Dear Clickity Clackity Club,

Happy Halloween! Being an indie dev is rather frightening indeed, not because my work as a terminal author became tricky, but because running a business requires a heightened awareness of cybersecurity. I realize security is a slippery slope; I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia. These days, however, a healthy dose of fear is actually warranted! Consider the following events:

  • Recent Discord breach of tens of thousands of government IDs
  • VMware price hike: license fees increasing between 150% to a whopping 1000%
  • Spike in ransomware as companies entrust sensitive data to third parties
  • Increased scrutiny on tax compliance and healthcare premiums

This is but a sample and most of these affect Terminal Click indirectly or sometimes very directly. Certainly, the term digital sovereignty has never trended so much in nerdy communities as it has this year.

And I am all for it.

Pre-empting the Government

I live in the Seattle area and it would seem Washington State wants to impose a sales tax on custom software. If your software is off-the-shelf then it appears you’re fine. Well… where does Terminal Click fit into this? Especially while it’s in Early Access and some subscribers have priority email support.

I’m also on Obamacare, which means I’m a stakeholder of the government shutdown. If the Democrats lose the negotiations, my insurance premium skyrockets. At the same time my heart breaks because not caving to Republicans means prolonging the shutdown. The societal cost is rising.

Whatever happens, I’ve retained an attorney for all this and related legal matters.

Avoid Vendor Lock-In At All Costs

We must play nice with online services which we don’t control, but independent software shops should install the right guardrails. For example, please don’t go all in on Google products, even if it creates “synergies” across your workflow and lets you focus on “business logic.” These truisms are false in the long run.

So what are your alternatives? Self-host, self-host, self-host.

My fellow systems programmers understandably despise web development, but if we want to succeed on the Internet (and with sovereignty) then we need to suck it up and start dipping our toes. Here’s some services I now run myself:

  • Shipping Terminal Click directly: the payment processor tells me who’s subscribed and I generate the download link. No Steam or itch.io.
  • Revolt chat server: beta testers will be invited by the end of the year.
  • Our own RSVP system: Handmade devs can spontaneously hang out in meatspace
  • RSS aggregator: used to control my own news feed. Believe it or not I find this to be the most crucial decision for doing better work on Terminal Click.
  • Bookmark manager: Shiori in particular extracts relevant content in case the link ever dies.

Anyone can browse a curated set of easy-to-install apps at selfh.st.

Becoming an Open-Source Maintainer

For all this talk about building a secluded fortress, I must never forget Terminal Click exists thanks to open-source software. Therefore I’m starting to pay it forward by becoming community maintainer for microui. You can read the unfolding saga here if you’re curious.

When’s the Next Major Release?

With any luck I’ll have the next terminal version shipped to beta testers by Thanksgiving. There’s plenty of outstanding GitHub issues that I’m itching to close by then. I really appreciate everyone’s support (and patience) as I navigate this spooky new life as a solopreneur.

Stay hopeful, stay frosty!

Your indie dev,
Abner