Reinvigorating QuickSilver - Commercialization?

[Jonathan Levi]

Hi all

Long time Quicksilver aficionado here, having referred over 100,000 people to it in my online courses on productivity hacks.

Over the years, I've been very dismayed to watch quicksilver become less and less actively developed, as inferior products like Alfred take off in popularity. 

I don't want to see this happen, and while I'm not a developer, I would like to do something to keep this project alive, growing, and thriving. 

I understand that Rob and others have moved on to other projects, but I do wonder if it would make a difference to commercialize Quicksilver, either with donations or paid licenses? Would that contribute to the number of people willing to spend time developing new plugins and keeping the software modern and competitive? 

If so, I'd be willing to contribute my marketing know-how and promote the app to my audience of productivity nerds.

Let me know how I can help... 

[Rob McBroom]

On 27 May 2021, at 2:41, 'Jonathan Levi' via Quicksilver - Development
wrote:

> Long time Quicksilver aficionado here, having referred over 100,000
> people
> to it in my online courses on productivity hacks.
>
> Over the years, I've been very dismayed to watch quicksilver become
> less
> and less actively developed, as inferior products like Alfred take off
> in
> popularity.

Me too.

> I don't want to see this happen, and while I'm not a developer, I

> *would* like

> to do something to keep this project alive, growing, and thriving.
>
> I understand that Rob and others have moved on to other projects,

I haven’t exactly moved on. I just have a lot less time than I used
to, and more importantly, the areas that really need attention these
days are less about writing code (which I can handle) and more about
modernizing the files that make up the UI and dealing with Apple’s
increasing restrictions (which I am not as familiar with).

> but I do wonder if it would make a difference to commercialize
> Quicksilver, either
> with donations or paid licenses?

We get donations, or at least we did, but that mostly just goes to
hosting and Apple developer accounts. It’s nowhere near enough for one
or more people to quit their job, which is really what you would need
for it to be effective.

Every suggestion to charge for Quicksilver in the past has been shot
down pretty vigorously. It’s also basically impossible to say who has
a right to charge for it since the original creator(s) refused to do so
and so many have contributed over the years.

What I’d prefer to do is create a modern replacement from scratch so
we can charge for it guilt-free and have some hope of it being
maintained. But see my previous comment about not having much free time.

--
Rob McBroom

[Jonathan Levi]

Rob, if you'd want to contact me about doing a side venture, it's something I'd be interested in perhaps pursuing. I have a large enough audience to give us a fighting chance at bootstrapping something... though it does seem like a real waste to start completely from scratch. 

I didn't realize there's such an issue with charging / assigning rights and ownership. In any case, feel free to reach out to me directly if you want to talk about it. 

[Patrick]

Hi Jonathan!

I've just come across this, after a fairly long hiatus from Quicksilver. Your work promoting Quicksilver is impressive. 100,000+ people - wow!

I've got back involved over the past few weeks in a hope to get QS fully compatible with the latest versions of masOS (11+).

Agreed with everything said above. That said, I think there *is* scope for us to do something here. A better funding model for QS makes sense to me. Looking at QS with an almost 'fresh pair of eyes' (after 6 years away), I think the biggest thing we're missing here is a PM to give a direction for the app. Cod-wise, it's pretty feature-rich and complete already. Other than general maintenance, there's not a whole lot of coding that *needs* doing. But what we're missing is the promotion & marketing. For example:

If I was someone new to the Mac, looking for an app for productivity and I came across Alfred and Quicksilver, I know which one I'd choose, just on first impressions of the website!

Aside: If I was a new Mac user looking for a productivity app, I doubt I'd even come across Quicksilver now, as it's basically no longer mentioned in the 'app rundowns' that are all over the web [1] [2] [3].

