you buy the support (redhead)
you buy the long-term-support (ubuntu)
you pay for backports to old releases (keycloak iirc)
there is a open source version, and you can pay for enterprise features and hosting (gitlab)
there is an open source version, and you pay for customization (star office, iirc)

and my personal favorit:

you pay a random developer to submit pullrequests for bugs that are relevant to you

[–] Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This is all true, but it's interesting how people often forget another simple option: the software is commercial - it is simply sold on some website/store. Just like you can buy the game Mindustry on Steam, but it is Libre Software and even though you can get the build for free on GitHub and its itch.io page, people still pay for the Steam version. I wonder why people forget about this option, since it's probably the simplest one.

Of course, Steam is a proprietary, unethical platform, so I'm just using it as an example - I'm not saying we should sell there.

[–] bort@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago

thanks. I forgot about that. But I'd like to add, that this models kind of feels like "donations with extra steps" to me. i.e. you can get it for free, but you choose to pay the developer even though you have to.