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Funny. The front page (still) states: "We're a small studio that loves to make delightful apps. We just launched Monodraw." The blog says: Maintenance Mode

Funny. The front page (still) states: "We're a small studio that loves to make delightful apps. We just launched Monodraw." The blog says: Maintenance Mode With immediate effect, Monodraw is entering maintenance mode. This means that there will be no more updates in the future. While I'll be aiming to provide OS compatibility updates, if required, those are not guaranteed. Accordingly, the price has been reduced from $19.99 to $9.99. Why? Monodraw was released in May 2015, about three and a half years ago. Unfortunately, it did not achieve commercial success and it meant I had to get a job. In the years that followed, I could only work on Monodraw in my spare time. Due to recent changes in my life, I can no longer devote any meaningful time to the app. "" https://blog.helftone.com/monodraw-maintenance-mode/ https://blog.helftone.com/monodraw-maintenance-mode/

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
andai 3y ago
And thanks to being proprietary, no one else can devote time to it, either.
- jorts 3y ago
  It’s perfectly fine that it’s proprietary. Just because it exists doesn’t mean other people are entitled to the source code.
  - andai 3y ago
    I agree. Nobody owes anyone anything! I was merely pointing out that it's a shame that (1) it has apparently been abandoned for years, (2) people are not able to do anything about that. (Bus factor == 1, etc.) Based on the other comments in the thread, I'm sure there are people who would love to contribute. (Worth pointing out that making something open source isn't zero-maintenance by any means, especially since GitHub still doesn't let you disable pull requests...)
  - galaxyLogic 3y ago
    There's a cost to open-sourcing code. It takes effort. You must write documentation and clean up your code in many ways. It's good to "clean up code" of course but is that the most urgent thing on your task-list? Who should pay for that effort? The original author? Yes if they think it's worth it and they can afford to spend the time on it. There's also a risk whenever you publish source-code, someone might sue you for copyright infringement, or patent violation, etc.
- milen 3y ago
  I’ve toyed with the idea of open sourcing the product. I reached the conclusion that it’s not the approach for two main reasons: - I believe in a strong, centralised product vision and execution - The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back I’m a strong advocate of interoperability and open data formats. The Monodraw data format is not proprietary and I do have plans for a plain text format (currently, it’s just zipped JSON which doesn’t play nice with VCS). Interoperability is key to competition and avoiding lock-in, so I’ll push in that direction as my time permits.
  - techn00 3y ago
    > The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back Choose a good license then
    - milen 3y ago
      A license wouldn't stop the unscrupulous people, they'll keep making clones of it and ignoring the license. This means I have to start chasing any clones, engage legally and try to take them down. It's just not worth the time - I would rather spend the time on improving Monodraw instead.
      - synthmeat 3y ago
        To voice support for current state - do what you're already doing, and I agree on focusing on opening up the format. Don't hesitate to charge for v2, if improvements pile up and you have affordances to do so. Will gladly pay. It's pretty great already as-is. Thank you.
      - josephcsible 3y ago
        If unscrupulous people are willing to ignore the license anyway, wouldn't they just hex edit to change the branding to sell clones even while it's closed source?
  - lumb63 3y ago
    I understand your concerns about open-sourcing the codebase and won’t try to convince you otherwise. It’s your code. That said, I would like to share my perspective on the subject, having given some thought to if/how I should open source my code. I don’t feel that I have any ground to stand on if I were to choose not to open source my code. That same code would be uploaded to the internet using a web browser or other tool that is open source. That code is probably compiled or interpreted by a tool that’s open source. For me, it all runs on an operating system that’s open source. Nearly everything that I am able to do as a software developer is built on the shoulders of giants who, out of kindness and conviction in their beliefs, chose to make an entire ecosystem of software available to the world, with source code available, free of charge. I feel that I owe it to the world to pay that legacy forward.
milen 3y ago
Developer of Monodraw here. I haven’t updated the official website (priorities and lack of free time). I’ve pushed out some updates after the maintenance mode announcement but the frequency is not guaranteed since my free time is extremely limited. I’m still committed to fixing any breakages due to OS upgrades and ensuring the product continues to work. While I have some new features in the pipeline, I cannot commit to any timelines as I don’t know when I will ship them. I want to thank everyone who’s supported the product throughout the years, it means a lot to me. Happy to answer any further questions.
- commandersaki 3y ago
  It may not have reached commercial success, but to me it's the best commercial application on MacOS. Nothing comes close in value.
lsllc 3y ago
Please not more app-store abandonware. I have a decent amount on both my phone and my MBP. Sad to see, I really liked Monodraw for creating ASCII illustrations for source code (e.g. buffer layouts etc). Of course, probably it'll be ok for a while, but then some App Store API or updated processor requirements will render it unusable like so many others (particularly on iOS). So now I've got several abandonware apps that I paid for: Things (v1), Quiver, Artboard and now Monodraw. I can't say any of them really had any non-minor updates since I got them certainly not features (yes, I realize Things did a separate V2 app ... but I wasn't happy about that happening so soon after buying V1). I do realize some of this is Apple's fault in the way the store is structured. Too bad Apple doesn't enact some sort of source-code escrow such that if an app is abandoned, the source gets published, but with owner-copyright retained so no-one can resell -- as part of the T&C of submitting an app. Maybe after 1 year of abandonment for a "big" company and 2 years for indie-dev apps. *EDIT*: Happy to see Milen's sibling comment about fixing breakage!! I realize you have to make a living -- is there a way to contribute for these new features (or is it a totally new app -- which is fine!).
- milen 3y ago
  > EDIT: Happy to see Milen's sibling comment about fixing breakage!! I realize you have to make a living -- is there a way to contribute for these new features (or is it a totally new app -- which is fine!). I've considered the idea of letting other developers have access to the source code and help with the development. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure a way to make it fair - e.g., if someone starts contributing, do they start receiving a percentage of the proceeds? What's a fair percentage and what about multiple external contributors? I could never come up with a workable model, so it's either fully open-source or proprietary. As I mentioned in another comment, I believe the way to go is an open data format which allows interoperability. This way there's no lock-in and competing apps (open or closed) can exist. For what it's worth, the Monodraw data format is not secret, it's just compressed JSON. I haven't documented it because it's more of an implementation detail and I'd rather spend my very limited time on improving the product. Hope that provides a bit more context.
  - lsllc 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