So, what next:

I'm not opposed to monetising Quicksilver (more than the current donate page), if that means we can keep QS alive. I'm less concerned about Rob's comment on 'who has a right to charge'. QS (the current codebase at least) will always remain open-source, so it will always be 'free' for those willing to build it themselves, but we can still monetize in one of two ways:

1. Keep QS free to download, but prompt for donations on first launch/every update:

I'll call this the Cyberduck model. Sure, some people find the dialog nagging and annoying (like this person on Cyberduck), but there's a balance I think we could strike. We'd create a dialog that pops up on launch, add it to the menu bar, and add a button in the prefs, and take it from there. We could see whether or not there's an appetite for donations, how much we'd get, and whether it'd pay for a person's (part time) wage to manage QS and the marketing:

2. Make QS a paid app, that you need a license for

This is the general 'paid app' model. There'd be a short time free trial, then QS would prompt you to go buy a license and pay for the app. This option would require more work - a license server, the code to make it free for 7 days then lock you out etc. So I'd say this would be a bit more work to actually code right now. 

Many open-source Android apps also follow this model. They cost to download in the app store, but the code is freely available on GitHub. If you compile it yourself, you can install it for free. E.g. Davx5 costs £5 on the app store but is open source

My Proposal:

With those two options laid out, here's the steps that I suggest:

1. We code the donation panels/buttons (option 1 above) into the next version of QS, which will be Big Sur + Catalina ready.

2. At the same time, we find/hire a Marketing Director/Manager, who will:

   a) promote this latest version of QS

   b) get review sites to add QS back to the list

   c) upload the app back to the Mac App aggregator sites (like Macupdate)

   d) make and upload YouTube videos, start posting toTwitter

   e) respond to threads across the web from those looking for productivity apps

   f) create a mailing list

   g) Create a shop with QS merch (t-shirts, mugs etc.) (Alfred's one)

To get started, this could either be someone donating their time to QS, or someone who's hired on a bonus model - they get paid if and when we hit a certain number of downloads for the new version, or a certain revenue amount from donations. Period: 3 months

3. With 1 and 2 complete, we re-assess the idea to monetize QS. Is the donations push enough? Can we now pay for development work / a part-time PM or marketing manager? Should we go the full paid-license route?

What's missing from the above is 'paying a developer'. I don't think QS will ever have enough money to pay a dev's full time wage. In fact, I doubt any indy Mac app has the capability for this (most indy apps are either a part-time hobby/extra cash earner, or part of a larger company that makes a range of apps – like how Transmit is just one app in Panic's arsenal). As such, development would stick with the same model - open source, donated time (like Linux). BUT: there'd be more incentives and rewards for developers: free T-shirts, cash for hardware/software etc. The PM/marketing manager would also work towards fostering the dev community to entice more people into the project, as well as better focusing our devs' time to work on what our users want. I'm a great example of this: I'll spend many hours trying to fix bug that most people don't know even exist, but my time would be much more efficiently spent updating the interface and make QS look 'fresh' for latest macOS versions.

So, with all that said, my proposed actions points are:

1. If we're in agreement (bare minimum, it'd be nice to hear from: @ROB, @JONATHAN, @HOWARD, @NATHAN, @ETIENNE - if he's around), I can start on 1 and implement the donation stuff.

2. @JONATHAN - it's a stab in the dark, but would you want to work on the points in 2 - or do you know anybody who might want to do this?

3. @ROB - how many downloads has 1.6.1. had to date? How are our stats looking?

[Howard Melman]

I'm glad to see life here with QS.  FWIW I moved to Alfred 2.5 years ago and am mostly happy.  It does some things better than QS and some things worse.

I'll add a 3rd option for monetizing QS, what Alfred does with it's PowerPack.  Many features are available for free, some more advanced (and useful) ones are via a license.  I think QS could do this with some licensed plugins.  I bet very pretty UIs would sell. :) 

Howard

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[Patrick Robertson]

Great feedback, and I appreciate you still chiming in Howard.

Option 3: Offer a free ‘basic’ version + paid ‘PowerPack’ 

I like this option, and as you say could be implemented via the plugins: making a core set free, then extras paid for. Similar to Option 2 though, it’d involve a fair amount of coding.

