Move to closed-source and funding requirement

[RyVee]

It's very concerning to see a tool like this go to closed source. I understand it may be troubling to receive feedback from others but these types of tools should never be closed source as they access vital parts of the system OS that need to be visible to users to confirm they are safe.

It's also concerning to see supporter funding is now required for any type of new updates. Was the original intention of this tool to get users relying on it and then forcing them to pay for additional updates?

[Master-Antonio]

Hi. I completely understand your concerns regarding security. It's true that tools interacting with core OS components require trust, and open source is usually a great way to build that.

However, I need to address your second point directly: this was absolutely not a 'bait-and-switch' tactic.
My original intention was genuinely just to build something useful to help people, entirely for free.

Unfortunately, the reality of maintaining this project became completely unsustainable for me. Instead of finding a supportive community or receiving help with the code, I was met with toxicity, zero actual contributions, threats of people stealing the codebase, and constant baseless accusations (there is still now on reddit, but for now i'm just ignoring).

On top of that, developing and maintaining this tool ended up taking far more of my personal time than I ever anticipated.

I care deeply about Puretype, and I didn't want to just abandon it entirely.
Moving to a closed-source, supporter-funded model was the only viable way left for me to justify the immense time investment and sustain its development without burning out.

Please know that this isn't necessarily a permanent state. I am not ruling out the possibility of making it open-source again in the future, once the environment around the project becomes safer and more constructive.
In fact, I am currently considering a model where newer versions might be released publicly with a few months' delay.

I hope this clarifies the human side behind these decisions.

[jjcullen]

Thanks for clarifying, thanks for all the hard work.

[Master-Antonio]

Thank you all for understanding.