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nchudleigh / vimac

Productive macOS keyboard-driven navigation
https://vimacapp.com
GNU General Public License v3.0
3.38k stars 124 forks source link

Discord Channel! #438

Open NolanChan opened 3 years ago

NolanChan commented 3 years ago

Hey @dexterleng , I'd love to contribute more on this project in the near future. What do you think about creating a discord (or could be something better) channel so that people could collaborate on this?

I only bring up discord because Sublime Text has their own discord channel that people can hop in and out of

rylax commented 3 years ago

Great suggestion, I think that's a great idea!

dexterleng commented 3 years ago

Hi @NolanChan. Recently I've been thinking about rebranding Vimac, monetizing, and making it closed source for the foreseeable future. Honestly, aside from gaining trust from developers, I haven't seen that much value from having it open source. Open source negatively affects your ability to monetize and distribute the product, someone could just host their own builds on brew and it would make no sense to purchase other than for charity (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm looking to monetize to keep this project worth it to keep working on - I think we still have a long way to go regarding (1) what you can do with the keyboard (2) how well the accessibility tree querying is done (3) optimizing the workflow for target users (e.g. those that care about ergonomics, speed, or those using Talon to drive Vimac).

That said, I really appreciate people caring enough to contribute.

blackketter commented 3 years ago

I totally respect you wanting to fund its development, but I hope you can find a way to do so while keeping it open source.

I can say that I wouldn't have been interested in Vimac if it were not open source.

You could start by accepting donations on GitHub. You could also sell it or accept donations in the Mac App Store.

And I'd love to participate in a Discord channel (or some other shared discussion space like a forum)!

dexterleng commented 3 years ago

I can say that I wouldn't have been interested in Vimac if it were not open source.

Could you share why?

rylax commented 3 years ago

I also totally understand your situation. As an Indiehacker myself, I see where you are coming from. I agree with @blackketter on that I wouldn't have been interested in Vimac if it were not open source – mainly due to trust issues on the closed source. However, the second I saw your landing page - I was like: "Oh, how much is it? I would totally buy it". I am a heavy Alfred user and I think a pricing in that range would be totally acceptable. The only issue to work on is to ensure trust in your software (giving all the accessibility rights etc.)

blackketter commented 3 years ago

Sure. I probably would have downloaded and tested a traditional closed-source app, but the real appeal to me was being able to participate in the development of an app by working with the developer via bug reports, feature ideas and code.

dexterleng commented 3 years ago

Regarding Discord channels - have you seen any channels for apps that are (1) for the users & not the developers and (2) have no user generated content (unlike Raycast, alfred...)? It seems like it would just end up becoming another channel for bug reporting/feature requests since the community has very little to talk about with each other.

dexterleng commented 3 years ago

Anyway, I love open source, I think finding a way to monetize while open source is the dream, the reason I'm opting to go closed source first is that its not really a decision you can easily revert.

rylax commented 3 years ago

Perhaps Sponsorware could be an interesting way of monitizing. If you haven't heard about it here are two sources; one pro, one con.

https://calebporzio.com/sponsorware

https://blog.schlein.net/why-sponsorware-is-not-the-answer/

NolanChan commented 3 years ago

Fascinating, I've never read up on Sponsorware before. I feel like it needs to be tweaked a bit to apply to this situation, but it's an interesting idea!

willbchang commented 2 years ago

Open source doesn't mean free beer. I'll support for a one-time purchase if it can make you focus on developing Vimac. As a developer, I think monetizing will make me concentrate on the project rather than some less willing work to make a living. Although we can build from the source code, I believe most of us want to use a stable version to keep our mind in peace. I guess the main users of Vimac are programmers, hence GitHub is a good place to send feedback and maybe improve the code. Open source and profit are not conflict, https://github.com/amake/orgro and https://github.com/DevUtilsApp/DevUtils-app work well in that way.

Anyway, Vimac makes me happy. Thank you for your work!

agentofuser commented 2 years ago

I love Vimac and it's great to know the author is considering dedicating more of his time to it. I'd happily pay for it.

As for open source vs closed source, I think an interesting middle ground is what people are doing with "time-delay OSS" licenses like the Business Source License and the one https://onivim.io/ uses.

The software is "source-available" for a certain period, but with a proprietary, commercial license. Source availability is good in general but paramount in my opinion for a product that handles input directly and has privileged access to the operating system. It's important that it be auditable and, ideally, professionally audited by a third-party.

Then after some time (18 months in the case of Onivim if I recall correctly, and 4 years in the case of MariaDB and the BSL), the code automatically becomes licensed under an OSI-approved licensed.

Another recent example is https://materialize.com/. I'm also working on a desktop automation product that I want to commercialize and I'm considering going this route.