About your switch to Alfred. I’d personally be interested to know the answer to these 3 questions:

1. What was the reason for switching to Alfred?

2. What does Alfred do better than QS?

3. What would need to be done to make you switch back to QS? (unless not possible)

I’m confident what you have to say will help make QS better.

On 15 Feb 2022, at 12:34, Howard Melman <hme...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm glad to see life here with QS.  FWIW I moved to Alfred 2.5 years ago and am mostly happy.  It does some things better than QS and some things worse.

I'll add a 3rd option for monetizing QS, what Alfred does with it's PowerPack.  Many features are available for free, some more advanced (and useful) ones are via a license.  I think QS could do this with some licensed plugins.  I bet very pretty UIs would sell. :) 

Howard

On Feb 14, 2022, at 8:17 PM, Patrick <robertso...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Jonathan!

I've just come across this, after a fairly long hiatus from Quicksilver. Your work promoting Quicksilver is impressive. 100,000+ people - wow!
I've got back involved over the past few weeks in a hope to get QS fully compatible with the latest versions of masOS (11+).

Agreed with everything said above. That said, I think there *is* scope for us to do something here. A better funding model for QS makes sense to me. Looking at QS with an almost 'fresh pair of eyes' (after 6 years away), I think the biggest thing we're missing here is a PM to give a direction for the app. Cod-wise, it's pretty feature-rich and complete already. Other than general maintenance, there's not a whole lot of coding that *needs* doing. But what we're missing is the promotion & marketing. For example:

If I was someone new to the Mac, looking for an app for productivity and I came across Alfred and Quicksilver, I know which one I'd choose, just on first impressions of the website!

<Screenshot 2022-02-15 at 08.35.56.png><Screenshot 2022-02-15 at 08.35.47.png>

Aside: If I was a new Mac user looking for a productivity app, I doubt I'd even come across Quicksilver now, as it's basically no longer mentioned in the 'app rundowns' that are all over the web [1] [2] [3].

So, what next:

I'm not opposed to monetising Quicksilver (more than the current donate page), if that means we can keep QS alive. I'm less concerned about Rob's comment on 'who has a right to charge'. QS (the current codebase at least) will always remain open-source, so it will always be 'free' for those willing to build it themselves, but we can still monetize in one of two ways:

1. Keep QS free to download, but prompt for donations on first launch/every update:
I'll call this the Cyberduck model. Sure, some people find the dialog nagging and annoying (like this person on Cyberduck), but there's a balance I think we could strike. We'd create a dialog that pops up on launch, add it to the menu bar, and add a button in the prefs, and take it from there. We could see whether or not there's an appetite for donations, how much we'd get, and whether it'd pay for a person's (part time) wage to manage QS and the marketing:

<a.png>
2. Make QS a paid app, that you need a license for
This is the general 'paid app' model. There'd be a short time free trial, then QS would prompt you to go buy a license and pay for the app. This option would require more work - a license server, the code to make it free for 7 days then lock you out etc. So I'd say this would be a bit more work to actually code right now. 

<a.png><Screenshot 2022-02-15 at 08.35.56.png><Screenshot 2022-02-15 at 08.35.47.png><Screenshot 2022-02-15 at 08.45.27.png>

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[Howard Melman]

On 15 Feb 2022, at 12:34, Howard Melman <hme...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm glad to see life here with QS.  FWIW I moved to Alfred 2.5 years ago and am mostly happy.  It does some things better than QS and some things worse.

I'll add a 3rd option for monetizing QS, what Alfred does with it's PowerPack.  Many features are available for free, some more advanced (and useful) ones are via a license.  I think QS could do this with some licensed plugins.  I bet very pretty UIs would sell. :) 

On Feb 16, 2022, at 5:17 AM, Patrick Robertson <robertso...@gmail.com> wrote:

Great feedback, and I appreciate you still chiming in Howard.

