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Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

pimosa.app

191–200 of 304 posts

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#191

What about lossless cut? The only good tool I used is Machete. Avidemux is all right but less stable.

You can try the tool creatively named LosslessCut. It's more user friendly than both machete and avidemux but it doesn't support as many container formats (only mp4 and mkv I think).

https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#192
post #176

AWS can make billions from open source. On the other hand, solo developers who try the same path are basically seen as scammers. Ironic. And creating a good user interface is very, very hard. Otherwise Gimp wouldn't be the monstrosity it is.

Nobody is saying it's a problem to sell a user-friendly wrapper GUI to people who need it. And nobody should be saying creating those is easy. However the developer has to acknowledge the underlying open source tools (FFmpeg and ImageMagick) somewhere on their app's website. Otherwise, yes, there's a clear ethical issue in implying the heavy back-end work is done by your code.

This hand wringing makes it sound like it doesn’t matter what the guy does, HN will find some reason to call it sour grapes.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#193
post #135

I’ll try to not be dismissive of the labour, though it’s kind of funny (or actually natural) that the heavy lifting libraries that only a few can actually write are open and free, while the shallow wrappers that everyone can write are paid and closed. Decades ago we were calling out these software and now it’s the norm. Another example along the line: I wanted to extract a frame from a video on iOS, it’s impossible w…

I’m actually really fond of the model: here are the tools you can do anything with them but here is packed bundles that do something and the ecosystem is funded by selling bundles which often are just a UX for the tools and having them preconfigured.

Gives everyone the option of picking free or paid options, depending on people’s needs.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with distributing standalone installers on Windows is that all non-popular apps are immediately regarded as malware by Windows Defender unless you go through the horrendous process of signing your app, which requires obtaining a certificate (which also requires forming a company that is not an LLC) and waiting more than a month while navigating multiple rounds of bureaucracy. I’ve done it for my app, and…

> which also requires forming a company that is not an LLC I always thought that an LLC was sufficient, what's the actual requirement if an LLC is not enough?

For an EV certificate, you need to have a government-registered business [0], though a record of Doing Business As should be sufficient. Where I live, that involves filling a form, paying a fee, and taking out a classified add for 3 weeks [1]. There are cheaper certificates, OV, that merely require a notary public's confirmation (which is what I did).

However, as the other post said, Windows will treat an EV certificate with very high trust and should not show SmartScreen. For OV signed software, it looks like [3] Microsoft will use some telemetry to assemble a trust score as people download and accept the risk of running the software, over days or weeks.

[0] https://support.ksoftware.net/support/solutions/articles/358... KSoftware is a sales partner for Sectigo. I used their service and later Sectigo directly, before last year's change to require FIPS hardware for managing the code signing certificate.

[1] https://www.cookcountyclerkil.gov/vital-records/business-not...

[2] https://support.ksoftware.net/support/solutions/articles/232...

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/a/65653792/504994

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#195
post #135

I’ll try to not be dismissive of the labour, though it’s kind of funny (or actually natural) that the heavy lifting libraries that only a few can actually write are open and free, while the shallow wrappers that everyone can write are paid and closed. Decades ago we were calling out these software and now it’s the norm. Another example along the line: I wanted to extract a frame from a video on iOS, it’s impossible w…

Well, the “last mile” of value add that makes something useful to end users (esp non-technical ones) is the “last 90%” of the job.

We dismiss these things as wrappers on HN because we like to believe that the technical side is 90% of the work.

But this belief has an easy antidote: ask to see the "UX" (lmao) we built.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#196
post #127

While you are not too far into selling - a word of advice. Switch to offering a year of free updates and charge a small fee after that. Trust me. You will coverge to this scheme sooner or later, so do it now. - Standalone Windows installer is a must. Windows Store is still a deserted wasteland and is not a default choice for the vast majority of Windows users. You are losing a ton of users over this. - ffmpeg and oth…

The problem with distributing standalone installers on Windows is that all non-popular apps are immediately regarded as malware by Windows Defender unless you go through the horrendous process of signing your app, which requires obtaining a certificate (which also requires forming a company that is not an LLC) and waiting more than a month while navigating multiple rounds of bureaucracy. I’ve done it for my app, and…

> signing your app, which requires obtaining a certificate (which also requires forming a company that is not an LLC) and waiting more than a month while navigating multiple rounds of bureaucracy.

This is not true, not as phrased.

A. You can get a cert issued in your personal name. Not an EV one, but still.

B. You are likely to already have a company if you are selling online.

C. It doesn't take "a month" even for an EV cert. Several days tops unless you go through Comodo, in which case you get what you pay for.

D. It is perfectly fine to distribute unsigned installers. They produce a warning on launch, granted, but contrary to the urban legend they are not getting instantly shit-canned by the Defender.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#197
post #148
post #135

I’ll try to not be dismissive of the labour, though it’s kind of funny (or actually natural) that the heavy lifting libraries that only a few can actually write are open and free, while the shallow wrappers that everyone can write are paid and closed. Decades ago we were calling out these software and now it’s the norm. Another example along the line: I wanted to extract a frame from a video on iOS, it’s impossible w…

Upvoting you because my comment saying the same thing is getting downvotes and I really think the message is important. However I don't think it's fair to call this a "shallow wrapper". It's clear that a lot of work went into the design of this GUI and, and making user-friendly interfaces is also an important work (that is far too often overlooked in the open sources communities). Yet the fact that FFmpeg, the tool t…

Ffmpeg is in just about anything that deals with video, almost never with explicit mention anywhere you can find it.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#198
post #127

While you are not too far into selling - a word of advice. Switch to offering a year of free updates and charge a small fee after that. Trust me. You will coverge to this scheme sooner or later, so do it now. - Standalone Windows installer is a must. Windows Store is still a deserted wasteland and is not a default choice for the vast majority of Windows users. You are losing a ton of users over this. - ffmpeg and oth…

The problem with distributing standalone installers on Windows is that all non-popular apps are immediately regarded as malware by Windows Defender unless you go through the horrendous process of signing your app, which requires obtaining a certificate (which also requires forming a company that is not an LLC) and waiting more than a month while navigating multiple rounds of bureaucracy. I’ve done it for my app, and…

Just went through the code signing odyssey. It is a racket, but it did not take me a month. It took me a week and a half, including integration in to automated builds.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are underestimating how difficult making a great UI is (although I haven’t used this application so I can’t say if it’s great or not).

And you might be underestimating the work that went into those libraries. We are talking decades of work, dealing with platform issues, performance, loads of security considerations and then there is the whole licensing+patent topic. Sure UI work is hard, but of the whole package, it's only the visible part of the iceberg and now I'm expected to give $30 to the person who only contributed that last piece? Of course i…

For my own open source libraries, I have made a conscious decision to say "I don't care". And the language in which I'm saying it is legalese. It's all in the license.

If I felt that people should give me a cut of any commercial software they build on top of my library then I would try to express that in my choice of license.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He actually himself writes that he doesn't want to spend too much time on his apps: > now i have lession that i shouldnt build apps that consumes so much time. Sounds like somebody really devoted to the perfect UI experience. Look, I don't want to talk down this kid. Everybody starts somewhere and I like the enthusiasm. But him expecting to make $30 off everybody for plumbing together a bunch of FOSS libs is rubbing…

Yes just like instead of Dropbox for a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

I recognized this reference.
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