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Skip is now free and open source

skip.dev

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Re: Skip is now free and open source

#71

Post by elemdos »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #32
sneak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really consider why free software exists. Open source is open source, sure, but it is a disservice to your users to ever release proprietary software for any reason. I personally would not start or run a business that didn’t release all software it builds under free software licenses. We don’t open source it because “developers expect it”, we open source it because it’s the right thing to do by your users.…

I don’t open source my iOS apps that provide my living because there are many examples already of others using this to release identical apps without credit or sharing their work back (even with AGPL), which would remove my source of income that enables me to work on it in the first place. I haven’t found a way to make a living off open source yet for the type of products I produce. I’m not independently wealthy to b…

AGPL seems like a joke when it comes up against the indie hacker world. Has there ever been an example of an open-source maintainer successfully suing someone who ripped off their codebase without attribution? Doubtful.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#72

Post by [deleted] »

speedgoose wrote: post #63
gpm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, what does one have to do to comply with the LGPL on iOS anyways? I'm sort of surprised that only the largest plan ($5000/month) and not the ($10/$500/$2,500/month plans) includes a license that doesn't involve figuring that nonsense out.

Which non sense? The lesser GPL doesn’t mean you have to license your firstborn under the GPL license. I think it’s fair to milk enterprise companies that can’t read a FSF license. Otherwise the LGPL is fine.

[deleted]

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#73

Post by hn-acct »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #29
bbx wrote: post #27

Interesting. I used Expo recently and loved the development experience. I also built a simple iPhone app with Swift, and it was a decent experience. I have plans of building another iPhone app and was considering Swift again, which would make me miss building an Android app, but maybe Skip would allow me to do it anyways.

Biggest downside to SwiftUI development is lack of hot reloading. You can use the Inject framework but it’s fragile. This also makes it harder to iterate on with agents.

Small views and the preview canvas are your friend

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#74

Post by ipnon »

nsm wrote: post #70

> The plain truth is that developers expect to get their tools free of charge. This is an accurate, but damning indictment of how some of the most highly paid workers on the planet won't pay for tools. Unlike nearly every other profession. Folks, if you can afford it, please pay for quality software, instead of relying on FAANG and VC money to keep the tools going!

Paying for things that aren't worth it is noble, but not good economics in the long run. If people want to buy a tool not for what it produces but for the story it tells, this is fine. But just like startups need product-market fit, tools also need product-market fit, and if no one is buying, it could simply be that the alternatives are suitable replacements.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#75

Post by HexDecOctBin »

nsm wrote: post #70

> The plain truth is that developers expect to get their tools free of charge. This is an accurate, but damning indictment of how some of the most highly paid workers on the planet won't pay for tools. Unlike nearly every other profession. Folks, if you can afford it, please pay for quality software, instead of relying on FAANG and VC money to keep the tools going!

I agree. When people bemoan the death of lisp machines and RAD and whatnot, remember that we deserve it. We do not want to invest in good tools and treat "Worse is Better" as some twisted virtue, and then wonder why everything sucks and most developer experience is stuck in 80s-90s technology paradigm. We deserve this.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#76

Post by thisislife2 »

nsm wrote: post #70

> The plain truth is that developers expect to get their tools free of charge. This is an accurate, but damning indictment of how some of the most highly paid workers on the planet won't pay for tools. Unlike nearly every other profession. Folks, if you can afford it, please pay for quality software, instead of relying on FAANG and VC money to keep the tools going!

But, as the article points out, developers do pay for the tools indirectly - "First-party IDEs like Xcode and Android Studio, popular integration frameworks, and essential dev tools are all given away at no (direct) cost. The platform vendors monetize through developer program fees, app store commissions, and cloud services. Framework providers typically monetize through complementary services."

And note that the article points out two other hurdles / drawbacks to adoption - their product required a subscription and developers are unwilling to commit to product from a small company that they fear may go under.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#77

Post by lawgimenez »

eptcyka wrote: post #51
trevor-e wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.

> Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS Literally every iOS developer under the sun will tell me that this is a good thing.

That’s not a good thing if you don’t adapt liquid glass. I’m an iOS developer.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#78

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #66
marcprux wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed a dilemma, but note that copyleft licenses like GPL or MPL do give you considerably more protection than a pushover license like MIT/BSD. I wrote about this last year at https://appfair.org/blog/gpl-and-the-app-stores .

It gives near zero practical protection as the devs that clone in the App Store do not respect licenses and Apple is slow to act (sometimes shutting your own dev account instead of the copycat’s, another high risk). Enabling copycats also encourages them to target my apps for fake negative review spam and bot activity that gets my dev account (and personal iCloud) flagged and banned without recourse. I also have no f…

hey, came from the other comment you messaged me but this feels like such an apple issue which is so fixable that I am not understanding why Apple won't do it.

I understand what you are feeling but I feel like what you are saying is genuine and although sad right now, it provides a course of action for Apple to work upon to meaningfully improve it so that we can get atleast either custom license source available (as I mentioned in my other comment) or GPL/restrictive Copyleft as this mentions.

If someone from Apple's reading this. This feels such a large issue even more than the license issues in general, is Apple working on this or not?

This would honestly show the real loyalty towards developers if Apple can do this so I am waiting and perhaps a movement can be created to establish some formally written demands/ perhaps a change.org petition?

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#79

Post by fragmede »

ipnon wrote: post #74
nsm wrote: post #70

> The plain truth is that developers expect to get their tools free of charge. This is an accurate, but damning indictment of how some of the most highly paid workers on the planet won't pay for tools. Unlike nearly every other profession. Folks, if you can afford it, please pay for quality software, instead of relying on FAANG and VC money to keep the tools going!

Paying for things that aren't worth it is noble, but not good economics in the long run. If people want to buy a tool not for what it produces but for the story it tells, this is fine. But just like startups need product-market fit, tools also need product-market fit, and if no one is buying, it could simply be that the alternatives are suitable replacements.

In other markets, that is called dumping, and it is illegal. And in fact, Microsoft was convicted of being a monopolist and dumping.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#80

Post by wahnfrieden »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #78
wahnfrieden wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives near zero practical protection as the devs that clone in the App Store do not respect licenses and Apple is slow to act (sometimes shutting your own dev account instead of the copycat’s, another high risk). Enabling copycats also encourages them to target my apps for fake negative review spam and bot activity that gets my dev account (and personal iCloud) flagged and banned without recourse. I also have no f…

hey, came from the other comment you messaged me but this feels like such an apple issue which is so fixable that I am not understanding why Apple won't do it. I understand what you are feeling but I feel like what you are saying is genuine and although sad right now, it provides a course of action for Apple to work upon to meaningfully improve it so that we can get atleast either custom license source available (as…

Apple won't improve this out of charity for small businesses. Apple has no real loyalty to developers outside of their largest partners. This requires regulation, and/or mass organizing across developers.
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