Option 3: Offer a free ‘basic’ version + paid ‘PowerPack’ 
I like this option, and as you say could be implemented via the plugins: making a core set free, then extras paid for. Similar to Option 2 though, it’d involve a fair amount of coding.

About your switch to Alfred. I’d personally be interested to know the answer to these 3 questions:

1. What was the reason for switching to Alfred?
2. What does Alfred do better than QS?
3. What would need to be done to make you switch back to QS? (unless not possible)

I’m confident what you have to say will help make QS better.

1.  I'm not sure I remember exact details but I think it was a few things.  QS had gotten a little unstable for me with some new OS release. It had been steadily losing features for a while which mostly didn't affect me, my use fairly narrow, but IIRC it stopped supporting Safari history because they moved it to sqlite or something and I really missed that.  On top of it, Alfred had fairly recently introduced Workflows and that looked really appealing to try.

3. (2. is a big topic so I'll do 3. first.)  I could definitely switch back.  QS would need to be stable and I'd need to see some activity to at least keep stuff working with new os releases.  I would want good support for file stuff, app switching, contacts, browser bookmarks, history and web searches, clipboard.  Triggers are a must (and the selection proxy object functionality) and I like the hot corner support.  I know other people really need Music control, and I'd like that but it's not critical for me.

2. First off Alfred basically just works, I have few problems with what it implements and it quickly gets support for new OSes.  The UI of the preferences is pretty and easy to use and includes help text for each option.  Of the list above of what I'd use of QS, Alfred does all of that well (not hot corner support, which I now use BetterTouchTool for, which is also quite capable for way more than I realized).  Workflows are quite nice in Alfred.  With a visual editor you can diagram out new features, similar to the QS saves triggers, but not limited to what fits in three panes.  I use them mostly to recreate the triggers I had in QS to toggle apps and to bind web searches to keys.  It's nice in one "sheet" I have one trigger for ctrl-cmd-F to start an imdb search and let me type my query and a second for the shift-ctrl-cmd-F version that grabs the query from the selection.  In the list of "workflows" they occupy only one line and in that list I see it binds both keys.

I haven't written any but I have imported a few more advanced workflows that call out to scripts to do things.  A nice and a fairly common thing is that they use a web api to populate the results list directly.  I have for imdb that work like this: I active the Alfred command window and type the keyword "mr " and then type a query like "Spider-Man", I pause a second and see this:

It's gotten the list of movie titles from an IMDb api and the ratings from a rotten tomatoes and metacritic api and I can choose one of those films directly and go the imdb page for that film.  This as opposed to going to an imdb search results page and having to click on a movie.

Here's another workflow I made for a couple of QS triggers I had (which are probably in the QS manual).  The top pastes the current safari URL into the current app and the bottom just copies it to the clipboard.  Honestly for these functions the QS trigger mechanism is I think a bit easier, but this demonstrates some possibilities with Alfred Workflows.  You can click on each of the icons in this to see a clean popup with configuration options.

So coming from QS, Alfred definitely has a different place it started from.  Much like browser keyword searching, it's all about typing a keyword in a box and then typing more stuff after that. I still miss QS's 3 panes and a clear delineation between the action and subject and not having an object eliminates some things.  You can't do a file rename in the command window because you can't type both the name of the source and the destination.  There is a file actions pane you can get to that lets you do move, copy, send as email, etc.  But it's very much about using keywords and often about doing cmd-NUMBER to select an item.  Now entering web searches is easier than in QS because in the preferences I can assign a keyword to the search template and it's easier to see and not limited to some hotkey combo.

