AltTab is introducing a Pro version — and staying open source · lwouis alt-tab-macos · Discussion #5533

The Pro features will require a license, after the 14-day trial is over.

That beind said, there is really no wall to lock things behind. The source code remains all here in the open. That's previous source code, current one, and future one. Including the futur updates to the app. So anyone can build the app for themselves, tweak it, use it for free.

Buying a license will support me, in turn supporting this project. If enough people support it, great things are bound to happen~

I shall add that if for some unfortunate reason you're not able to afford a license, just email me and i shall offer you one

Hey,

I thought about this, and I feel like it’s totally fair for you to make a pro version, because you’ve put an insane amount of effort into this amazing project. I mean, it’s always fair for you to do whatever you want with your project!

There’s just one part where I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. If I read this correctly, currently free features like multiple shortcuts would become non-free. Since they were previously free, I feel like this sets a bit of a bad precedent, because I would expect that when an app like this becomes partly non-free, the current feature set would remain free, if that makes sense.

Now, like I said, it’s obviously totally up to you! Just my 2 cents.

I’m a relatively new AltTab user and only started using it over the last few months. I was really appreciating features like having multiple shortcuts for different actions, so I was a bit surprised to see them moved into the Pro tier behind a paywall, with the latest update.

I want to be clear that this comment isn’t meant to diminish the significant time and effort you’ve invested in developing and maintaining AltTab. I’m grateful for your work and providing it for free. Just wanted to share a user’s perspective on how this change feels from my side.

I lucked out and found a TimeMachine backup from just before the update. Should anyone need it, I've added the v10.12.0 app as a release on my new libre branch. I will say, this experience has given me more understanding of git.

costs €25

shows $25 here in USA

-----If: €1 EUR ≈ $1.17 USD May 29
Then: €25 EUR ≈ $29.15 USD
-----: $25 USD ≈ €21.44 EUR

@InSasquatchCountry At first, in Poland, I had €25, which was 105.78 PLN, and now it’s 99 PLN, which is still too much...

I'd imagine maintainer is being coached that $25 USD for a lifetime license is on par with BetterTouchTools and BetterDisplayPro, but I look at this app as more quality of life than game changer. Truth is, with the march of a.i. moving fwd, his window to cash out on a GNUGLP project is closing. I'm convinced at this point, the maintainer is aware of this and he actively chose to reap the community while he can and that's why he pulled the binaries. He has not offered any other justification. I doubt there is one.

Thanks for this. I would have been fine with a paid tier for AltTab if it unlocked new functionality. I am not fine with a paid tier that simply preserves access to features I already use. If this older version stops working, I'll just find another app because this one clearly has lost its way.

this is another point to be unhappy about – it's in the Terms https://alt-tab.app/terms, point "2. License" paragraph 1:

Each license may be activated on up to 3 devices that you own.

You obviously need a gate of some kind to prevent one key from being used by 1000 different people. Percentage of users with more than 3 Macs must be extraordinarily low.

@duracell has a good point. That monetization model has quite some problems, oen of them being this one. I assume the expectation would be like, well, then buy more licenses! Which, at the point we are right now, I think someone would rather just get a $100 claude sub and make a clone that'll work forever for any device. Maybe not 100% of users but things are changing now.

It all just feels it was made with a very altered perception of reality, but I can't blame it on him since the same thing happened with the vertical centering issue at #585 (comment)

I mean, to be fair, the source code is available and you everyone can "just" compile it and maybe there will be compiled versions. And with the license taking down the source code is nearly impossible. It's not that easy to monetize a free program, but I hope this will be improved. At the end it's good for everyone if he is able to improve it further.
Let us just hope.

this is another point to be unhappy about – it's in the Terms https://alt-tab.app/terms, point "2. License" paragraph 1:

Each license may be activated on up to 3 devices that you own.

You obviously need a gate of some kind to prevent one key from being used by 1000 different people. Percentage of users with more than 3 Macs must be extraordinarily low.

sorry what? we went from "free and cool" to counting licenses? 3 macs aren't 3 Ferrari, come on.
but it's not a problem even – 3 (devices) lifetime licenses for 25 is a steal, no issue.

the problem is: go to the site and buy yourself a license – at what point you will be informed that you are buying 3 device licenses?

