Thanks for your post! Indeed, I’ve already spent many thoughts about how to earn money with QucsStudio and keep the project alive this way. But it’s not easy.
I like the idea about open source. There are projects that are successful, but obviously this is not the case with Qucs. And the same holds for QucsStudio, unless some companies appear that pay me for all the work already done. Hm, pretty unrealistic.
On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of going fully into a proprietary, paid application. I also fear that this won’t be successful. But you are right: It’s a big problem that users can’t rely on the further development. I want to change this.
I’m still uncertain what way is the best to go on. Anyway, the next release will come this year, maybe even this month. And, yes, it will be free, and won’t be the last free version. Thanks to all who made a donation!
Currently, my plan is to find sponsors, companies that pay for new features, for support etc. Any hints, help and comments are very welcome here! Does anyone know a company that might be interested? Is there interest for paid tutorial videos, example files etc.? Could a crowd-funded feature list be successful? Or perhaps a paid version with very special features like PDK support?