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Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

pimosa.app

221–230 of 304 posts

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#221
post #211
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…

Then why you not write free open source UIs for the libs?

Simple because he can't and it's easy to throw smug opinions around the internet.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#225
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 think you have a warped perspective. Not everyone has the time or skills to use CLI tools. People will pay to save time. The market is multi faceted and complex and there's a market for everything. In this case you're just not the customer.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#226
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not just shallow wrapper, as a creator of other shallow wrapper(online and free btw) if you want to crop a video how do you plan to do it with ffmpeg cli? it would be really tedious to do so. You can easily do it visually with this wrapper and other such wrappers so its not like they are not providing value. Another example is do you remember ffmpeg command syntax? i don't! here he is taking care of generating it…

Of course they provide value! They car dealer selling you that new Toyota also provides value. Without him you couldn't buy that car, certainly not so easily. Doesn't mean he manufactured it, or invented it, or conceived of the very idea of an automobile with an ICE (or EV). It's all a big collaborative effort, and imagining that all of the $40k for that car go straight into the dealer's pocket would be absurd. Legal…

You can also just say what you are thinking: $25 of every $29 license should go back to ffmpeg. There. I made your point for you, directly.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#227
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm old school, but I won't "buy" (rent?) subscriptions for software. I expect to own it outright, at to receive at least security updates for a reasonable time period.

There is a middle ground in that you buy the current major version and get updates to it, but you would have to pay again if you ever want to upgrade to the next major version. (If you don’t want to, you can still continue to use the version you bought indefinitely.)

But this model introduces an incentive to artificially bump the major version ASAP so as to be able to charge again for updates. One way this happens is with feature creep, to justify a new version every few months. A "done" application wouldn't reasonably get a new major version ever, so the software becomes ever-growing and then bloat ends up happening.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#228
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they provide value! They car dealer selling you that new Toyota also provides value. Without him you couldn't buy that car, certainly not so easily. Doesn't mean he manufactured it, or invented it, or conceived of the very idea of an automobile with an ICE (or EV). It's all a big collaborative effort, and imagining that all of the $40k for that car go straight into the dealer's pocket would be absurd. Legal…

You can also just say what you are thinking: $25 of every $29 license should go back to ffmpeg. There. I made your point for you, directly.

That's not what I'm thinking. Where exactly should those $25 go? If there is such an easy place, fine, go ahead. I personally don't see one, since there are many giants on whose shoulders he is standing on.

There are other options, many of them have been mentioned in this discussion.

I suppose my main point is that the apparently new quite inexperienced guy, as appreciated as his enthusiasm is, should at some point understand that all the tech he uses for free didn't fall from the sky and just whipping the cream that floats on top for personal profit is not a sustainable model. Even though that seems to be the trend these days.

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