If the software is open-source, it will just get forked in a branch that removes usage metric uploading. If you want to make money with software, just release proprietary software, not sure what's so difficult about this.
Because dealing with proprietary software is a pain in the ass. Have you ever written code for a prop operating system that required a prop compiler and a prop framework? It was impossible to do anything other than begging the owner to write a better documentation or fix their bugs. Today, I just open up the source code of whatever package I'm using and supplement the doc with the code itself. Open source makes software tolerable.
Uploading your package to scarf does not impact your code at all, all the payments and analytics is at the packaging and distribution level.
Also, even if you want to release proprietary software, writing payment integrations is still a lot of work and Scarf makes this much easier. You can put proprietary, compiled binaries on the platform too
Interesting that the three sibling replies here at present completely miss the point. Vortico is saying that nobody can make money this way as an OSS author/developer because someone else will just fork your code and release it sans payment mechanism. Or perhaps even with them as the payment beneficiary rather than you.
Right, I was addressing the fact that forking isn't even necessary here. It's true people can always go get the source if they want to use it for free. But someone just bypassing Scarf to use the source code directly makes them:
a) more likely to contribute code (since they have it), so fine with me!
b) much less likely to be using it at an enterprise, which is the main target
