N3Roaster's Journal: Ad-free Slashdot and What to Charge for Free Software

Today's been a pretty good day. Well, except that my neck aches. I must have slept on it strangely.

I wake up and there's an email from someone who wants to send me money for some free (MIT licensed) software that I've written (in an unholy combination of C++, Javascript, SQL, XML, Metapost, and TeX). I wonder, if I'm getting money for it, does that mean that I can't embed XKCD comics in the source code documentation (yeah, that's the real reason for doing literate programming. I mean, sure, my productivity tripled and I can look at old stuff and figure out how to make changes more quickly, but that pales in comparison to being able to include comics about stick figures), despite the fact that I haven't tried to sell it? I'm also left wondering what's a good price to charge for free software. Sure, I could look at what the commercial competition is charging, but my program doesn't really map to any direct competitor (if I could have purchased it, I wouldn't have had to write it in the first place).

Then, I look at Slashdot after lunch and see a little box saying that I can turn off the ads. Now, I don't use any ad blocking software. If the ads on a site are excessive, I just don't go to the site. I didn't really have a problem with the ads here, except for those square ones on the right that would sometimes stick out and cover the summary text. Those were annoying when they did that, and if I have the option to turn off the broken ads, well thanks. I'll do that.