At least for me, when configuring Alfred, I feel like I see these roots all the time and notice how new features were added onto what existed.  There are popup dialogs in a lot of different places with config stuff that isn't always easy to find.  E.g., to recreate my QS trigger: Safari, Toggle Application, I create a workflow, I have hotkey icon to define the trigger part and then a second icon that launches an app and I tell it to launch Safari and in that icons config there's a checkbox for "Toggle visibility of apps".  That list of file actions you can do, that was limited to files, not other types, but you could add more file actions via a workflow.  They recently added "Universal Actions" that generalizes this to do a variety of things with text, much like QS does.  It's nice, though I'm still figuring out how it connects to everything else.

https://www.alfredapp.com/universal-actions/

I like how contacts work better in QS.  Alfred lets me type a name and shows a results list of matching contacts and then I select one and get a special contact dialog that shows all the contact info.  I can tab through fields and hit return to do things (on an email address to open a message, or on an address to open it in maps) and there's a little notice on the bottom with hints about what keys do what (RET, ctrl-C to copy, ctrl-L for large type, etc.)  I really don't like how it handles a contacts photo, it just shows in this dialog, not in the results list.  One of the things that first drew me to QS was when I typed "John" I saw John's photo in the first pane so I knew if I had the right John.

As I've said, some things are just a bit different.  I used QS's cmd-esc a lot and missed it.  It took me quite a while to figure out how to recreate it via a workflow.  The workflow is one icon and here's the dialog you get for it via double-clicking.  The important realization is the "Cursor: Left" part.  After bringing text into Alfred it leaves the cursor at the beginning of the line so I can type a keyword (perhaps for a web search) immediately.  If I bring a file or folder into Alfred it shows me the specialized file browser view of that file.  Other types do somewhat different things.  QS's model of bringing a selection into the subject pane and then showing the actions based on the type is so much cleaner, but for text at least, Alfred having a lot of custom keywords that are usable is pretty nice.

Hope that helps.  I'd definitely be interested in helping or offering ideas for some kind of Quicksilver refresh.

Howard

[Nathan Henrie]

I think trying out the slightly-more-aggressive donation model is a common approach and makes sense, and helps keep QS fully open source.

I also think it's worth asking (even just rhetorically) what the goals are here. I think that working to increase adoption makes sense if the goal is to make sure that as many people as possible can take advantage of a great tool. It doesn't sound like we anticipate being able to meaningfully (financially) incentivize development. I don't think there are plans for a broad commercialization or aiming for an acquisition. Are there other goals we should make explicit?

I've stuck with Quicksilver instead of Alfred specifically because QS is fully open source. I would have stopped using it years ago otherwise.

Nate

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/quicksilver---development/3F34CC6D-433B-4156-A14E-589C4A2F8C87%40gmail.com.

[Jonathan Levi]

Hi All!

I'm overjoyed to see this conversation coming back to life. I don't have any comments on the Alfred comparisons etc, but I will weigh in on two things:

Payment Model: I like the Alfred model the best, and feel it best addresses Rob's concerns. Quicksilver is Free (get them hooked)... but the advanced features (Spotify integration, Messaging integration, Email plugin, custom actions, ... basically any plugin that isn't core functionality) costs money. That makes sense, and will lead to more downloads and more people giving the software an honest try. Plus, it feels right from an open source perspective - the base is free, the stuff you all will work on improving is not. 

Promotion: I can do some promotion to my audience/lists, which is 25K or something on YouTube, 35K active on the mailing list. I'll also reach out to some other productivity thought leaders in the space and ask them to do the same. I'll do all of this at no charge, of course. As far as reaching out to MacUpdate/MacRumors/all of those, I can try, but I have no connections and am not sure I'd really get anywhere. But... after I do a video, I can send it around and ask them to help us put this legendary Mac product back on the map. On that note, we might want to think about setting up some kind of basic affiliate program using readily-available tracking software, which would help give an incentive to people to blog about it, etc. 

Hope this helps, keep me in the loop. 

[Patrick Robertson]

Great additional info from Jon and Nathan.

Why Commercialise Quicksilver?

I like Nathan’s question, it’s more specific:

I also think it's worth asking (even just rhetorically) what the goals [of commercialization] are here.

My answer to this is simply “To restore Quicksilver’s rightful place as the No.1 most downloaded productivity app”.

That means ramping adoption, improved marketing and supporting the devs more.

