[wubrr]

> he doesn't want to deal with thousands of support requests when making his apps open source and free.

Who says you have to deal with support requests if you open source something?

> All his apps are personal itches he scratched and he sells them not to make a profit but to make the barrier of entry high enough to make user feedback manageable.

That makes no sense

[notatallshaw]

> Who says you have to deal with support requests if you open source something?

Almost anyone who has ever maintained popular open-source software, even if dealing with them means putting up a notice that says "Don't ask support questions" and having to delete angrily posted issues.

My understanding from listening to his explanation is he wants to be able to support users and have an income stream to incentivize that.

As an open-source maintainer of a popular piece of software, I'm very empathetic.

[cxr]

> issues

So GitHub created a mess, and the whole of open source is considered to be GitHub now.

The solution is the same as being able to avoid tons of Windows-related headaches when you don't use Windows. Just don't use GitHub.

A tar or zip file with source code posted online (or bundled with the program, even) under an open source license is still open source.

[hitekker]

This is my understanding as well.

There's a lot of merit to Open Source. But there's also a lot of spam, politics and drama that comes with opening up. That negativity is invisible to people who haven't encountered it, or are simply guilty of causing it.

Maintainer burnout is real; more power to John for choosing whatever keeps him focused on building good software.

[wubrr]

> Almost anyone who has ever maintained popular open-source software, even if dealing with them means putting up a notice that says "Don't ask support questions" and having to delete angrily posted issues.

I mean, that's very obviously a false statement. You don't have to post any notices or reply to or delete any issues.

> My understanding from listening to his explanation is he wants to be able to support users and have an income stream to incentivize that.

That's valid, but is basically the opposite of the reasoning provided in gp comment.