PySimpleGUI 4 will be sunsetted in Q2 2024
docs.pysimplegui.com
docs.pysimplegui.com
> For the last 5 years, PySimpleGUI offered free software with the hope of sustaining the company by donations.
> We appreciate the support we received, but the amount has been too small to support the PySimpleGUI project.
> For this reason, PySimpleGUI is switching to a subscription model, where commercial users are expected to pay a nominal annual fee.
Current GitHub repository with the code removed: https://github.com/PySimpleGUI/PySimpleGUI
An older fork with the open source code: https://github.com/gabrielsroka/PySimpleGUI
https://archive.is/n4TJG (20231209 snapshot)
In this particular case, https://github.com/PySimpleGUI/PySimpleGUI/commit/ca37e593fe... (five commits newer than GGP’s reference, which has commit a0d3e7ce1f5b015962e9d538f94cd517a9a79692) seems to be the last FOSS revision before the maintainer deleted everything.
$ git clone https://github.com/PySimpleGUI/PySimpleGUI
$ cd PySimpleGUI
$ git fetch origin ca37e593fe07177f409639933392b4c2fa94f736
$ git switch -c foss FETCH_HEADIt's weirdly difficult to tell who I'd be giving money to if I were to donate to the project. I just put a few minutes of clicking into it and couldn't figure it out. I can't imagine donating to a project without knowing who would receive the money.
I think I just submitted a minor patch/PR.
Edit: yep. https://github.com/PySimpleGUI/PySimpleGUI/pull/6619
If you really want to commercialize this project, maybe a double licence like Qt is a better option?
But I wonder: Those people who use this could also support its development. Or if no-one is supporting the development, maybe there is simply not enough interest by other people in this project? If this is the case, why keeping it alive? Making it commercial will have the opposite effect, it will reduce the interest much more.
Despite that it is commercial now, even before, I was not really sure why I would use this over some of the more well known frameworks.
Guess I'm going to bite the bullet and rewrite the GUI in tkinter, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place.
[0]https://github.com/rdbende/Sun-Valley-ttk-theme [1]https://www.may69.com/purepython/
git shortlog -s -n --all --no-merges
1728 PySimpleGUI
1685 MikeTheWatchGuy
11 Tim Kay
7 Orsiris de Jong
4 jackyOO7
3 Ricardo Mendonça Ferreira
2 Chr0nicT
2 Jason Yang
2 Jorj X. McKie
2 cclauss
2 timkay@not.com
1 Michael Kennedy
1 Sokichi Fujita
1 eagleEggs
1 fluxrider
1 macsdev
1 mborus
1 nngogol
1 novel-yet-trivial
1 Åge Strand
> Pull requests are not being accepted for the project. This includes sending code changes via other means than "pull requests". Plainly put, code you send will not be used.
> I don't mean to be ugly. This isn't personal. Heck, I don't know "you",the reader personally. It's not about ego. It's complicated. The result is that it allows me to dedicate my life to this project. It's what's required, for whatever reason, for me to do this. That's the best explanation I have. I love and respect the users of this work.
It's obvious in hindsight that those reasons were a bald-faced lie, and the real reason was exactly that he could legally do this rug pull.
Nothing's been taken away, it's just been obfuscated. Foolishly. Definitely petty, as another commenter says.
It is a bit of an own goal from the perspective of trust, though; it's going to kill any hope he has of succeeding with the project.
Nothing has been taken away. The rug has not been pulled out from anyone; they just have one less guarantee about their future development. They still have the repo they cloned and the right to distribute it.
He's shot himself in the foot, guaranteeing a competitive fork, and guaranteeing code mirrors will spring up everywhere.
Given that he apparently never accepted PRs, I don't really see anything has changed; it might even be for the better if it essentially validates a fork.
There is one point on which I would reach some agreement: he should consider returning any large donations made in the last few months if he's done no further development on V4, mind you, or convert those donations into lifetime licences. Those people might otherwise feel a little tug of the rug under their feet. Nobody else really has a right to, and they might benefit from a community-maintained fork.
But it sounds like he might not have had any large donations anyway.
So this is not implementing a GUI on its own, but a wrapper around other GUIs?
How do these software library subscriptions work? Do you have to pay as long as you distribute the app?
