I've had some reactions on my latest move to make Magic closed source, and figured I wanted to explain my motivations a little bit more.
My Open Source Journey
According to this list, I am the top contributor to Open Source in Cyprus. Notice, if you see my username being number 2 on the list, realise that commits are nullified if you change your GitHub email address. I've changed my email address twice the last 4 years, so you can add almost 10,000 commits to the above number for "polterguy" - Placing me as number 1 by a margin of 500% more than number 2 on that same list.
In 2017 I wrote the 5th of most read article Microsoft ever published. I wrote it for MSDN Magazine, and according to their editor in chief, it became the 5th most read article the first month it was published since they started measuring in 2010.
I have worked with Open Source my entire professional life, having contributed to the well of open source projects at a rate unimaginable for most people. Several of my projects are in the GitHub code vault in Svalbard, and ignoring Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman, I doubt there's a single human being alive today that have created more lines of open source code.
There are roughly 10 million downloads of my NuGet packages in total, all of whom are open source. This is 20 times more downloads than for instance SupaBase. SupaBase is evaluated at 1 billion dollars and have been given VC funding of more than 100 million dollars.
What I made from it
Back in 2018 somebody paid me $500 for a commercial license of one of my projects. But he didn't pay me for the code, he paid me to help him out and give him support - So it could be argued I've made zero money in total.
In addition I've got zero contributions to my primary projects. Some guy contributed to Lizzie a couple of years ago, but my primary project has zero contributions. Notice, I happen to know for a fact that there are a whole range of really, really, really rich companies using Magic for instance, some of whom are cashing in millions of dollars in profit every single year.
None of these companies stopped and asked themselves if they should financially support their primary software developer to allow him to continue working on their platform! NONE!
Every time I try to post updates to Reddit about my progress, I'm being trolled and bullied beyond belief. I can't even repeat what they're saying about me over there, because I'd probably lose my account at DEV for using the same language and phrasing the same sentences here. When I try to defend myself against these insane accusations, the only result I experience is that I am censored and not allowed to defend myself - While the original troll's words are left untouched. It's the same in all groups at Reddit.
About 5 years ago, one Redditer started subscribing to my YouTube channel, with the sole purpose of down voting every single YouTube video I publish. He's been at it now for 5 years, still going strong.
And for what? For wanting to contribute to the world by creating open source software, freely available for all to use, any ways they see fit.
I don't need this!
And I am ending it today!
About Magic
Magic is my flagship product. I've got more than 8,000 commits to its repository. I've spent thousands of hours maintaining it, for no other reasons than that I believed in open source, and I wanted to "do my part". And my only "payment" is being ridiculed, stalked, bullied, and taken advantage of. Well, this ends today!!
If you want to use Magic today, you need to pay. I'm selling professional licenses of it in two different forms.
- Server License $5,000 per month
- Kubernetes License $20,000 per month
If this is too expensive for you, you can obtain a cloudlet for $300 per month. However, if you want an on premise solution, with access to its source code, the starting price is $5,000 per month.
If you're one of those humongously profitable companies whom I happen to know are using Magic, you can contact me here to purchase a professional on premise license for Magic.
Because as of now, Magic is CLOSED SOURCE!! And yes, I can do it, because nobody contributed to it, so the entirety of the copyright is mine!!
Edit
If you're a software developer working for one of these Fortune 500 companies, and you've used my IP without informing your management, and you're now basically screwed because your pipeline stops working, because the code is no longer available - I suggest you contact your manager, tell him the truth, and informs him of that you need to start paying me $5,000 per month (MINIMUM!)
Because to be honest with you, your problems are your problems, my problems are my problems - And it's not my problem that your pipeline no longer works because you took my IP without contributing back to it in any ways ...
Have a najs day 😊
Top comments (21)
For me, as people learned of my loss of sight, I was then treated like unwanted garbage in much of the community. At one time (two decades ago) there were conferences that supported and encouraged blind and disabled speakers, and projects that valued their contributions. Not now, as soon as I am asked to speak and then ask how they can accommodate a blind speaker, they withdraw the invitation. I feel about as welcome as a transgender person would likely be at a GOP party meeting ;).
