This isn’t the controversy the title suggests. Taking the dev at their word, the measures are pretty reasonable; they asked for help maintaining, nobody stepped up, and so it needs funding somehow. You only need a license to access a release binary, and a paid license to access the Pro binary. Source code is open, compile it yourself to avoid. Some features went into the Paid tier: well, something had to. Commenters are mostly supportive.
The dev did yank the previous releases, which wasn’t maybe the wrong choice.
rdmuser•45m ago
The dev even offers free pro licenses to those who can't afford them:
"I shall add that if for some unfortunate reason you're not able to afford a license, just email me and i shall offer you one"
MarsIronPI•19m ago
Agreed. I was about to get up in arms about license violations and rugpulls, but this is neither. The code is still free and open source, just the builds are up for sale. This is literally a business model encouraged by the FSF. I hope the paid tier is successful and we see more projects adopt this approach when the time comes to pay the bills.
voxgen•56m ago
As a current free-tier user, this price & transition plan seems completely reasonable. I'll upgrade when the nudge comes. I've got at least that much utility from it so far.
Very glad this isn't a subscription.
partloyaldemon•37m ago
the titular feature is still free and strong!
partloyaldemon•35m ago
the titular feature is still free and strong!
zenethian•32m ago
This app has been in my kit for many years now and I will buy a license the very day it goes on sale.
threecheese•1h ago
The dev did yank the previous releases, which wasn’t maybe the wrong choice.
rdmuser•45m ago
"I shall add that if for some unfortunate reason you're not able to afford a license, just email me and i shall offer you one"
MarsIronPI•19m ago