134 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
134 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
[1]
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[12878]
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Maurice Parker
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Follow [2]@vincode on Micro.blog.
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• [3]Home
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• [4]Archive
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• [5]About
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• [6]GitHub Profile
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• [7]Zavala
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• [8]Feed Compass
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• [9]Feed Curator
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[10]
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[11] Toggle navigation info_outline
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[13]Blog
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• [14]Recent
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• [15]search
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• [16]rss_feed
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[17]close
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[18][ ] arrow_forward
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[20]close
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August 11, 2025
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Zavala Will Always Be Free
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My promise to you.
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I have every intention of maintaining and updating Zavala for as long as I am
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able. I’m also committed to keeping it free. I have no intention of getting you
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hooked on using it and then starting to charge a subscription.
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To show I am serious about this, Zavala is Open Source software released under
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the MIT license. This means that any other developer can take the years of work
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that I have in Zavala and make a competing outliner from it should I start
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charging for it. Given how small and competitive the outliner market is, I
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don’t stand much of a chance of making any money by going commercial. After
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all, I could be competing with my own past work.
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What if I get ran over by a bus?
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Since Zavala is Open Source someone could pick up the project and continue to
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update it. Worst case scenario, some enterprising independent developer could
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try to make a commercial product out of it. I don’t see much money in the
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endeavor, but others may see it differently.
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Why don’t I charge for Zavala or accept donations?
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Funny story. I fully intended to when I started writing it. After doing some
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competitive analysis on the Mac-only, outliner market, I realized there wasn’t
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much money there. There was so little in fact, that it isn’t enough for me to
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be motivated enough to do the business side when I’d rather be coding.
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Let me break it down. Up front payments are a dead-end these days. I would have
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to add a free tier, in-app purchases, and maybe a subscription option to the
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app. That means more coding. Then I need to incorporate a business of some kind
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and do all the regular bookkeeping associated with it. That would be payroll
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taxes, quarterly and annual tax filings, etc… I used to own my own software
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consulting business and really don’t want to do that stuff again.
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But if I thought I could make it up on volume, that might make it worth while,
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right? The simple truth is most computer users don’t know what an outliner is,
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much less how useful they are. Even those that do, rarely need to use one on a
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daily basis. Zavala is free and has been all the years that it has been
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available in the App Store and I couldn’t make it on the number of users I have
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now. That number would probably drop to about zero if I were to start charging.
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Could I get more volume by marketing Zavala? Sure, but that is another business
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thing that costs time and money, that I don’t want to do.
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There is an upside to not having money involved when you write software. I
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don’t have to add features just to drive an upgrade cycle. With commercial
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software, you constantly have to deliver upgrades to keep a steady income
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regardless of if you are subscription based or charging up front. I don’t want
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Zavala to become bloatware. I don’t want to add features that I don’t believe
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add core value, just to keep the money coming in.
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Same goes for donations. I don’t accept donations because I don’t want to feel
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obligated to implement a feature that a donor may want, but that I don’t think
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belongs in Zavala. I would rather accept feature requests on an equal basis
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from all users and decide which to implement on the merit of the idea, rather
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than who gave me money.
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Why write Zavala at all?
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I retired early after a successful career as a software consultant. I really
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liked writing software, I just didn’t always like the work I had to do. Now I
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have the freedom to craft software how I see fit and only work on projects that
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I am interested in.
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The way I usually explain it is like this. Imagine you made furniture your
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whole life, but your employer only gave you pallet wood to use and half the
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time needed to make a piece. You were good at it and loved furniture, but were
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unfulfilled at your job until you retired. Now you can make furniture using
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walnut and take the time needed to make something you are proud of.
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How can you help, you ask?
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Please, please email me with bug reports using the Provide Feedback option
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under Help (in Settings on iOS). I take them seriously and fix them as fast as
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I can. I do test Zavala as rigorously as I can. Unfortunately it is the nature
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of software that a developer will never be able to predict every way that users
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will use an app. Production bugs do happen. The best we can do is squash them
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as fast as possible.
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Follow [21]@vincode on Micro.blog.
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References:
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[1] https://vincode.io/
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[2] https://micro.blog/vincode
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[3] https://vincode.io/
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[4] https://vincode.io/archive/
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[5] https://vincode.io/about/
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[6] https://vincode.io/github-profile/
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[7] https://vincode.io/zavala/
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[8] https://vincode.io/feed-compass/
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[9] https://vincode.io/feed-curator/
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[10] https://micro.blog/vincode
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[11] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html#
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[13] https://vincode.io/
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[14] https://vincode.io/
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[15] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html#
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[16] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html
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[17] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html#
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[20] https://vincode.io/2025/08/11/zavala-will-always-be-free.html#
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[21] https://micro.blog/vincode
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