andai 3y ago

And thanks to being proprietary, no one else can devote time to it, either.

jorts 3y ago
It’s perfectly fine that it’s proprietary. Just because it exists doesn’t mean other people are entitled to the source code.
- andai 3y ago
  I agree. Nobody owes anyone anything! I was merely pointing out that it's a shame that (1) it has apparently been abandoned for years, (2) people are not able to do anything about that. (Bus factor == 1, etc.) Based on the other comments in the thread, I'm sure there are people who would love to contribute. (Worth pointing out that making something open source isn't zero-maintenance by any means, especially since GitHub still doesn't let you disable pull requests...)
- galaxyLogic 3y ago
  There's a cost to open-sourcing code. It takes effort. You must write documentation and clean up your code in many ways. It's good to "clean up code" of course but is that the most urgent thing on your task-list? Who should pay for that effort? The original author? Yes if they think it's worth it and they can afford to spend the time on it. There's also a risk whenever you publish source-code, someone might sue you for copyright infringement, or patent violation, etc.
milen 3y ago
I’ve toyed with the idea of open sourcing the product. I reached the conclusion that it’s not the approach for two main reasons: - I believe in a strong, centralised product vision and execution - The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back I’m a strong advocate of interoperability and open data formats. The Monodraw data format is not proprietary and I do have plans for a plain text format (currently, it’s just zipped JSON which doesn’t play nice with VCS). Interoperability is key to competition and avoiding lock-in, so I’ll push in that direction as my time permits.
- techn00 3y ago
  > The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back Choose a good license then
  - milen 3y ago
    A license wouldn't stop the unscrupulous people, they'll keep making clones of it and ignoring the license. This means I have to start chasing any clones, engage legally and try to take them down. It's just not worth the time - I would rather spend the time on improving Monodraw instead.
    - synthmeat 3y ago
      To voice support for current state - do what you're already doing, and I agree on focusing on opening up the format. Don't hesitate to charge for v2, if improvements pile up and you have affordances to do so. Will gladly pay. It's pretty great already as-is. Thank you.
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      If unscrupulous people are willing to ignore the license anyway, wouldn't they just hex edit to change the branding to sell clones even while it's closed source?
- lumb63 3y ago
  I understand your concerns about open-sourcing the codebase and won’t try to convince you otherwise. It’s your code. That said, I would like to share my perspective on the subject, having given some thought to if/how I should open source my code. I don’t feel that I have any ground to stand on if I were to choose not to open source my code. That same code would be uploaded to the internet using a web browser or other tool that is open source. That code is probably compiled or interpreted by a tool that’s open source. For me, it all runs on an operating system that’s open source. Nearly everything that I am able to do as a software developer is built on the shoulders of giants who, out of kindness and conviction in their beliefs, chose to make an entire ecosystem of software available to the world, with source code available, free of charge. I feel that I owe it to the world to pay that legacy forward.

