I think there is a misunderstanding between us. Surely my English is not the best but I wanted to say subscription is pay monthly or yearly and payment is pay one time. OK?
edit: 1. payment… better: one time payment or purchase.
I’m not sure if this would help Jolla at all.
Only a few people are willing to pay for an alternative OS for a smartphone.
But paying a monthly or another timed fee could lead to much less interest and less paying customers.
Or what if something you need breaks after an update, most people would stop the payment.
Furthermore many people buy a new smartphone after a few years and so you would need and pay for a new license.
Well, there can be done like some services like the one Apple offers, like Jolla gives you 10gb a month of cloud for backup photos and other stuff for 1,99€ monthly. I don’t know, the one time payment of OS per device is quite not customer friendly, but the thing you’re choosing an alternative OS already justifies it
Good idea, Jolla could expand their buisness line with low cost and gain some income this way.
1 Like
Bad idea, then
- Jolla needs infrastructure to handle that (this comes with upkeep costs)
- They need to buy or rent storage with someone who does (this costs more than 2 USD a month)
4 Likes
Disagree, Jolla is and should focus on their core technology which are SailfishOS and AppSupport. Offering a data storage service is very complicated, including legal stuff and technology. These kind of services are not low cost services.
For myself I would be fine to pay for a monthly subscription, but I would expect to get regular updates (security patches, library updates) and kind of a roadmap which contains new features (QT Update please).
5 Likes
Just imagine, the subscribers could vote on which features or bugs get addressed each month!
1 Like
I heard that last year maybe, Jolla was on profit for the first time since a lot of time. Do we have recent financiary data to see?
Have a look at the bug reports.For the software charge money? 
1 Like
My hope is that it will have fewer bugs then. edit: 
But I think people would need some sort of committment to fix bugs in a timescale according to seriousness (i.e priority) before agreeing to pay a subscription just in the hope that bug fixing might improve. As we all know, some quite serious bugs are outstanding for a very long time, sometimes years. I would not be happy to pay a subscription just on the off chance that Jolla might get round to fixing a serious bug at sometime in the future maybe. If we pay a subscription for a service then that service needs to be defined and actually delivered - otherwise our subscription is no more than a donation.
Which would the end of either Jolla or the subscription modell.
1 Like
Well, there is also the painful question, how important Jolla currently prioritizes the further development of SFOS and the individual components (regarding browser, security features, update of components, ports, …). I think that Jolla works like any other company that offers multiple products. Each product is allocated a certain number of resources (developers). Depending on the economic situation, customer wishes, investors and orders. As a result sometimes one product gets more resources than the other and this can change any time of course.
If Jolla would offer a paid subscription service, they are more forced to deliver “something”. And deliver something means to invest resources.
I just want to raise again, that I would be happy to pay for a subscription. It could be a similar service like Redhat already offering (Support/Update Repository and so on). Of course there are still the sources available.
1 Like
I second this.
I donate monthly to a couple of mobile OS projects and find it a bit frustrating not to be able to support Jolla similarly. Especially when SFOS is the only OS I actually use and the only OS I can see myself using as a daily driver.
I’m not by any means stating that subscription model should be forced on everyone. If it’s not too much work, I would like to see it offered as an option, as long as the price is reasonable (e.g. 5€/month). Perhaps, for some potential users, it could lower the barrier to try a fully-featured SFOS phone. I do acknowledge it also lowers the barrier to abandon the jolla.
However, I’m not expecting anything in return and I do not like the idea of dividing paying users into two categories.
EDIT: typos…
1 Like
I am not going to use the solution button for this is purely based on opinion, not on a problem. The reactions show a wide diversity of opinions and I think it is up to Jolla as a company to decide how they will create a sustainable business model. So far I am grateful for the support of the devices that I have used and still use.
2 Likes
Maybe a subscription model could work, if the initial sum covers one or two years. This because there are always phone specific problems at the beginning when a new port is released.
If not a subscription, maybe a new payment when a new main version is released. Like when they went from 3.x to 4.x and then when they release Sailfish OS 5, etc…
Isn’t there a problem, though, that user may expect that actual bugs need to be taken care of, eg no working camera, other things that need fixing. Will there not, then, be two parallel versions of the same OS to maintain? And that for every phone.
Extra services is something that could be worth to pay for. Maybe support to install the OS, support when something has crashed, etc. But that would take someone away from development to help with the support.
Main thing: Jolla for sure should add a donation button. Quite a few already say they are interested in chipping in. People could also be able to buy gift cards valid for a year or so, to be able to give the OS to someone else in stead of buying a license for themselves.
3 Likes
You can just buy extra Sailfish X licenses, the effect is the same.
2 Likes
Not if I want to give a small amount every month. Also, how can I use all the licenses I’ve bought? If there were a gift card option, sure. That way I could pass it along. Is it a big problem to just set up a donation button?
2 Likes
Indeed, a subscription model means consumers can expect a certain service (e.g. updates, maintenance of the app store). It differs from a donation button that is mostly used for non profit organisations. The hybrid position of Jolla (company with propietry part, investors, plus a community of devs who contribute voluntarily) makes it a bit confusing.
Anyhow, we are getting updates and Sailfish has improved a lot. I am grateful for that.
5 Likes
08:35:08 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> Second topic, during the community event we had discussions regarding
08:35:08 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> subscription-based pricing model. To continue that discussion, we’d
08:35:08 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> like to ask your thoughts.
08:35:08 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> How much would you be willing to pay from a subscription. Let's think
08:35:08 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> two different models. Both would have software updates done in
08:35:11 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> similar fashion like we did last year (even year 2022). Few major
08:35:13 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> releases plus a few minor updates. Approximately a year ago we had
08:35:15 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> a vote about this in the newsletter.
08:35:27 <rainemak> #link https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-23rd-february-clat/14752
08:35:35 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> 1) Software updates euros / month ?
08:35:40 <rainemak> #info <Jolla> 2) Software updates + AppSupport euros / month ?
So that topic was raised by Jolla them self in the last community meeting. I think this thread is a good place to continue the discussion.
First of all I love the idea about a subscription model for SailfishOS because I want to see SFOS grow and develop. To reach that goals developers needs to paid.
So for me:
- Software updates euros / month ?
I would be okay with 10€-20€ per month but for that I am expecting security updates of the libraries quite often. I would also like a see a roadmap with dates or quarter goals. We do read quite often in the community meetings that customers of Jolla have another opinion or for whatever reasons the open sourcing about components is right now not possible. I understand that but if we are going on a subscription based model I would like to see where the journey will go. What are the next big milestones and in which time frame? I am thinking about:
- Qt Upgrade
- Browser update (right now driven by @flypig )
- Fixing bugs which official supported devices
- OpenSource components
- Software updates + AppSupport euros / month ?
For this point I would also expecting a more recent Android Security Patch level. The current security patch level for the Xperia 10 III is: 05.10.22. But I have to say that I don’t know if this is in Jolla’s hands at all.
5€/month
1 Like