alt Hacker NewsIt's super important to me. I use Herdr every day and I maintain a whole stack of changes. From minor comfort tweaks that are just preference, to several larger changes like add jj workspace support and a WIP web based view (powered by xterm.js).
This is not the only project like this too. Many of my devtools are piling up changes. I try to upstream changes where it makes sense, but many times they are either very bespoke, or I can't be bothered to do them "right" (for example for the jj workspace change, I just ripped out git support, so I didn't have to futz with syncing the symantics up between the two and config and whatnot).
LLMs have made making personal changes to devtools so effortless that I am now extremely hesitant to use any non source available software at all.
I have been thinking about a possibly expanded market for source available software. I don't really care what the license of the software is, I'm not sharing it at all or using it commercially, so it's kinda a moot point. If someone made some amazing software and sold the source I'd definitely consider it. I know there are all sorts of practical business problems with that, but that aside I'm curious if others feel the same?
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i see your point, in that light what herdr is doing here make sense. keep some part open (e.g. runtime or whatever that means, or the front-end, or the user-facing logic, etc) and move the business-logic/etc to proprietary. So you get to customize the software to meet your needs, and at the same time to create some revenue incentive to grow the company.
alternative is to collect/sell usage data, which is icky, or provide something as a service (token usage, infra, plugins, etc)
> LLMs have made making personal changes to devtools so effortless that I am now extremely hesitant to use any non source available software at all
This mirrors my view so totally it's crazy. If AI is ushering in the era of personal tooling, closing the harness is orthogonal to what users want.