Upgrade to "Vue - Official Insiders"

[johnsoncodehk]

Hello👋, I'm the author of Vue language tools and Volar.js. I have been working on Vue tooling for the past four years. Thanks to the support of StackBlitz and many sponsors, I have been able to work full-time on development for the past year and recently released version 2.0 after six months of development.

The extensions and tools we develop are open source and completely free. This means that our work is sustained by the support of the community. Currently, our funding can only sustain me working full-time until October. Due to family and financial pressures, if we cannot obtain sufficient funding support, I will need to find a full-time job and temporarily leave OSS.

If you would like to support the sustainability of our work, you can consider subscribing to "Vue - Official Insiders" to help alleviate the time pressure of finding funding support.

Why subscribe?

• 🚀 Get early access to new features months before anyone else

• 🚀 You can accelerate a designated an issue per month, and the issue will be resolved or replied within 3 days

• ✅ Support our work and allow us to continue focusing on development

• ✅ Receive our gratitude, your name will appear on our GitHub Sponsors page and in the README of our extensions

• ✅ Funds will be used to provide feedback to contributors

How to subscribe?

You simply need to become a sponsor on GitHub Sponsor. You will receive an email inviting you to join https://github.com/volarjs/insiders (only open for $8/mo and $20/mo for now), where we will release updates for Insiders.

How to unsubscribe?

You can simply cancel your sponsorship at any time.

What changes in the release process?

Both the stable version and the Insiders version will be developed simultaneously. The stable version will mainly focus on bug fixes, while the Insiders version will mainly introduce new features. When the minor version numbers of the two differ by 2~3, the lower version of Insiders will be merged into the stable version.

For example, when the Insiders version is 2.2.x or 2.3.x and the stable version is 2.0.x, the stable version will be updated to 2.1.x.

What features are exclusive to the Insiders version?

You can check the linked issues at https://github.com/vuejs/language-tools/milestones to find out the features that are only available in the Insiders version.

[johnsoncodehk]

For some doubts I would like to reply here.

This tool was not developed to make money, but it would be worse than a paywall to stop maintaining it if there is not enough money to support it.

Moreover, this does not harm the general user's interests in any way, and the official version still provides all the existing functionality and bug fixing updates. Due to the amount of malice I've been receiving lately, I honestly don't think I'm interested in adding any new features anymore (and also won't be able to do so due to financial and family pressures).

If we have enough sponsors to support me in developing new features and making them available to all users over a period of time, this is the way to do it for the benefit of all.

[delano]

I agree with your stance. You do a great job of handling community feedback too. Subscribed 🦾

[joelsilva333]

Apoio totalmente

[gentlekenny]

Open source is dead. Long live capitalism. You should have just said 4 years ago that you intend to require subscription for Volar, so nobody would use it.

[gentlekenny]

Don't be like Gentlekenny.

Couldn't agree more!

To future coders who may stumble upon this thread years down the line, take this wisdom from Gentlekenny, the bad guy of this saga:

NEVER overlook the fact that when using VSCode, your workflow heavily relies on extensions. Without them, VSCode becomes just a slightly stronger notepad, stripped of the powerful features and functionalities that make it an essential tool for developers.

[alvarosabu]

Couldn't agree more!

To future coders who may stumble upon this thread years down the line, take this wisdom from Gentlekenny, the bad guy of this saga:

NEVER overlook the fact that when using VSCode, your workflow heavily relies on extensions. Without them, VSCode becomes just a slightly stronger notepad, stripped of the powerful features and functionalities that make it an essential tool for developers.

You earned the title 🤡.

[alvarosabu]

I actually lost, since after your change of plans, my Vue extension(s) got broken and project got delayed, and I know I am not the only one. I don't know if that was directly caused by your action, but it did harm me and I played my role solely because of the damage I took, with the assumption that you caused this.

Dude, touch some grass, you ARE USING AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT, FREEEEE PROJECT, MANTAINED BY SOMEBODY WHO DOESNT WIN ANY MONEY FOR IT.

By using this project, you accepted an MIT License, the author has NO OBLIGATION to give you any support whatsoever, but he still answers your incredibly rude and out-of-reality comments.

You don't represent the OSS community, not in the slightest

[ylli2000]

If your friend help you with coding and debugging 8 hours a day every day for the last 4 years, is it much to pay $8 to buy him a coffee once a month?

[tony-thai]

@alvarosabu already covered it, but I feel the need to reiterate it. Never thought I'd see such an L take on an OSS project, but that's cause I expect the best out of people. My friend, if your project is so incredibly dependent on a third party extension I might suggest that it is YOU that has failed to plan accordingly. When you use vscode it is not heavily dependent on extensions as a matter of fact, that's your choice and a poor one at that.

Build your own extensions/tools or proceed with OSS at your own risk. Otherwise pay for the tool and one that people are contractually obligated to maintain for you BECAUSE YOU PAY THEM.

The entitlement of folks on OSS devs to give you work for free is pure insanity.

