This is so common these days. I'm still waiting for the PineNote to become stable enough to be usable by non developers. It's FOSS, so it would be immune from the subscription service plague, but they're progressing really slowly.
Especially in tech, every “evergreen” product needs to have at least basic security updates over it’s lifetime, and most likely needs code updates to continue to work across generations. I also think recurring payments can be done in a way that respects user rights and without the draconian licensing that we are rightfully cautious of.
As an example: I have paid for a parcel tracking app on iOS for a few years now. It’s solid and reliable and does not chase features or try to be something flashy. It just works. In order to keep it working they need to spend money on servers to run the interfaces with the delivery companies, dev time updating those interfaces when the delivery companies change their apis/websites, dev time to keep the app in line with Apple’s expectations for each iOS version, and the yearly Apple fee. I pay $3 per year and I’m happy to pay it. I feel confident that the money goes towards those costs while also providing the reliability necessary to let the dev(s) stay focused on making the best most effective product.
If using a device incurs you maintenance costs, whether those are servers or engineers, then by all means, charge a subscription, and I'll happily pay for it if it's priced appropriately. If, on the other hand, my usage doesn't depend on a service you provide, but I'm paying for R&D of your next product, then politely bugger off.
Companies love the subscription model because it's mostly fixed recurring revenue, but this trend of making everything a subscription needs to stop.
What software do you use for the note taking? On Windows there seemed to be OneNote (and nothing else) and on Linux xournal++.
Sorry for all the questions, but I am currently looking for a new laptop/tablet and thought I'd ask for experiences of others.
https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface
I use this kernel, you can use this with most operating systems. Once things are setup, everything is extremely smooth.
I use xournal++ for note writing, and using GNOME is necessary. KDE doesn't have support for screen rotation etc. When you use GNOME, make sure to disable gestures and screen edge detection, because that might occasionally cause interfere with writing.
So, the workflow is quite simple with xournal++, you run a `inotify` based watched which automatically compiles and pushes stuff on every save. I of course assume that only `xournal++` on tab can change those handwritten notes. You can get some fancier git logic if needed. By putting the baselink as `https://gitlab.com/user/repo/-/jobs/artifacts/main/raw`, you can get the list of PDFs directly on readme of your git repo. pretty nifty for referring to later.
while inotifywait -e modify,create,delete,move $INPUT;
do
publish.script --input $INPUT --output $OUTPUT
done
# publish.script
pushd $INPUT
pushd $INPUT
printf "# Handwritten Notes\n\n" > readme.md
printf "| Index | Date | Title |\n" >> readme.md
printf "| --- | --- | --- |\n" >> readme.md
INDEX=0
for i in $(ls -r *.xopp); do
BASENAME=$(basename $i .xopp)
PDFNAME=$BASENAME.pdf
xournalpp --create-pdf=$OUTPUT/$PDFNAME $i
BASENAME=$(basename $i .xopp)
PDFNAME=$BASENAME.pdf
LINK=$BASELINK/$PDFNAME$SUFFIX
INDEX=$(( INDEX + 1))
DATE=$(echo ${BASENAME:0:10})
printf "| %d | %s | [%s](%s) |\n" $INDEX $DATE $BASENAME $LINK >> readme.md
done
if [[ $(git diff --stat) != '' ]]; then
git add .
git commit -m "$(date)"
git push
fi
popd
[Unit]
Description=Starts Sync Service
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=%%%SYNC_BIN%%% --input %%%INPUT_DIR%%% --output %%%OUTPUT_DIR%%%
ExecReload=/usr/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
KillMode=process
TimeoutSec=180
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target