vincode-io-nmkkju.txt (5513B)
1 [1] 2 [12878] 3 Maurice Parker 4 5 Follow [2]@vincode on Micro.blog. 6 7 • [3]Home 8 • [4]Archive 9 • [5]About 10 • [6]GitHub Profile 11 • [7]Zavala 12 • [8]Feed Compass 13 • [9]Feed Curator 14 15 [10] 16 17 [11] Toggle navigation info_outline 18 19 [13]Blog 20 21 • [14]Recent 22 • [15]search 23 • [16]rss_feed 24 25 [17]close 26 [18][ ] arrow_forward 27 [20]close 28 29 August 11, 2025 30 31 Zavala Will Always Be Free 32 33 My promise to you. 34 35 I have every intention of maintaining and updating Zavala for as long as I am 36 able. I’m also committed to keeping it free. I have no intention of getting you 37 hooked on using it and then starting to charge a subscription. 38 39 To show I am serious about this, Zavala is Open Source software released under 40 the MIT license. This means that any other developer can take the years of work 41 that I have in Zavala and make a competing outliner from it should I start 42 charging for it. Given how small and competitive the outliner market is, I 43 don’t stand much of a chance of making any money by going commercial. After 44 all, I could be competing with my own past work. 45 46 What if I get ran over by a bus? 47 48 Since Zavala is Open Source someone could pick up the project and continue to 49 update it. Worst case scenario, some enterprising independent developer could 50 try to make a commercial product out of it. I don’t see much money in the 51 endeavor, but others may see it differently. 52 53 Why don’t I charge for Zavala or accept donations? 54 55 Funny story. I fully intended to when I started writing it. After doing some 56 competitive analysis on the Mac-only, outliner market, I realized there wasn’t 57 much money there. There was so little in fact, that it isn’t enough for me to 58 be motivated enough to do the business side when I’d rather be coding. 59 60 Let me break it down. Up front payments are a dead-end these days. I would have 61 to add a free tier, in-app purchases, and maybe a subscription option to the 62 app. That means more coding. Then I need to incorporate a business of some kind 63 and do all the regular bookkeeping associated with it. That would be payroll 64 taxes, quarterly and annual tax filings, etc… I used to own my own software 65 consulting business and really don’t want to do that stuff again. 66 67 But if I thought I could make it up on volume, that might make it worth while, 68 right? The simple truth is most computer users don’t know what an outliner is, 69 much less how useful they are. Even those that do, rarely need to use one on a 70 daily basis. Zavala is free and has been all the years that it has been 71 available in the App Store and I couldn’t make it on the number of users I have 72 now. That number would probably drop to about zero if I were to start charging. 73 Could I get more volume by marketing Zavala? Sure, but that is another business 74 thing that costs time and money, that I don’t want to do. 75 76 There is an upside to not having money involved when you write software. I 77 don’t have to add features just to drive an upgrade cycle. With commercial 78 software, you constantly have to deliver upgrades to keep a steady income 79 regardless of if you are subscription based or charging up front. I don’t want 80 Zavala to become bloatware. I don’t want to add features that I don’t believe 81 add core value, just to keep the money coming in. 82 83 Same goes for donations. I don’t accept donations because I don’t want to feel 84 obligated to implement a feature that a donor may want, but that I don’t think 85 belongs in Zavala. I would rather accept feature requests on an equal basis 86 from all users and decide which to implement on the merit of the idea, rather 87 than who gave me money. 88 89 Why write Zavala at all? 90 91 I retired early after a successful career as a software consultant. I really 92 liked writing software, I just didn’t always like the work I had to do. Now I 93 have the freedom to craft software how I see fit and only work on projects that 94 I am interested in. 95 96 The way I usually explain it is like this. Imagine you made furniture your 97 whole life, but your employer only gave you pallet wood to use and half the 98 time needed to make a piece. You were good at it and loved furniture, but were 99 unfulfilled at your job until you retired. Now you can make furniture using 100 walnut and take the time needed to make something you are proud of. 101 102 How can you help, you ask? 103 104 Please, please email me with bug reports using the Provide Feedback option 105 under Help (in Settings on iOS). I take them seriously and fix them as fast as 106 I can. I do test Zavala as rigorously as I can. Unfortunately it is the nature 107 of software that a developer will never be able to predict every way that users 108 will use an app. Production bugs do happen. The best we can do is squash them 109 as fast as possible. 110 111 Follow [21]@vincode on Micro.blog. 112 113 114 References: 115 116 [1] https://vincode.io/ 117 [2] https://micro.blog/vincode 118 [3] https://vincode.io/ 119 [4] https://vincode.io/archive/ 120 [5] https://vincode.io/about/ 121 [6] https://vincode.io/github-profile/ 122 [7] https://vincode.io/zavala/ 123 [8] https://vincode.io/feed-compass/ 124 [9] https://vincode.io/feed-curator/ 125 [10] https://micro.blog/vincode 126 [11] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html# 127 [13] https://vincode.io/ 128 [14] https://vincode.io/ 129 [15] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html# 130 [16] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html 131 [17] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html# 132 [20] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html# 133 [21] https://micro.blog/vincode