this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023

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Sync for Lemmy

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I'll pay 15x more for Sync if it's Open-Sourced (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I want Sync to succeed for the benefit of the community. Open-source guarantees that the community will always retain that benefit.

I wonder. Is this sentiment common among members of the Lemmy community?

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[+] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Only thing is they broke Jerboa with the new website update lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I guess, but that would happen with any app. Basically, to fix some bugs they had to rewrite the api, which causes incompatibility between versions, it's inevitable and would happen regardless of if it was open or closed source

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really. Jerboa and is made by the same people who made the WebUI - they purposely synced the two updates.

It just so happens that the new UI is missing a feature most admins want, so they're delaying the update. But in theory, Jerboa would've been perfectly compatible from day one.

And if you don't log out, you can actually keep using Jerboa (with a few crashes, yes) on outdated instances.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm using jerboa on this instance right now

It crashed several times trying to log in, but i got there, and now it works fine

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

To be clear, I don't expect it. I'll be happy either way to see tools developed that encourage the use of Lemmy over reddit.

Being open-source would be an additional value proposition that I, and maybe many others, would happily pay for. I use Jerboa, and will probably continue to use it.

Maybe this is not apples-to-apples, but my favorite audio-book player has separate free and paid versions only differentiated by the presence of dark mode. It's such a trivial thing to paywall that it comes across to me as a respectful petition for generosity. I bought the paid version and then gave multiple tips through the in-app purchase.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There are actually a lot of apps already that are open sourced - you can find a list of them at https://lemmy.world/post/465785

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can almost guarantee that your payment of 15x the normal amount would still be too little versus how many versions will be compiled and distributed for free with premium features enabled.

That depends on how many people feel the same as me, and I know how we could find out.

While it seems to have fallen out of favor, crowdfunding is excellent at helping to resolving that kind of uncertainty.

@ljdawson, please consider how much it would be worth to you, and start a campaign. Go open-source If the target is reached.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm not LJ, but I'm a software developer myself. And let me tell you one thing - if something is free then 99% of users won't pay anything. And it doesn't matter what they say on forums and how much they want to pay. Free is such a good price that people are willing to sell their soul and give up their privacy for free shit. If that wasn't the case, Facebook would die many years ago, but here we are.

So, regarding to your "That depends on how many people feel the same as me" - you're alone in this, mate.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I don't care about it being open source.

LJD has proven to be an excellent dev, who also listens to his users. He's built to a lot of trust as a result.

If he sold Sync, then my answer might be different.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

LJ is considering a sub for premium features of Sync for Lemmy (which I'm against, would much rather just buy the app outright). With that in mind, I can see him open sourcing this application.

Nor should he. FOSS is great, but not all apps need to be FOSS, and not all developers can afford to work for free / donations.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I really hope not. I've used Sync for so many years and would buy premium in heart beat (I bought lifetime ultra on Sync for Reddit) but I'm afraid I won't subscribe with an ongoing payment. I understand it from the devs point of view as far income is concerned but there's just too many things that require subscriptions these days.

Everyone wants a piece of the pie but the pie isn't big enough

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Same here, not to sure about sync yet (baconreader user), but one-time payment for a good app is acceptable, maybe even a rebuy when there is a huge update, but no subscriptions here. I refuse to add a permanent payment option to my google account. (I don't trust them, enough)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

If he goes that route I would prefer a lifetime option as well

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nope, no need for open-source. If it was so easy to make an iOS app we'd have one available on the App Store already. There's works in progress and TestFlight releases just to cater for the increasing demand but even those will take time to reach full maturity and polish.

There's no reason for someone to work so hard and give away their IP for free. From what you see from many apps, the authors are continuously working hard to work on it, adding new features, fixing bugs and with it being still the relatively early days of the Fediverse, keeping up and reflecting changes on the platform.

App developers should be free to decide how they protect their IP and how they market their product. I gladly paid for Apollo and would be more than happy to pay for my preferred Fedi app to support the effort behind it.

A better approach would be for the Kbin/Lemmy project to open-source an SDK for iOS

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It is fine to me if its not open source, as long as it communicates with an open platform like lemmy. then that is enough for me to want to give them my money if its a good app and makes the lemmy experience easy yet amazing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I would love to have sync back (especially open sourced).

Right now, I'm running a self hosted wefwef. It's fine (sorry Apollo fans), but I need my sync interface back...

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