[escorcian]

I am eager to support your cause through one-time contributions, however, I am not in a position to commit to a recurring subscription at this time. My intention is to offer direct assistance whenever possible, as I believe in the importance of contributing to meaningful initiatives. Thank you for understanding.

[johnsoncodehk]

Completely fine! Thank you for your support and please don’t let this be a burden to you.

[yoyo930021]

As a former maintainer of Vetur, I want to thank you for developing this extension. It has significantly improved the Vue development experience in VSCode. At the same time, I hope you take good care of yourself, as I believe that's more important than anything else.

[treystout]

There are 17 developers in my company using Volar. I use it as well and have found it immensely helpful over the past couple of years. Vetur as well if you're still reading @yoyo930021!

I am no stranger to having to expend capital to support the development team. My small team spend upwards of $30K/year on development tools. But those dev tools have fancy landing pages, and predictable payments, and negotiated rates, and support phone numbers, etc.... Making the leap from free extension to part of a company's annual dev tools budget is a bigger move for teams to swallow. The grumbling you're hearing is probably not from my sector. I am in the habit of buying A LOT of dev tools.

Are you expecting individual devs will maintain their own memberships or that engineering departments would be your customers?

If it's engineering departments you may consider adopting something with annual seat counts not tied to github. Those groups will swallow much higher prices, leaving individual devs at a more modest rate. See https://www.wholetomato.com for an example of a fully monetized dev extension. I know it's easy to say, and a ton of work, but I'd like to know the plan as you see it now.

I'm only describing myself here but, successful devs usually get successful because of dev skill not because of finance skill. If you're engineering a money making machine, you should consult with money machine experts.

Thank you for your years of work, it has made vue apps a pleasure to work with!

[adrian-afl]

Just for comparison for people analyzing the situation:
WebStorm IDE individual subscription is less than Volar low tier subscription and they include Vue support in the IDE itself, made by JetBrains. I personally use this, but my team use VSCode so im interested in this discussion here.

[johnsoncodehk]

Volar and WebStorm are not in competition with each other. WebStorm runs Volar in the background and adds their own unique features on top of it. So when you sponsor Volar, Vue DX in WebStorm will also be improved.

The pricing is not based on treating this as a product. This program is essentially still a sponsorship, but with more benefits to make it fair for sponsors. The main consideration is whether I can handle the sponsors' fast track. If the pricing is too low and the demand for the fast track increases, I may not be able to fulfill the commitment of responding to issues within 3 days.

[adrian-afl]

Didn't know WS runs Volar, interesting

[Charles5277]

I really appreciate the great contributions you and other authors have made to the community.🩷 I will sponsor this project if I have the ability in the future.🔥

[rchl]

Don't take it personally but I wonder whether this insiders option will steer focus towards providing value for insiders rather than fixing many of the core issues.

The current example of that could be this insiders-only cosmetic feature being prioritized over a core issue like, for example, this one (full disclaimer that it's my issue but I could pretty easily find other important ones).

[johnsoncodehk]

I've been solving the public issues, just maybe not what you're experiencing.
https://github.com/volarjs/volar.js/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

I will give priority to the following issues:

• p1: Serious reproducible issues
• p2: PRs
• p3: Well reproduced and easily fixed issues

Otherwise, I prioritize issues with minimal context switching. You can open a PR for the issue, or consider sponsoring to speed it up using insiders fast track.

[Tenrys]

language-tools/extensions/vscode/src/common.ts

Lines 100 to 133 in 508465f

	if (!context.extension.packageJSON.version.includes('-insider')) {
	const createLanguageStatus = () => {
	const item = vscode.languages.createLanguageStatusItem('vue-upgrade', 'vue');
	item.text = '✨ Upgrade Vue - Official';
	item.severity = vscode.LanguageStatusSeverity.Warning;
	item.command = {
	title: 'Open Link',
	command: 'vscode.open',
	arguments: ['https://github.com/vuejs/language-tools/discussions/4127'],
	};
	};
	const yyyymmdd = new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0].replace(/-/g, '');
	if (context.globalState.get('vue-upgrade-promote-date') !== yyyymmdd) {
	context.globalState.update('vue-upgrade-promote-date', yyyymmdd);
	let s = 10;
	const upgradeStatus = vscode.window.createStatusBarItem(vscode.StatusBarAlignment.Right, 10000);
	const interval = setInterval(() => {
	s--;
	upgradeStatus.text = `✨ Upgrade Vue - Official (${s})`;
	if (s <= 0) {
	upgradeStatus.dispose();
	clearInterval(interval);
	createLanguageStatus();
	}
	}, 1000);
	upgradeStatus.text = `✨ Upgrade Vue - Official (${s})`;
	upgradeStatus.color = '#ebb549';
	upgradeStatus.command = {
	title: 'Open Link',
	command: 'vscode.open',
	arguments: ['https://github.com/vuejs/language-tools/discussions/4127'],
	};
	upgradeStatus.show();
	}

I find this behavior really low... I get that you want to bring attention to the option (and need) of sponsoring, but this feels a little too aggressive. There's already a link to upgrade when you check the language server info... and I don't think the date logic even works properly, because on my system the text shows up on every window reload. It's just distracting, and really makes it seem like you're using freemium software.

