Clearing up the confusion around Growl 1.3. | Hacker News Reader

Clearing up the confusion around Growl 1.3.

growl.posterous.com

17 pointszbowling26 comments

I thought it was disingenuous that I got prompted to update Growl, which led me to the uninstall script, then asked me to buy through the App Store.

I just kind of shrugged and didn't complete the last step. And as dotBen mentioned, my productivity is better for it.

If I knew it wasn't a free update, I never would have uninstalled.

From what I understand it won't work for much longer due to the sandboxing requirements that'll be coming in Lion. So, probably best to uninstall eventually rather than have something there that won't work.

(Correct me if I'm wrong here but that was my understanding)

I do believe that is the case. I'm not questioning the reason for the uninstall. And, just to be clear, I'm not questioning his motives either. I think it's a really useful program and SDK.

I just didn't like finding out it was a paid app after I innocently clicked on update and uninstalled. I trusted that I was actually getting an update. I was left without my notifications and a bad taste.

Sandboxing only applies to applications in the App Store -- regular downloaded applications from a website will not have to abide by the sandboxing rules.

Sandboxing is only required for apps sold in the Mac App Store and the OS won't require apps to be sandboxed. None of your non-sandboxed apps will stop working on March 1st.

  Without changing to this paid Growl model, Growl would 
  have died off and would no longer be around to use at all. 
  Growl is however still Open Source

Wonderful non-sequitur.

Why? You can sell Free Software. The FSF states that in their FAQ(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMone...). There is absolutely nothing wrong with charging for Growl.

It's a non-sequitur to claim that free software "wouldn't exist" unless they charged for it. Programmers can (and often do) contribute to open source software without getting paid for it.

Then again, if nobody maintains a current version that's compatible with the latest OSX and provides automatic updates, you can say that the product "dies off" even if the source code is still out there.

If Growl is going to remain Open Source, as the note says, then someone should really compile a free version from the google code repository and give folks the option to buy it in the App Store or download the community version.

Although I've taken this opportunity to remove Growl and my productivity is better for it

https://bitbucket.org/pmetzger/growl/

A patched version of the popular "growl" notification system for Mac OS X, which compiles cleanly under XCode 4.1 and produces binaries for Mac OS 10.7 "Lion". It also fixes a bad crash in HardwareGrowler. This is forked from the 1.2.x sources I got from growl.info

This isn't the same thing as 1.3 is it? It's just the older 1.2 code that was updated by pmetzger to compile and function properly on Lion.

In other words, this != 1.3 right?

Right.

I have built and am using ver 1.3.1 growl, growltunes, capster and hardwaregrowler from source (hg clone https://code.google.com/p/growl/) on Lion 10.7.2 compiled with Xcode 4.1 . All growl (& apps) seem to be working great over the last two days since installation.

Seeing as you've already compiled the binary from the 1.3.1 tree, would you be willing to distribute it?

I can certainly do so. However, IANAL and do not know if distributing the compiled binaries would be in violation of any legalese/laws. Maybe you could look into the distribution part? Please check email at the address in your HN profile.

It's New BSD License, so yes binaries can be distributed as long as all the legal/copyright info is maintained

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#3-clause_license_....

And I see you just emailed it to me - thanks!

Hey Ben!

I'm actually helping out the growl team work towards 1.4. That's entirely an option. This model is similar to Textmate and XChat which remain open source but if you want to download the binary version you can either pay for them a well tested version from a trusted source to help support the project or find any number of the third party builds from questionable sources.

Paying the $2 gives you unlimited updates forever in the store and helps support a full time dev working on the project is all. Growl is used by thousands but is maintained by 4ish people people (and now me) in their free time and it doesn't get the attention it needs.

(On another note, we should grab a drink sometime! Haven't ran into you in months!)

Absolutely, people should definitely support the software if they use + enjoy it. As you'll note from my parent comment, I carefully wrote:

"and give folks the option to buy it in the App Store or download the community version."

I intentionally framed this about empowering everyone to exercise the choice afforded to them under the New BSD License rather than specifically saying "just get it for free", etc.

Yes, we should definitely catch up sometime soon :)

EDIT: also just to point out:

"or find any number of the third party builds from questionable sources"

You know, if you guys offered a free, open source community edition then folks wouldn't need to obtain the build from a 'questionable source'. Just sayin' ;). You could even just provide official MD5 Checksums for the binary of the compilation of undoctored code from the current release.

That would help people know there were no 'added backdoors'/malware etc in the software obtained from a 3rd party.

Hi Ben and fellow HNers,

The latest build of Growl 1.3.1 sources off of https://code.google.com/p/growl/ compiled on Lion 10.7.2 with Xcode 4.1 is available here:

https://www.wuala.com/hncontact/Documents/?key=x8O6uYoaytWi

Please read the comment thread from zbowling (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3221686) and please, please do buy Growl 1.3.1 from the app store and support the devs! (Edited to add: I wish you guys had a Donate button for folks, like myself, who do not wish to fill Apple's coffers but would like to support Growl devs nonetheless.)

Is the source for 1.3 actually posted now? I know it wasn't before.

It's a little slow making it over to google code. It's been up for a while. Bleeding edge work is on a private HG and cloned over to Google nightly (or least it's supposed too). Can always come into #growl on freenode and ask for access the other repo.

"Applications can still send notifications via growl api, growl is just like "growl pro""

That is good. I support them for that.

My question is, without Growl, how do I tell those apps to stop sending me notifications?

I imagine it will either be in prefs or via moving the application to the trash can.

There's both a preference to disable it for an application, which can also be applied globally. Apps can also add a preference to their own app to toggle it. A "Mist enabler/disabler" app should be written to allow you to configure it easily, IMO.

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