Two whales

First, a small introduction, and may sophisticated users forgive me for some simplifications.
The development of free software in general and under GNU Linux in particular is currently on two pillars — GNU and Linux.

• GNU through the mouth of Richard Stallman promotes the free creation, modification and execution of program code, free software, legally it is expressed in the GPL license
• Linux, at the hands of programmers Linus Torvalds, creates an environment in which this free code is executed.

The basis of the philosophy of open source software is that a person can use as much as he wants all the wealth of free program code created before him, but at the same time (according to the GPL license) he has to make his own ideas free as well.

Programming is interesting, interesting and doing something "for the idea." The basic principle is “From the world on a string, bare shirt”, everyone can create a common system a little bit in his spare time and as a result, the amount of free code keeps increasing, GNU Linux is growing and getting stronger ... only here are the end users still, after 30 years after the emergence of free software ideas, they mostly work with proprietary proprietary software, even in an android that is “inside” - completely Linux.
What is the reason?

Three pines

What is the reason that in Linux there are now a dozen graphical skins but not a single working free program like “Trade and Warehouse”?
To do this, you need to remember for whom and at whose expense free software and Linux distributions are being created.

• "For an idea" - at the expense of ideologically hard-nosed free-software lovers fascinated by Stallman's ideas Especially there are many of these among students, but when a wife and children appear, it’s very difficult to spend time on other, distant people instead of family, even for an idea. The path of Job, who has preserved the faith in spite of all adversity, is not for everyone, not everyone can be holy. And the creators of free software “burn out” and lose interest, GNU program projects are closing down. But even if such a project continues to exist, it is usually more important to "ideological" than "usability", it is not for ordinary users - for ideological. Not for all. “All” usually almost immediately shout “HOW TO GO FROM YOUR VI?”
• “For myself” - at the expense of those who want to build their own sandbox - the universe, “programming for fun” This is very interesting - to make your program or system the way you want it! By itself, this interest is not bad, but it leads to a huge number of unfinished programs and distributions of Linux, to the separation of efforts. And the desire to compare your sandbox with others - both to pride and swearing on forums, since in the absence of an honest comparison mechanism, which sales are in the ordinary world, subjective, personal preferences and “loudness of screaming” start to work. Also in this paradigm, programmers make systems “for themselves” and not “for users”, while architectural things are quite easy to do, but problems with ergonomics and initial settings, design and help are very common. All this allows you to make a kernel, but does not allow you to create a sufficient number of high-quality and documented programs for the end user, does not allow to ensure their support for a sufficient time.
  
• "For corporations" - at the expense of corporations. Yes, the funding received from a large corporation for some of its projects allows you to make a beautiful and quite convenient system. But this system will be made for the corporation-customer (what kind of freedom there is) and at any time financing can be terminated, since in the general case Linux development does not bring profit by itself, they are “very hard” to sell “thanks to” the GPL .
  

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Thus, we can say that the reason for the "stagnation" in the development of free software for end users, "for the desktop" is the lack of communication between software developers and end users. Wandering in three pines SPO-development will not get to the interests of the user, and after all he eventually should become the customer of the development. The standard market mechanism - “made-sold” in the case of the GPL does not work - how can I sell to users something that can be copied for free?

What to do with a task that has no solution? Rephrase conditions.
Let's get away from the model "producer - consumer"

How to put a penguin on his feet

Digital copying has made possible a very interesting thing - you can share it without getting poorer. Once you make a program, you can give it to someone, and you will have this program, just about graphics, music - any digital media. This principle conflicts with the laws of modern commerce and there are protected programs, laws on piracy, content protection, advertisements and other illogical and unnecessary things to people.

But for now let's leave all the digital media, let's talk only about the programs under the GPL. And also about village freedom.

I live in the village and when I moved there, I settled on a “new” street, where there was no roadway or running water. Since “There was a crisis in the yard”, it was not necessary to wait for financing, but I had to carry water on myself and get stuck in the mud after any rain. When I got tired of it, I threw around the idea of ​​changing the world. We with the other residents of the street organized, threw money, found performers - and as a result we slept the road and ran the plumbing. That's when I felt completely free man, who can change the world around him at will.

How to make their developers free not only ideologically, but also financially? For this, it is necessary that users can participate in the development not only of bug reports and feature quest, but financially, so that they can pay programmers and testers collectors.

For what? Not for simply copying previously done work, no!
Payment must be made for real work - for increasing functionality. This is an honest job, the results of which go to everyone - as with the road along which not only those who paid for its construction go.