Since my participation is unwanted I often no longer even try to publish or do very much at all. I had figured out accessibility entirely on my own over the last few years because nobody cared to answer or support such issues or even answer simple questions in the community either. This I think is why so many disabled live in forced absolute poverty. So I see your point as a tangential issue, but one that I think touches upon related social issues.
I feel for you :/
Let me know if I can help you somehow ...
Last year I took down the projects I was still doing from various sites. Workflows made to accommodate external contributors only do make things much harder when there are none to accommodate anyway.
Mostly, before loosing my sight, I had a vision for developing smart voice and video agents to create smarter living spaces by converging voip, messaging, video, smart speakers, facility control (lighting, heating, etc), geospatial, and ai agents. However, it fits best within the smart-city concepts emerging in Asia than anything in the US, outside perhaps of automating property management; imagine the house that can automatically show itself off to potential buyers for realters. But many of my concepts and applications always were and remain a bit far ahead of the curve.
Najs! Do you have APIs? It sounds like a perfect match for my own Magic in fact!
I did start on an web api and admin server. I tend to divide things into separate (and stand-alone testable / replacable) service components.
These docs give some idea of what I was thinking about and doing....
tychosoft.com/tychosoft/coventry/w...
tychosoft.com/tychosoft/bordeaux/w...
tychosoft.com/tychosoft/apollo/wik...
Just here to say sorry for the pain you've been through and wish you the best in pursuing whatever path you've decided to set foot on.
On a related note, Reddit is undeniably the worst of all the communities with the most toxic people I've ever seen. I have been perceiving it as a gathering of the degeneration and try to stay away from it as much as possible.
Thank you. Reddit is the garbage of the internet, one notch up from 4Chan yes ... :/
Thomas, I think you have made the right decision. I remember creating a free online game on the primigenic internet and in this time only received as a pay complaints and miserable attitudes. And considering since then, human ethics and morals are in sharp decline, more so than Yahoo's market value :-)
As a matter of principle and a long time ago, made the decision not to give away my time, which is the most important thing we have. Because money comes and goes and health is a factor that influences the time you have in this life. That is why I have never followed nor will follow the advice for noobs-juniors of participate in free software Dev for the portfolio reasons and so on. I may be a bad human being but I don't even take advantage of anyone's time and effort and I always paid for what I needed or need and I ask for the same in the just terms of my time and knowledge.
My best wishes with your pathway and forget all about trolls and so on.
Thx Anton :)
That's why I always advise avoiding 3d-party dependencies as much as possible.
Specially ones that are not backed by big corporations that make profit.
No one likes working for free eventually, but no one likes having the rug pulled under their feet too...
Your argument is the exact argument that resulted in me "pulling the rug". If you and others hadn't used that argument previously, there would be no reasons for me to "pull the rug" ...
I agree don't get me wrong.
Those who profit from FOSS need a change of perspective so that contributors get better compensation for their hard work
Thank you! My point exactly! If we need a "rug pull" to make that happen, I'll gladly pull the rug on them!
It's starting to feel like at the very least there should be some sort of pool that distributes money to FOSS developers. Have anybody who is using FOSS in an enterprise endeavor pay into that fund, and then the fund pays out. You'd probably want to fine-tune it so it's based on the usage of the particular project and the percentage of total commits the dev has, but that's fine-detail we don't need to hammer on. The thing is, stuff like this could create a decent revenue stream for deveopers like you, Thomas, who have poured their hearts and souls into the building of the app.
Food for thought, anyway.
It's a great suggestion, but it accumulates power into the hands of the few, only opening up for (yet another) corruption scandal ...
I suspect the solution to the problem is what I did, and simply "go on strike" ...
I might open source license it again once I get my billion dollars though ...
Hang in there
Thx mate :)
sending hugs, I'm sure this was a hard realization. Wishing you all the best and that you get the money you deserve! 🎉
Thank you <3
that's very bad to hear, shame on those companies who never give anything back, very logical decision I think after all this abuse