I still find it rather weird that the Vue team relies on a single person to nail its language support for VSCode, the most popular code editor. In this case I understand needing funding to help dedicate time on it, but you'd assume there would be more front-loaded support from the Vue team to help avoid this scenario, because otherwise why bother using Vue if the DX isn't there?

[johnsoncodehk]

The condition of displaying only once per day was added after version 2.0.7 was released, so it will take effect in the next version. I apologize for not considering this before the release of 2.0.7.

Due to known compatibility issues, we will release the next version after VSCode 1.88 is released. If you don't want to wait, you can use the package build from this latest commit: volar-2.0.7-alpha.508465fe.vsix.zip

Vue is currently my Platinum Sponsor ($1000/mo), which covers a portion of my monthly expenses. Vue does not have corporate backing and relies solely on community sponsorship, so we cannot expect abundant funding to support multiple developers working full-time.

I hope to remove this prompt when monthly sponsorship can support me working full-time. Perhaps you can consider suggesting that your company starts sponsoring open-source projects, even $100/mo would be helpful.

[altrusl]

Probably Vue already should have some corporate backing
They can monetize it without owning - courses, certifications, ads, consulting and many more ways to do that
You are good at tech, you need someone good at business and management

[basdp]

Vue does not have corporate backing

Not true, I see a lot of corporates on here: https://vuejs.org/sponsor/

Also, this project is a first party vuejs project, how can a single developer decide to put personal advertisement in a first-party vue project?

[altrusl]

Why should it be a personal advertisement?
For example if create-vue will output in the console an ad for some UI library - will it be worse than "some packages are asking for funding"? And the money will go to pay the core developers decently
$1000 a month sponsorship when one dev needs at least 5x more (and can make 10x more on a side project) is not a corporate backing

[basdp]

Not this again... This didn't work out for the CoreJS guy, and will backfire for Volar too. My IDE is not your advertisement space. Vue has a lot of sponsors so go there for money. This project is part of the vuejs organization. If I wanted to support a first-party project from the Vue ecosystem (which I already do), I will support Vue through the regular sponsorship options. You are not the only contributor to vuejs/language-tools either, so it's not fair to only support you (even if you are the most active). Also, promising people who fork over money early releases MONTHS before anyone else is actually harming the ecosystem more than it would do good. This is not in the spirit of open source. I wouldn't put it as bluntly as some people above me, but there is a point to declaring an open source project failing if this is how it's going to end up.

In short; please stay away from my IDE real estate. Please stick to the regular ways of advertise sponsorships.

Just not cool.

[johnsoncodehk]

This is indeed my project, at least all the packages in the repo were created by me. The repo used to be named johnsoncodehk/volar and it was moved to vuejs because people wanted it that way. The idea that this project doesn't belong to me because it has other contributors truly surprised me, that's not how OSS works.

Furthermore, I have been actively sponsoring the maintainers of this project (https://twitter.com/johnsoncodehk/status/1766094180588372047, https://twitter.com/remcohaszing/status/1767258257750368759) and I also plan to sponsor every high-quality PR author in the future (just like what Astro does). If I'm not responsible for the sustainability of this project, I don't need to do this.

I don't understand why you are associating this with CoreJS. I am offering a fair deal to everyone, rather than unconditionally asking for sponsorship. Providing upgrade paths is common in software, and in fact, I took inspiration from the well-known WinRAR project. As I mentioned above, without this program, I have no plans to implement new features, and morally blackmailing developers for free work in the name of open source is truly damaging to the open-source community.

I don't mind announcing the failure of the sustainability of this project, I think it has already provided enough help to the ecosystem, and it may not be a problem even if it no longer receives updates. I'm just trying to make a final attempt to improve its sustainability, but when this plan proves to be a failure, it's a good opportunity for me to step back from this project as I have my family to take care of.

[ylli2000]

The negative comments are unpopular as you can see from the downvotes they are receiving. The way Volar asks for sponsorship is subtle enough and it worked, it got my attention that Volar needs help, and I just subscribed to the plan.

[johnsoncodehk]

Here's a good news! Starting from October, Vue will be supporting my full-time work.

The Insiders program will continue to operate, but starting from the next version, upgrade prompts will no longer be displayed proactively, and funds will be used more to support contributors.

[Charles5277]

Congratulations, glad to hear that 🥰

[CofCat456]

Congratulations !

[johnsoncodehk]

I believe this is an interesting exploration and discussion on the sustainability of OSS. Due to the current circumstances is complete different, some of the content in the article is no longer valid. I will lock this discussion and may replace it with a wiki page.

I would like to express special thanks to the sponsors who participated in this project, as well as those who provided one-time sponsorship even outside of the options. Thank you!