I've had some reactions on my latest move to make Magic closed source, and figured I wanted to explain my motivations a little bit more.

My Open Source Journey

According to this list, I am the top contributor to Open Source in Cyprus. Notice, if you see my username being number 2 on the list, realise that commits are nullified if you change your GitHub email address. I've changed my email address twice the last 4 years, so you can add almost 10,000 commits to the above number for "polterguy" - Placing me as number 1 by a margin of 500% more than number 2 on that same list.

In 2017 I wrote the 5th of most read article Microsoft ever published. I wrote it for MSDN Magazine, and according to their editor in chief, it became the 5th most read article the first month it was published since they started measuring in 2010.

I have worked with Open Source my entire professional life, having contributed to the well of open source projects at a rate unimaginable for most people. Several of my projects are in the GitHub code vault in Svalbard, and ignoring Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman, I doubt there's a single human being alive today that have created more lines of open source code.

There are roughly 10 million downloads of my NuGet packages in total, all of whom are open source. This is 20 times more downloads than for instance SupaBase. SupaBase is evaluated at 1 billion dollars and have been given VC funding of more than 100 million dollars.

What I made from it

Back in 2018 somebody paid me $500 for a commercial license of one of my projects. But he didn't pay me for the code, he paid me to help him out and give him support - So it could be argued I've made zero money in total.

In addition I've got zero contributions to my primary projects. Some guy contributed to Lizzie a couple of years ago, but my primary project has zero contributions. Notice, I happen to know for a fact that there are a whole range of really, really, really rich companies using Magic for instance, some of whom are cashing in millions of dollars in profit every single year.

None of these companies stopped and asked themselves if they should financially support their primary software developer to allow him to continue working on their platform! NONE!

Every time I try to post updates to Reddit about my progress, I'm being trolled and bullied beyond belief. I can't even repeat what they're saying about me over there, because I'd probably lose my account at DEV for using the same language and phrasing the same sentences here. When I try to defend myself against these insane accusations, the only result I experience is that I am censored and not allowed to defend myself - While the original troll's words are left untouched. It's the same in all groups at Reddit.

About 5 years ago, one Redditer started subscribing to my YouTube channel, with the sole purpose of down voting every single YouTube video I publish. He's been at it now for 5 years, still going strong.

And for what? For wanting to contribute to the world by creating open source software, freely available for all to use, any ways they see fit.

I don't need this!

And I am ending it today!

About Magic

Magic is my flagship product. I've got more than 8,000 commits to its repository. I've spent thousands of hours maintaining it, for no other reasons than that I believed in open source, and I wanted to "do my part". And my only "payment" is being ridiculed, stalked, bullied, and taken advantage of. Well, this ends today!!

If you want to use Magic today, you need to pay. I'm selling professional licenses of it in two different forms.

• Server License $5,000 per month
• Kubernetes License $20,000 per month

If this is too expensive for you, you can obtain a cloudlet for $300 per month. However, if you want an on premise solution, with access to its source code, the starting price is $5,000 per month.

If you're one of those humongously profitable companies whom I happen to know are using Magic, you can contact me here to purchase a professional on premise license for Magic.

Because as of now, Magic is CLOSED SOURCE!! And yes, I can do it, because nobody contributed to it, so the entirety of the copyright is mine!!

Edit

If you're a software developer working for one of these Fortune 500 companies, and you've used my IP without informing your management, and you're now basically screwed because your pipeline stops working, because the code is no longer available - I suggest you contact your manager, tell him the truth, and informs him of that you need to start paying me $5,000 per month (MINIMUM!)

Because to be honest with you, your problems are your problems, my problems are my problems - And it's not my problem that your pipeline no longer works because you took my IP without contributing back to it in any ways ...

Have a najs day 😊