Hi,
The info is available in the FAQ as well as the terms: https://alt-tab.app/faq
It is a standard approach. You have to limit to the machines to some number, otherwise license keys are meaningless. I picked 3 as it is the market default, on LemonSqueezy for example. I also check what other small utility apps were doing and it was almost always 3.
Thank you

Same here, no need for the pro features right now, but you deserve some support!

Yes exactly that. The only feature that I use that will require Pro would be auto thumbnail size. Now I could do it manually, but I think I would rather support the project. I think I've gotten way more then $25 worth from this app.

If this helps keep the app in the hands of the original developer instead of sold off to some 3rd party only to be filled with ads and bastardized then I'm here for it.

Do you really think we are some poor guys who can't afford to give 25 dollars to a tool we use everyday?

Look at what this change done to this codebase.

• You cant see the tags of the older versions anymore.
• You are limited to 3 devices
• You literally get banged with Alttab PRO ad as soon as you open the application

If this is your first app going to paid it might seem normal to you, but this path is something that would take the path something going worse. You can call it enshitification or whatever.

If it was about the price, we would just fork it, let it automatically built and everyone can use the pro version for free.
But that would be a bad solution for the development of alt-tab.

If it was about the price, we would just fork it, let it automatically built and everyone can use the pro version for free. But that would be a bad solution for the development of alt-tab.

That is a real risk, but I don't think any of us would want to do that (in mass.) I get that he has long wanted to step back from the project. Since nobody has wanted to pick up the torch, he's decided it should compensate him for his time. I get it. I don't like how he did it, but I can understand.

But really, the old "You can always compile it yourself" isn't as effective as it used to be. I had two options if I didn't want to pay to have the features I had before I updated: Ask Claude to remove the activation/Pro changes and compile the latest version, or have it compile the previous version.

It decided to use the latest since it had a couple bug fixes. In less than five minutes. I did nothing else. I didn't even have Xcode. It even replaced it for me. Originally Claude was apprehensive for the sake of the developer's goal to make money, until it read this discussion. Even Claude was upset.

Even Claude was upset.

Monkey see, monkey do.

But really, the old "You can always compile it yourself" isn't as effective as it used to be.
Why? If one person forks it, auto-updates and auto-compiles, everyone can just grab the release for free.
That's in fact even easier as paying for the version which includes a payment process.

Same here. I was even sponsoring @lwouis on GH previously.
I just realised my recent mass-cleansing of the ongoing subscriptions disabled that so buying a lifetime license was a no-brainer for me.

PS
I do hope the source code to be still available for transparency and security though.

@pepsi133 It would be illegal to not give you the source code.

@duracell
At this moment - yes.

Although let's be honest - we've both surely seen some highly contemptuous practices of doing the opposite when commercialising/monetising software, haven't we?

AFAIK (please, do correct me if I am wrong!) The author could change the license to one that doesn't require sharing source code. Affecting only new releases of coruse. And would require removing contributions from others and stripping upstream copyleft dependencies, but would be doable (and resented strongly even by me)

@pepsi133 Correct, if he gets the permission of every author or remove their work, then it would be possible to change the license. But this seems very unlikely at least in the near future.

I've only done this because you edited these people's answer.

If you try to edit my answer here as well I will lose all my faith in you @lwouis

@WiLuX-Source I've edited the dangerous links. People shouldn't come on this page, and be advised to click on some shaddy website where no one knows where a binary is made and what it contains. That's against most website policies to share such links. On Reddit for example, the admin will do the same thing I did, and remove the dangerous links.

Linking Github like you did is great. This is a trusted community, and people can inspect source and artifact in the open 👍

I agree that people shouldn't be advised to click on a binary where it's not known what it contains. I guess that many people will be tempted to just grab a copy of the deleted 10.12.0 version from a friend or a forum, instead of requesting a free license. Fortunately, it's easy to verify that it's legitimate and safe, i.e., signed by the developer and notarized by Apple, regardless of where you got it from. In Terminal, go to the directory where the app is, e.g. cd ~/Downloads. Then paste:

codesign -dv --verbose=4 AltTab.app 2>&1 | grep 'Developer ID'
codesign -dv --verbose=4 AltTab.app 2>&1 | grep 'CDHash='
codesign --verify --deep --strict --verbose AltTab.app
spctl --assess --verbose AltTab.app

You should see the following:

Authority=Developer ID Application: Louis Pontoise (QXD7GW8FHY)
Authority=Developer ID Certification Authority
CDHash=20b202183cc5e2e7f4e1f2abaff8e81e25256203
AltTab.app: valid on disk
AltTab.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement
AltTab.app: accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID

Perhaps lwouis could verify that those are the correct values, which I got from my own previously-installed copy. I also checked the "dangerous" files from the now-hidden website link, and they're exactly the same as the original (I also compared all the filenames, timestamps, and contents inside the bundle). So they're actually potentially safer than what's posted on GitHub by WiLux-Source.