Specifically, the money in my eyes would spent on:

> Hiring somebody (part time) to manage Quicksilver PR and marketing

> Better supporting contributors with gifts and swag (QS gear, hardware, software license etc.

> Having a ‘Quicksilver Fellowship’ to reimburse devs so they can work on the project for a specific period of time. (see how Django does it)

I’d be interested to hear @Jon, @Nate and @Rob’s point of view.

Payment Model:

Jon, you seem to be leaning towards the ‘Option 3’: Free + Paid Addon. I’m interested to know your answer to the question above as to how you think the money should be used.

Promotion:

Jon, I really like your idea of kick-starting promotion to see the response. Reaching out to Macupdate etc. is fairly simple - I’ve done it in the past, and they’re always keen for content, so they’d love to write about something like this.

Timeline & Next Steps:

So we’re very near to a v2.0 release of Quicksilver, which will be fully Catalina and Apple Silicon and has a whole host of other improvements and bug fixes under the hood. The original goal was to get this out last week, but my estimate is we still need another approx 7 days.

In light of this, and the complexities of setting up a paid model, what I suggest for v2.0 release is this:

1. Implement a more aggressive donation model

2. Launch 2.0 & work hard to promote this release as the return of Quicksilver

3. Gauge the reception, download volume and donation rate

4. With the data from 3, use that to better implement the next step in a payment model

No.3 would help us answer these questions:

Are donations actually enough? Can we make enough from them without having to go paid?

What’s the average donation amount? Could be used as a basis to work out how much we should charge for a potential paid model.

Is there a backlash to this more aggressive donation model? Or are people generally on board and OK with paying?

What sort of numbers can we expect to download the app and pay (for a paid model) so we can estimate revenues - is it enough to pay for what we want?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/quicksilver---development/c10f4e1a-3c73-438d-be1f-5794b8d8aecen%40googlegroups.com.

[Howard Melman]

FWIW, I just heard about this new launcher for the first time:
https://www.raycast.com/

Their pricing model is different, personal use free, pay for team features.

Howard

[Jonathan A. Levi]

Hi there - just wanted to pop in an answer your question. 

Personally, the only reason I want to see Quicksilver monetized is to ensure that it keeps working well for years or decades to come, because I can’t switch to anything else. 

For me, though, “working well” means both restoring functionality that was lost (Messages stopped working 5+ years ago, Spotify recently broke, Twitter is hampered to 140 characters, etc, etc etc), but also “keeping up with the times” and improving functionality. I could list maybe 10 things I’d like to see work, from iOS/macOS Shortcuts integration (game changer… imagine being able to open my garage door using Quicksilver!), to searching photo app in a more sophisticated way, to controlling HomeKit.. but all of these things require significant time for a developer to code. 

So, the only reason I want to see monetization is so that talented people like you all can afford to devote time to it! I don’t care if Quicksilver is #1 (though I believe it should be), I don’t care about getting swag, I just want it to improve and remain a viable option, and if that means bringing more people into the fold to help fund it’s development, so be it!

I bet there are many die-hard users out there like me who wouldn’t mind to regularly pay for Quicksilver, rather than “one time” payment, so maybe aggressive donation is good simply because it doesn’t put a cap. Maybe some users will pay $19 one time, but I don’t mind paying $19 a year to be a patron, especially if I get a “thank you” in the about screen or something.. 

Hope this helps

Thanks,

JL

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[Nathan Henrie]

Great comments!

Just wanted to note that I’ve been dreaming of HomeKit and Shortcuts integration as well (and I’ll probably make a plugin for n8henrie/fauxmo eventually), I would like to make these my first de-novo (or at least de-cookiecutter-template) plugins. I’m hoping to explore writing them in Swift. If successful, I’ll contribute a plugin template similar to our current one but with groundwork laid for Swift, which I think will be much more palatable to new contributors.

But that’s on the backburner for the time being, mostly trying to get codesigning working and these plugins updated for the upcoming release.

