I’ve been experimenting with building very small personal tools to help myself stay focused. Recently I wrote a minimal terminal‑based Pomodoro timer because I was struggling to start my side projects and wanted something simple that just works.
While building it, I realized I also need to learn how to distribute small projects properly. Right now I’m trying a simple approach: closed‑source, pay‑what‑you‑want, no DRM, and users just get the right to use the tool.
Since I’m still learning how licensing, expectations and “fairness” work for tiny solo projects, I’m curious how other developers see this model. Is this a reasonable way to distribute small tools? What would you expect as a user or developer?
For context, here’s the project I’m experimenting with.
Pomodoro is an interesting technique, and it’s something I’d quite like to try.
But I’m struggling with a couple of things here;
- Why use github when it’s closed source? Github users tend to expect to be able to see the code and use it freely. (With larger projects, some features may be paywalled)
- What are you offering to justify it being paid? Especially when there are a lot of free pomodoro timers out there (Two websites - https://www.freepomodorotimer.com/ https://www.tomatotimers.com/ and desktop tools)
I’m a developer (well, sysadmin,but I write a lot of software both for work and as a hobby). I don’t see your method as viable, but perhaps I’m wrong. I wouldn’t pay for such a tool when there are free alternatives. I can’t see how much work you’ve put into yours, but this sounds like something simple that wouldn’t take long to write, vibe or not. I’m also a big fan of FOSS, both as a user and an author.
So basically, what’s special enough for it not to be FOSS?
It’s not really “closed‑source” — the code is source‑available on Gumroad. GitHub here is more of a landing page / documentation than a code host. The tool itself is tiny and console‑based, but the whole point of this project is the distribution experiment. I’m trying PWYW 0$+ to learn how small tools can be shared, not to monetize a Pomodoro timer.
Well, you asked for our opinions, that was mine.
That still looks like closed source though, and these days folks view such things with suspicion, especially for small projects that are generally foss. There’s a lot of people unwilling to run stuff they view as heavily AI authored, or potentially malicious, and not having the source out front to look at is going to put some folk off.
But as I say, it’s just my opinion. Hope it works out for you.
Just to understand you better — what counts as ‘AI‑authored’ for you?
Ah, so it is. Now I understand why you’re not putting the code up front on the github project page for everyone to see.
For me, that means something where the code is obviously AI authored.
I’m not anti-AI, I use it all the time when coding. But when the human responsible for that code, and there must always be one, doesn’t understand every single line of that code and why it’s there, then it’s unwise to use that code. LLMs can churn out perfectly good code within their current scope, but they cannot (yet) produce cohesive and maintainable code that doesn’t grow out of scope. And when an experienced coder sits down and reviews that code, there will be a high WTF/minute ratio.
For me the closed‑source vs source‑available vs open-source choice is mainly about learning distribution models, not about AI‑authored code. I wrote and understand the code — I just wanted to test a model that allows distribution and PWYW, which open‑source doesn’t really support.