I built a tiny terminal Pomodoro timer for myself and released it on Gumroad as closed‑source, pay‑what‑you‑want, no DRM.
It made me wonder how this kind of distribution fits into the philosophy of the Fediverse. Decentralization usually pushes toward open‑source, self‑hosting, and community‑driven tools — so I’m curious how people here view small indie tools distributed through platforms like Gumroad.
Is PWYW + closed‑source compatible with the Fediverse mindset? What do you personally expect from small tools shared in a decentralized ecosystem?
For context, here’s the project I’m experimenting with:
I understand your desire for closed source to maintain control of your revenue stream, but I believe that you’ll find most Fediverse folks adverse to closed source. Many associate closed source models with a lack of transparency and a loss of control. A small tool like yours might not run up against that kind of opposition simply because it is small and does not handle a lot of data.
I do like the pay what you want model. It’s helped fund support for open source projects in the past so there shouldn’t be much pushback for that.
Makes sense. For me this project is more of an experiment than a statement. I’m mainly trying to understand which part matters most here — the closed‑source bit, the Gumroad dependency, or the general expectation of openness. PWYW seems to fit well, so I’m curious where the real boundary is for small indie tools.
@mietkiewski_dev@lemmy.world aside from closed source being unethical, closing the source to a pomodoro timer doesn’t really make sense since there’s so many such timers available under user friendly licenses.
Fair point. This one started as a personal experiment, not a stance. I’m mainly trying to understand whether the pushback is more about ethics, practicality, or just Fediverse culture.
I really struggle to see what the benefit of federation would be here. That would mean that you would have several eCommerce pages with a federated product catalog? And if I buy on site A I might buy from someone on site B?
Yeah, I agree — federation doesn’t really apply here. I was asking more about expectations around distribution in a decentralized space, not about federating a storefront. Just trying to see where people draw the line for small indie tools.
