marketplace so there's some extra value.

I pay 25% for another marketplace, so 13% is not that crazy if they can bring you traffic.

skrtskrt 4/4/2025|||

I mean Stripe has gotten bazillions in VC money allowing it to take huge losses in order to grow to its point.

Gumroad is tiny and does not have the economies of scale of Stripe, without knowing their financials this does not say anything at all.

ptspts 4/4/2025||

How much does Stripe and typical other providers charge?

ceejayoz 4/4/2025|||

Stripe charges 2.9% (plus a fixed transaction fee).

https://stripe.com/pricing

Suppafly 4/4/2025||||

Stripe is 2.9% + 30¢, I think most of the popular providers are pretty competitive with that. Gumroad does handle some hosting and analytics and stuff though, its not just a payment processor afaik.

thierrydamiba 4/4/2025|||

2.9% + 30 cents

byyll 4/4/2025|

Again with the pointless discussion about what the "widely regarded definition of open source" is. The source is there. That's it.

p_ing 4/4/2025||

IMO the distinction is important; it tells me, broadly, what I can and cannot do with the source code.

Heck, the .NET Framework source has been available for eons (referencesource.microsoft.com), but you can't go compile it and build your own .NET Framework distro (Mono is a different story).

Imustaskforhelp 4/4/2025||

there was some guy on hackernews whose post I had read who had actually compiled .net entirely from source.

Like the issue I think becomes that .net itself was written in .net and so you needed the earlier proprietary versions right?

But Gnu also had a .net compiler and he had actually used it on guix (basically like nix) to really create sort of reproducible .net , I am sure that some reader of this comment will attach the post on which I am talking

ameliaquining 4/4/2025||

I believe this was https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2024/adding-a-fully-bootstrappe.... It was submitted to HN but only got a few comments.

neilv 4/4/2025|||

The term "open source" was coined for a specific meaning, and codified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Destroying the meaning of words is an activity for Orwellian villains.

evanelias 4/4/2025|||

Although OSI claims that they coined the term, there's irrefutable proof that the term was already in-use well before that. Originally, "open source" just meant "source available": https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part...

byyll 4/10/2025|||

I coined it today to mean something else. There is no reason to take someone's meaning of a word for gospel.

insane_dreamer 4/4/2025|||

> That's it.

No, that's not it. What you can do with the source code is just as important as the source code being available.

byyll 4/10/2025||

Then call it a new term. Don't change the definition of existing words. An open door isn't an invitation to change it, or to use it for free. It's just an open door and you can look inside.

yjftsjthsd-h 4/4/2025|||

> The source is there. That's it.

No, that's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

preisschild 4/4/2025||

"open source" has been defined by the OSI since decades and this does not fit that definition.

byyll 4/10/2025||

I don't really mind whether it fits someone else's definition really.