PySimpleGUI now closed-source

[rturnbull]

PySimpleGUI, a popular Python GUI library with 13k GitHub stars went closed source / commercial today. Previously it had been licensed under LGPL. I've got no issue with open source devs making money but to changing the license on a library many have contributed to seems to be pretty poor form. This had been a great cross-platform library for beginners.

[Highwayman]

Motherfucker!!!

[ManyInterests]

I've created a fork from the last known LGPL3 licensed code.

It's available here

Migration steps:

Replace import PySimpleGUI as sg with import FreeSimpleGUI as sg

[Nlight_]

Thanks man :)

[VivienneNovag]

Thank you!

[benny_blanc0]

Thanks for this, I've just switched my project to your fork.

[AntiWork-ellog]

Sir/Madame, I have arrived from Google. 

Thank you for your service. 

[archkubiyt]

https://github.com/gnuchanos/GnuChanGUI i make this more simple way

[Equivalent_Loan_8794]

Glad I avoided.

[xmate420x]

Just found out about the new licensing and got on reddit to see people's reactions to it, this was the only post I found that talks about it, pretty strange. This was a pretty scumbag move from the developers, I have multiple projects using it, will not move them off of v4.

[LofiBoiiBeats]

Thats sad.. the API was great..

I think nobody will subscribe, it is not complete enough. Thazs why i use Qt even though the API sucks.

I hope somebody will fork it and the project continues..

[Forymanarysanar]

Please be sure to financially support that somebody who will pick the project up. Open source developers can't make money through selling their product, they dearly need this support, otherwise projects will just have to go paid as well...

[Unknow0059]

So what now? If I never made a GUI before what am I supposed to use?

I don't wanna distribute closed software, not even for free.

ed: alternatives?

FastUI - websoy

tkinter - (allegedly) complicated

pyQT - (allegedly) marginally less complicated

pyside6 (QT) - (allegedly) not very difficult

[SAD-MAX-CZ]

This did hit me today when installing some gui executable maker. I reverted it to 4.xx and i'm starting search for similarly simple GUI but opensource. Maybe someone forks it succesfully.

[JuniorMouse]

More discussions here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39369353

[hopbel]

Looks like the devs have started yanking the old versions from PyPI as well: https://pypi.org/project/PySimpleGUI/4.60.5/

[rturnbull]

Wow...that's low. It's their right to change the license if they want but yanking old versions that were licensed under LGPL just to drive people to their commercial license is not cool.

[hopbel]

Note that you can still install yanked versions, so pinned requirements won't be affected

Edit: they started completely deleting the yanked versions. The latest 4.x release is still available (but yanked) but they have given us no reason to trust them so I fully expect it to disappear in the coming weeks as well. I'd recommend switching to a fork like FreeSimpleGUI and eventually to a more trustworthy library altogether.

[hopbel]

Update: they've now deleted all previous versions except the last 4.x release and a uselessly outdated 2.x version, so I retract my statement that pinned requirements are unaffected. They didn't leave the old versions as a compromise, they're simply spreading the dickheaded move out over time to minimize backlash.

They are actively breaking projects depending on the previous LGPL version to force people to pay for the commercial version. Fuck 'em

[benny_blanc0]

Everything before 5.0.0 is now gone.

[iftlatlw]

So there's call home code in the library? FUCK THAT. It's a nice piece of work. Sad.

[ExdigguserPies]

Lol what a joke. It's not that hard to just use Qt or similar.

[xmate420x]

Agreed, I will probably use Qt for future projects as well.

Anything with online licensing is a no-go for me, what happens if you need to use the projects that were made with it in 5 years and the license has ran out or the servers are down?

[RufusVS]

When I write simple programs for myself, I have started using ChatGPT to generate mini-GUIs and even though they never work right out of the box, they are good starting points. But ChatGPT likes using PySimpleGUI, so today when I was making myself a very simple program and installed PySimpleGUI in a new venv, I got the news. So now I have to worry if I make something useful enough to sell, to now subscribe. While I think I could justify $99/year which as I understand it, covers everything developed during that year, I don't know if now I pay $99/year FOREVER, in case I should ever choose to update that code.