milen 3y ago

Developer of Monodraw here. I haven’t updated the official website (priorities and lack of free time). I’ve pushed out some updates after the maintenance mode announcement but the frequency is not guaranteed since my free time is extremely limited. I’m still committed to fixing any breakages due to OS upgrades and ensuring the product continues to work. While I have some new features in the pipeline, I cannot commit to any timelines as I don’t know when I will ship them. I want to thank everyone who’s supported the product throughout the years, it means a lot to me. Happy to answer any further questions.

commandersaki 3y ago
It may not have reached commercial success, but to me it's the best commercial application on MacOS. Nothing comes close in value.

lsllc 3y ago

Please not more app-store abandonware. I have a decent amount on both my phone and my MBP. Sad to see, I really liked Monodraw for creating ASCII illustrations for source code (e.g. buffer layouts etc). Of course, probably it'll be ok for a while, but then some App Store API or updated processor requirements will render it unusable like so many others (particularly on iOS). So now I've got several abandonware apps that I paid for: Things (v1), Quiver, Artboard and now Monodraw. I can't say any of them really had any non-minor updates since I got them certainly not features (yes, I realize Things did a separate V2 app ... but I wasn't happy about that happening so soon after buying V1). I do realize some of this is Apple's fault in the way the store is structured. Too bad Apple doesn't enact some sort of source-code escrow such that if an app is abandoned, the source gets published, but with owner-copyright retained so no-one can resell -- as part of the T&C of submitting an app. Maybe after 1 year of abandonment for a "big" company and 2 years for indie-dev apps. *EDIT*: Happy to see Milen's sibling comment about fixing breakage!! I realize you have to make a living -- is there a way to contribute for these new features (or is it a totally new app -- which is fine!).

milen 3y ago
> EDIT: Happy to see Milen's sibling comment about fixing breakage!! I realize you have to make a living -- is there a way to contribute for these new features (or is it a totally new app -- which is fine!). I've considered the idea of letting other developers have access to the source code and help with the development. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure a way to make it fair - e.g., if someone starts contributing, do they start receiving a percentage of the proceeds? What's a fair percentage and what about multiple external contributors? I could never come up with a workable model, so it's either fully open-source or proprietary. As I mentioned in another comment, I believe the way to go is an open data format which allows interoperability. This way there's no lock-in and competing apps (open or closed) can exist. For what it's worth, the Monodraw data format is not secret, it's just compressed JSON. I haven't documented it because it's more of an implementation detail and I'd rather spend my very limited time on improving the product. Hope that provides a bit more context.
- lsllc 3y ago