The binary posted on GitHub won't pass the above test. It's not signed or notarized. I downloaded it and can confirm that it's not the same as the original binary. Many of the files inside it are different, due to a different build process. That on its own isn't evidence of anything wrong with it, but it means it can't be verified. If you install and try to run it, you'll see this message from the macOS Gatekeeper system:

You'd have to go into System Settings and enter your admin password to authorize it to run. I don't think people should be advised that it's a good idea to do that, in general.

I'm sure that WiLuX-Source is an upstanding citizen, and I appreciate the effort. But in addition to it not being signed and notarized by Apple, there's no proof in the binary release zip file that it was compiled from the source in the repo. There's nothing stopping WiLuX-Source's evil twin from replacing that binary with malware or info-stealers. That has happened many times on GitHub, with fake forks where the source is legitimate, but the binary isn't.

There's a comment that says "Production build of AltTab 10.12.0. Built via GitHub Actions with ad-hoc signing". So that's a promising indication that it was built from the actual source in the forked repo, but it's not proof. GitHub has its own system of Artifact attestations - GitHub Docs for signing and certifying that, but it's not used here. You can go into the Actions tab and see that there was a build automatically compiled by GitHub, and download that. I did that, and confirmed that it's the same as what's in the release zip file. So as long as you trust but verify that there haven't been any errors introduced into the code or the build process, you should be fine with that. But I guess that not so many people will do that.

If there are going to be forks of the project to get around the recent changes for commercialization, it would be good for them to use better security measures, including provenance attestation, signing, and notarization, and not to normalize installing unsigned copies of AltTab. There are already "cracked" versions of AltTab 11.x from pirate groups going around the net, that are just compiled from the latest source - or are they? They're not signed, and ask you to go through the Gatekeeper bypass procedure. I would suggest that it's not worth the risk.

To be clear, I think that it's great and commendable that lwouis is keeping the entire codebase open source, even the "Pro" part. Many other open source projects that go "freemium" do lock away their premium features as hidden, proprietary code. Keeping it all free, and still making money, is not so simple, but I hope it works, and can be kept that way. Not many other projects do that; I mentioned FreeFileSync, and another is Universal Media Server, where you can get early releases of new versions on their Patreon, but otherwise the free releases are exactly the same. As far as I know, nobody has found it necessary to fork those projects or produce "cracks" or unsigned builds to get around it.

I still think it would be better to reduce the friction involved between the free and pro versions of AltTab somewhat, so that people won't be pushed towards using forked and especially unsigned versions, while the many who are enthusiastic about supporting it financially can do so, and get something a little extra for being "fans". Personally, after lwouis' reply to me above, and the request to "either support me or find some other community", I've moved on to using DockDoor Free. It's open source and meets my needs just as well, if not better, so it's all good.

@ElhemEnohpi Thank you for this long essay and thank you for also confirming.

did that, and confirmed that it's the same as what's in the release zip file.

I'm not a Swift/Apple developer nor I am in this ecosystem long enough to understand what is going on with weird signing process and tools used by Apple or Swift devs.

I didn't know about artifact attestations. Will keep in mind in future projects I use.

The above links may be or is safe, but that doesn't give them to right to share the binary lwouis made.

Like you said not many people will go through that process so I took the action and made a easier way for them instead.

Obviously it will not have the same signing because I don't know the signing key of the developer nor I have the right to license what I have with his key.

It is his project and he probably has his reasons for making it paid. I don't think at this current state v.10.12.0 will appear again nor archive.org archived it.

Since he also gives free licenses to literaly everyone who emails to them or ask him nicely I won't go hard on him. I didn't take a key myself because I don't like the direction this project is going, but appreciate the work being done here for many years.

@Rhys-T did the legwork of hunting down the .zip from the nix cache and its hash matches what homebrew used at the time. The hashes and code signing for the unzipped .app matches exactly the info for the 10.12.0 .app I pulled from my TimeMachine backup.

Adding this back as an official fallback-release would be a simple mea culpa...