Nate

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/quicksilver---development/F3D7154C-3CD3-4A11-BC9B-8196641846E0%40jle.vi.

[Patrick Robertson]

Hey all,

I just wanted to publicly announce that Quicksilver 2.0 will be released tomorrow (25th March). It’s officially 9 years since Quicksilver 1.0 was released, and also one of our core dev’s birthday (not naming him!).

We went for a more aggressive ‘donation popup’ for version 2.0 of Quicksilver. We’ll first see how it’s received, then use data from incoming donations to make a decision on further monetization.

@Jonathon - I think now’s the time to start making some noise about 2.0 to see where it gets us!

a) If you want any information/behind the scenes stuff for your video, let me know. I can help with a co-video/podcast etc. if that sounds good.

b) For video content, you can find everything that’s new in Quicksilver 2.0 here

c) I’ve sent you an email with what contacts I have from previous Quicksilver PR exchanges. Could be a good place to start for drumming up some noise. From what I know about Macupdate - style websites, it’s just about submitting a new app request.

——

Secondly, great working list of priorities for QS. To summarise what’s been said below:

Shortcuts, HomeKit integration

Twitter 140+ characters (fixed, see release 1.1.0)

Messages

Spotify

Stability of main app (maintenance)

Safari History (appears to be working)

Music

Workflows (or at least, an easier way to extend Quicksilver without creating a whole plugin/requiring to know code)

——

Finally, I just want to take this chance to thank everyone who’s been involved in Quicksilver over the (many) years, and to those working on Quicksilver’s future as we move forward together. It’s the hard work of this core team of fans, devs and skilled people who’ve made Quicksilver what it is today.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/quicksilver---development/CAOMt5FA%3Dhhq-yaOoZgehg%2BvXv7oWuPmo5OPbVzPf8oD3ZCEeKQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jonathan A. Levi]

Hey all!

I’m overjoyed at this news! I’m going to start beating the drum, and also, I’ll do a YouTube video of my own to get some excitement going… But, before I do that, you gotta update the version available on qsapp.com 

BTW, the donation button on the site shows dollars, but then switches to the same # of GBP on the next page - we should get that fixed

Also, thanks for the easy to follow summary of what’s different :) 

Thanks,

JL

--

Jonathan Levi Founder | SuperHuman Enterprises, LLC. https://superhumanacademy.com/ P.S. I generally handle emails on Mondays and Thursdays only. Thanks for your patience.

#noauto#

On 24 Mar 2022, at 17:01, Patrick Robertson <robertso...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey all,

I just wanted to publicly announce that Quicksilver 2.0 will be released tomorrow (25th March). It’s officially 9 years since Quicksilver 1.0 was released, and also one of our core dev’s birthday (not naming him!).

We went for a more aggressive ‘donation popup’ for version 2.0 of Quicksilver. We’ll first see how it’s received, then use data from incoming donations to make a decision on further monetization.

<donation.png>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/quicksilver---development/8B847B66-A3E8-48FF-90AA-7CD6AF6A62EB%40gmail.com.

[Filipe Castro]

I want to give another idea on how to "comercialize" Quicksilver. 

I believe keeping it open-source is essencial and the spirit of the project, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be "free". I would suggest that you sell the compiled versions of the program in the app store (if you can) and website, while still allowing anyone tech savy to compile it themselves freely from Github (and ask for donations in github).

Then with that money we could easily pay developers per issue. Using something like BountySource (quicksilver - Bountysource) would be ideal. The people leading the project could use the funds they got from donations/selling the app to pay for these features implementations. 

For a concrete example, Jonathan could easily request that "Messages" be fixed and put 50$ into it. The Quicksilver team, seeing it as a priority, could then add another 100$ on top. 

Or the QS team could create the issues themselves in whatever they need help with (Like modernizing the website). 

I think this would be way better than any of the other options suggested here. Reward people that want to help the project, get money from those that are lazy/want to support, and organize priorities with beautiful Capitalism.