Most of the programs and services go from release development to smooth rolling, to the “eternal beta” when changes are made to the system continuously, and its efficiency is preserved. Thus, the program ceases to be something unchanged, turns into a continuously evolving functional. And each step of this development may well be financed by those who need this functionality development - by IT specialists and users.

By adding free funding for changes to free programming and free runtime, you can correct the weaknesses of open source software (doping and bug fixing with ergonomics) and completely change the psychology of creating programs.

In the proposed paradigm:

• the buyer-operator turns into a customer-investor, the consumer - into a co-creator.
• the purchase of the program is replaced by the order of development of some of its features
• copy protection is replaced by the free use of previously made designs
• programmer attached to the company turns into an independent and freely choosing developer activity

Why was this not done before? Without developed means of communication it was impossible! Similar systems in other areas are now appearing one after another, for example, Uber-type taxi services (Yandex-taxi, Maxim taxi) or kickstarter clients. In open-source software development, such a model is used, for example, by the OpenShot project.

Also, this model resembles the already well-known "grant" model of financing science. There, too, scientific results are published and available to everyone, grants are funded by new discoveries and developments.

Another similar model is “joint purchases”, when users unite in groups on the forum and order some goods at the wholesale price.

Third whale

In the real world, you can buy ready-made clothes or order them "for yourself" and - only for yourself. But the possibilities of digital copying allow you to choose from many options made before - “for free”, or to invest and make your own - for yourself and for all grateful humanity. In the near future, 3D printers will allow you to do this with many things from the real world, because if copying is free, you need to think up once!

Already, this can be done in the development of free software.

It is important that in the proposed paradigm:

• It is profitable for people to unite in communities to jointly order the development they need. It's great to do something useful for everyone together.
• Everyone can find their place in the development - from coding and design, to organization or financing. From each - according to his abilities.
• The participants of the system are independent of loans, corporations, advertising departments and public relations managers, they directly, without unnecessary intermediaries, seek and find each other. Ubilization - to the masses!

With this approach, it is simple and logical - through money, bugs and feature quest are ranked by importance, doping and design with documentation become interesting, almost all today's weaknesses of STR are closed. Money returns their real meaning - the measurement of the need for some product.

The third whale to reclaim the free software market (and the world will change, as it is without it) is very likely to be a platform that brings software customers and developers together, logically including the order process in the development process. The one who first launches such a platform will finish what Stallman and Linus started. And he can also make money on this - quite honestly taking his percentage for the functioning of this platform using the Kickstarter model.

What are the requirements for such a platform?

It seems to me that in the end it will be a social network aimed not at content consumption, as it is now, but at producing software. A kind of production Habrakhabr in half with git. A network uniting the developers of open source software with reputation, viewing the history of development orders, the ability to combine efforts and the minimum transaction price for changing the code from one operational state to another.

For the sake of exclusion, duplication is possible even the existence of such a centralized source code platform - does a single, but free Wikipedia work? Such a platform will connect with the help of free funding for developers and end users. How?

IT independence - payment in money

The question arises - who will formulate orders for changing STR and pay for them? After all, the end user most often wants to press only the big red button and “do everything well” . Who are these people who need code changes and who are willing to pay for them?
These people are IT people, administrators and tuners, those who now go sit at computers or go to cities and villages, setting up windows (and even sometimes linux) and getting paid for it. Now they are divided, they are working for the glory of Western corporations or they are pirating - and no one knows better than these people the needs of the end users. If the IT people will be able to change the software on their own or with the money to the needs of their users and share these changes under the GPL, we will get as many as the infrastructure solution of the IT security problem of the society. Indeed, then the software will turn not into a commodity, as it is now - but into an infrastructure such as roads or electricity, common to all, bringing society together into a single whole. At the same time, this infrastructure will be independent of both corporations and government funding, it will be cheap due to the elimination of duplication and retail mark-up and there will be no banner ads, no start button and race versions for versions.

How can it all look like?

Differently. From a bright kraundfundingovoy company like "we are a cool team, we want to make a cool program with such features, we need two lemons" (who says that this is impossible with us - he did not see the planet before the portal of "joint purchases", where you can order or execute some feature in an open source software.Possible implementation of such an order is through an auction of a “target donat”, when an order is formulated and money is already donated to it, and the more money is accumulated - the more necessary this functionality and the higher the likelihood of writing it.

Switching to open source software can and should be done not by volitional decisions and coercion “from above”, but from the understanding that this is beneficial for everyone. The state may well, as a customer, give grants for any changes in functionality that it needs - and these changes will be made by the IT-network community, but in the general case the system will work without the state, or rather creating the state “from the bottom” to the level of self-organization of society, effectively, independently, without cuts and kickbacks. “For myself” - but now this concept will include end users, not IT people, as in today's world of open source software.