Quote Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce View Post
If you're asking for a salary for the app up front, the app should be free in the marketplace. You're asking for the community to pay you to produce the app, then asking them to pay again to use it.

I don't find myself agreeing with a lot of directions DP has gone the last few years, this one just seems insulting. You're taking 10 years of work volunteered by other individuals and using that to make a profit for yourself.

Instead of using the app as read-only, make it actually useful and interesting. If you're going to give people access to the DP database, allow them to make updates and corrections straight from their phone. People are complaining about the database inaccurate, you're not thinking of ways to help fix it. Granted, someone will have to verify the changes, but that's why you're making $5 a copy. Justify your paycheck somehow.
The fact that contributers of $5 and above don't have to pay for the app on its release aside,

you do realize that the analog guides are/were not 100% charitable projects which similarly took years of work volunteered by individuals and published them in a sale-able format?

I'm not certain what the profit margin is/was on the analog guides (if at all) but even if JUST the cost of printing was paid to the printers, A.) there were community-involved individuals who (I assume) contributed to the guide database with knowledge that it could/would be sold in some form and that they'd not be receiving any direct monetary compensation and B.) parties/contractors were involved in the production of the guide (printers) that saw some level of financial compensation for their work.

If nz17 wants to consider his work on this akin to the analog printer who printed, bound and shipped the guides to Joe, I think that's fair. He's providing a service on his own time that Joe and/or the community can not that requires some level of financial support. He's clearly detailed why he needs hardware in the process. If you don't want to donate, nobody is twisting your arm.

I don't recall any similar public outcry over the analog guides ... though, granted based on the age of those projects there may have easily been some that I'm just unaware of.

Just devil's advocate, did you make any level of profit on your BioForceApe project, or is it 100% calculated to be the cost of materials only?