One must ask themselves why a REST testing tool has venture capital and needs to be closed source (despite their website proudly claiming "Open source"). I'll pass on installing this onto my computer.
> closed source (despite their website proudly claiming "Open source")
HTTPie CLI has been open-source for a decade. HTTPie Desktop has yet to be open-sourced. We first want to get the product, architecture, and codebase somewhat stable. As the README says, we use the GitHub repo to host releases and issues.
> You gave this exact same answer to me in your Discord a year ago. If nothing sketchy is going on why not just open source the thing?
We appreciate your interest, but we never gave an ETA. I do regret having made the intention public, though.
> At a minimum you should remove the banner at the bottom of the page claiming it's open source.
That’s a good point. As I wrote in another comment below: I’ve now updated the website template not to show the image with the slogan on this page. Thanks for the feedback.
Good on you for altering the page. I very much hope to see the desktop client become open source soon, as I would very much like to use it. Best of luck with the project.
I don't understand; why do you think it is "sketchy" to try to make a living out of software?
(For reference, I work as a software engineer and am also the author of a popular open source project which I give away for free and have put thousands of hours into.)
>I don't understand; why do you think it is "sketchy" to try to make a living out of software?
I don't think the original comment meant that it is sketchy to make a living out of software. I think the issue is the posturing as open source, having a github repo with no code just to attract devs and look open source-y and even sharing it on HackerNews right after the issues with closed source by Postman too. Feels like an "open source alternative", but not really, hence the sketchy accusation.
> I think the issue is the posturing as open source, having a github repo with no code just to attract devs and look open source-y
As the first paragraph in the README says, we use the GitHub repo to host releases and issues.
Having it on GitHub under the same organization as our other projects that already are open-source is convenient for both us and our users — https://github.com/httpie.
> and even sharing it on HackerNews right after the issues with closed source by Postman too. Feels like an "open source alternative", but not really, hence the sketchy accusation.
The person who shared it is not related to HTTPie.
Given the quality of the discourse here, I almost wish they did not! ;-)
Why everyone is getting their knickers in a massive twist because they have an Electron wrapper that they haven't open sourced is mystifying.
I haven't studied the codebase but I highly doubt they are going to have a separate client implementation for the Electron product vs the CLI! They're just trying to create a nice Electron client, in addition to their well-known CLI, and start a business around it aren't they?
For creating requests the GUI of postman is way over the top. HTTP is so simple, why not just write that directly in a literate format you can checkin to a repo? For actually running the requests though I agree a gui is nice. I actually use dot-http as an embedded tool in a browser extension. They're still alternatives, just not in the style you're used to.
So is email. The simplicity of a protocol has nothing to do with the complexity of the workflow that produces it.
> why not just write that directly in a literate format you can checkin to a repo?
Because nothing I work on in Postman is something I need to check in to a repo. I need to test HTTP requests, and I've never worked with a code base that had raw HTTP requests in it.
> They're still alternatives, just not in the style you're used to.
The "style" is different enough that entire use cases become impossible.
Let's say I want to copy HTTP response headers out of a log in JSON format. In Postman, I can paste JSON (and various other key-value formats) into the headers field, and it automatically parses it for me.
There are a hundred little conveniences like that that require a good GUI.
It would be a little funny that GitHub, a proprietary code hosting platform, suddenly cares that proprietary software uses it to host bug reports or other assets. This isn't the first project I've seen that is nothing more than a README and exists simply for people to file issues. e.g. there is https://github.com/cursive-ide/cursive
With that said, Codeberg has a strict policy of hosting software licensed under an OSI or FSF approved license.[1] They will actually take down repositories that do not follow this guideline.
at this page, https://httpie.io/desktop, there's a logo that says "open sores, open hearted, open minded." it's misleading, then. at least remove that part in the page.
Can you be more clear? Is the Desktop app going to be open-source in the future? If so, what license?
Do you intend to monetize this product? If so, how?
As a side note: I find it strange that you feel the product is not stable enough to share the code, but apparently stable enough to share the product itself.
> Can you be more clear? Is the Desktop app going to be open-source in the future? If so, what license?
Yes, but have no ETA or license choice yet.
> Do you intend to monetize this product? If so, how?
Yes. We strongly believe in a freemium where both free and premium users are happy. We’ll primarily monetize collaboration and enterprise features without cannibalizing free users. In this sense, we’re inspired by companies like GitHub or Figma. And in our case, free also includes users without an account.
> As a side note: I find it strange that you feel the product is not stable enough to share the code, but apparently stable enough to share the product itself.
Running an open-source project well is not easy and takes resources. Building a great product is hard on its own. Our primary goal is to design and build the best API product possible, so we direct all our energy there for now.
They're not "making an API testing client". They're trying to start something called a "business". People do this to try to get enough of this thing called "money", to pay for the costs in their lives and their family's lives.
If they are based in America, they would be calculating at least, say $200k per year per employee, since they need to pay healthcare etc. So multiply that by the number of employees you want in your business, then add all the other costs, and extend over the period you want the funding to cover.
Nice, thanks for sharing your wisdom. And still insane they need that much money, we all have examples here of businesses that succeeded without having to raise millions of dollars
Ok, but I guess httpie are raising money in an environment where investors are wanting to invest a lot of money, and they thought "why not, it will raise lots of exciting possibilities for the business". So I'm still not getting why there's so much criticism from people in this thread. You'd probably have done the same in their situation.
They're not "making a REST testing tool". They're trying to start something called a "business". This has been a prominent feature of human society for many centuries. People do it to pay for their lives and their family's lives.
Because they're trying to make a living from software? And why the fuck, exactly, should they not do that? Reread your comment and perhaps you'll see how insufferably entitled, as well as naive, it sounds.