> I contribute quite a bit to open source as part of my work on Talon
That's good and admirable! It doesn't change the fact that Talon is not open source, which makes it risky for users to come to depend on it.
I'm not trying to change your mind on whether Talon is open source. You can do whatever you want. The only reason I posted the comment was that I landed on your documentation site at first[0] and I mistook it for an open source project, only to find out later that I was mistaken.
I am responding in this way because your top post heavily implies details that are not the case:
- "very much not open source": Talon has a lot of open-source code, including the users' entire custom voice user interface necessary to replicate their setup on a different app (if a compatible app were to exist).
- "except when you contribute code to them": This is simply not the case, users are sharing the code in question with each other as customizations in the community chat. None of that user code ends up "in Talon".
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Please read the handsfreecoding post. I have mitigated the continuity risks (e.g. bus factor) of being closed source, and I am fundamentally against selling out. It is extremely important to me ideologically that Talon is free and will continue to be free.
Talon is the best option for a lot of people to use their computer without pain. I would not have quit my job and spent years full-time developing Talon under an open source model. To my knowledge I am the only person currently working full-time on this problem.
Please understand that if you convince someone to not use Talon for this reason, their alternative may not be "use some other software", it may be "computers continue to cause them literal pain".
I have read the handsfreecoding post now. It sounds like Talon is a really great tool for the people who need it and it is much closer to open source than ~any other proprietary software I am aware of. If anyone deserves criticism for releasing software that does not respect its users, you're far from front of the queue. It's still true that Talon is not open source, and there are some people who will reject it on those grounds (I am one of them). But that's OK, you don't owe us anything.
Sorry for the misunderstandings I posted in my first comment, they came from a quick reading of the EULA - unfortunately I can't edit that comment now.
That's good and admirable! It doesn't change the fact that Talon is not open source, which makes it risky for users to come to depend on it.
I'm not trying to change your mind on whether Talon is open source. You can do whatever you want. The only reason I posted the comment was that I landed on your documentation site at first[0] and I mistook it for an open source project, only to find out later that I was mistaken.
[0] https://talonvoice.com/docs/