So, say, if a game is on Steam and whoever put it there stops updating the game and paying for any subscriptions they were using during development, say because they retired, do they lose the right to distribute the game and have to take it down?
Great for software preservation in this case.
I think the key insight is, it's not worth focusing too much on this segment, except in very specific markets (maybe super-expensive sofware, like the Adobe suite, DAWs, AutoCAD etc.). The majority of paying clients don't go through this amount of effort, and unless they're cheapskates (in which case you might not want them as clients regardless), will just pay and be honest customers, appreciating regular updates and support.
However, for libs like, say, Qt and this library, it's different. I haven't looked closely at licenses for subscription based stuff, has anyone?
This depends on the licence. In this particular case, the licence agreement[1] appears to allow continued distribution of the end product as long as the subscription was active at the time of development, and the licensing terms have not been breached.
Relevant parts of the licence agreement:
> Term. This Agreement shall commence on the date on which Licensee [...] obtains a copy of PySimpleGUI, and shall continue thereafter until terminated as set forth herein.
> Library. Licensor grants Licensee a [...] license during the Term [...] to redistribute the Library to recipients of its Licensee Applications
> "Authorized Developer" [...] is either (1) a Hobbyist Developer; or (2) a Commercial Developer who has purchased an active PySimpleGUI paid license hereunder, in effect at the time of development, which is fully paid up
Directly quoting what you wrote. What am I not seeing?
They specify a few ways in which the agreement can be terminated, but ending the subscription is not one of them.
Anything depending on subscription based libraries has to consider it. Especially if the seller is all lawyered up like Digia.
What if you stop selling an application, and 10 years later there is a case for selling it again unmodified? Which is exactly what happens with old games on GoG, for example. Would you need to back pay the subscription for 10 years?
They may even say that the end users only have the licence as long as someone is paying a subscription. There are cases where that might make sense. For example, if the library is relying some online/cloud service operated by the licensor or their agent, and it costs them money to keep it running.
I wouldn't call that product a "library". In that case the product is the service and the library is just the means to access it (unless X provides the service and Y provides the library, but that's a niche case).
The problem is pure software libraries.
Big companies will pay to be legal. Or to get a support package. Small companies will probably pay out of honor. Some people won't pay but most of them probably wouldn't pay if forced anyway.
I support a UI framework that is just an npm package. I could theoretically use it for free, I just wouldn't get support. I pay because it's the right thing to do and it's not very expensive.
> If you are a Hobbyist Developer, then you may use PySimpleGUI for non-commercial purposes at no cost. If you are not a Hobbyist Developer, then you are a Commercial Developer, and you or your company must sign up for an annual subscription on your behalf at $99/year.
It seems like otherwise anything distributed currently that's FOSS that uses it will have to start paying a subscription or something?
It also seems like if I pull a FOSS project off a github repo that uses pysimplegui now, when I install dependencies it will install simplegui 5 and thus I'll have to get a subscription...
Has anyone figured out how their license is supposed to work for FOSS projects?
It's clear that if you just using personally it's free, or selling stuff then pay subscription, but I couldn't find good info on their site / license page about FOSS projects etc.
>" 7. If I ship a product that uses PySimpleGUI do I have to pay royalties to PySimpleGUI? No. To ship a product, commercial users embed Distribution Keys (at no cost) into each application shipped.
Hobbyist Users may share their projects. Each recipient will be able to run the project during a trial period. After the trial period, the recipient must subscribe to PySimpleGUI (at no cost) to obtain their own Developer Key. " from: https://pysimplegui.com/faq
Swing might not be the prettiest one, but I can at least sleep soundly knowing I won’t wake up to subscription bill tomorrow.
I think it simply wouldn't work. Which kind of GUI (library) would C++ have, imagining it came with one?
C++ may not work, but most other languages (especially VM-based) can and many do.
[0] https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.12/Lib/tkinter/__in...
But it is part of the batteries with Python:
I wonder, do all the old versions on pip stay there or are they planning on pulling those too, breaking everyones programs?
.. Mostly just wondering because the website seemingly doesn't mention it.
Keyboard bindings for keyboard shortcuts?
Microsoft has made a bit of a hash out of windows gui app development so a small opportunity for alternatives.
I've been struggling with Tkinker too much recently and the last time I dealt with pyQt I lost too much hair. This looks like my salvation for shipping a good looking interface.