
Magit Kickstarter fully funded - eadmund
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1681258897/its-magit-the-magical-git-client/posts/1988383
======
tarsius
(author here)

The support I received during the last three weeks has been phenomenal! Thanks
again! The only disappointment was that the campaign did not get a lot of
press outside the Emacs community, which was a bit frustrating because I
published a lot of the articles that are intended for potential users who are
not Emacs users.

Until now that is - please have a look [1]. I found it quite challenging to
explain why someone who is not familiar with Emacs would want to use Magit
even though the majority of those who have given it a chance swear by it. It's
a bit like explaining to someone who has only every used GUIs, why the
command-line can be an empowering interface. But I think I did a fairly good
job at [2].

Also, please excuse the crappy video - the Magit campaign might be the
Kickstarter campaign with the least polished video to ever succeed ;-) Luckily
a few users have created more informative video tutorials in the past [3].

[1] [https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/campaign-
articles/](https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/campaign-articles/) [2]
[https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git-
interface/#st...](https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git-
interface/#start) [3]
[https://magit.vc/screencasts/](https://magit.vc/screencasts/)

~~~
alphaBetaGamma
Would it be possible to do a special distribution for non emacs users? I'm
thinking of one download with emacs + magit + CUA mode by default + run magit-
status on startup (or whatever else would be appropriate).

So it looks like a standalone git client rather than emacs.

I'm an emacs user, so I would never use this, but it's just a thought.

~~~
tarsius
I intend to make Magit usable from the command-line, so `magit diff ...` would
be similar to `git diff ...` except that the output would be "actionable",
i.e. you can use `s` to stage, `RET` to visit the file/blob [edit: eventually
even in an editor other than Emacs] etc. And `q` to return to the command
line.

Packaging that up in a fail-safe fashion is a different story, I would like to
do that too, but I expect it will be a lot of work and would certainly
appreciate help with that. (There are some projects like Lispbox, which might
give such an effort a head start.)

At least in the beginning I think "mostly fail-safe" installation instructions
will have to do.

------
tptacek
Wow, I had no idea this was happening! You can still back it and apparently
get Magit stickers.

Magit is so good that it's actually a reason to use Emacs in the first place.

~~~
dman
Org mode is the other reason.

~~~
cjauvin
Personally, I find that Helm is the third (although I'm aware it might not be
a popular opinion).

~~~
pmoriarty
If you like Helm, check out Ivy, Counsel, and Swiper.[1] They do many of the
things that Helm does, but are a lot faster, less buggy, and have a less
unorthodox UI.

Also check out Hydra (by the same author).[2] That's really revolutionized my
Emacs experience recently. It's customizable menu system you can add anywhere.
I've put all those Emacs functions I keep forgetting exist in to it and now
they're all at my fingertips.

[1] - [https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper](https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper)

[2] - [https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra](https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I 've put all those Emacs functions I keep forgetting exist in to it and
> now they're all at my fingertips._

Can you share some of that? I've been meaning to get into Hydra, and would
gladly look at some configs.

~~~
weaksauce
spacemacs has a notion of transient states with menu systems like that that is
a set of hydra menus. something like `spc w .` to get into a window transient
state that shows you this menu:
[https://i.imgur.com/2VADwd9.png](https://i.imgur.com/2VADwd9.png)

or `spc b .` that gives you a bunch of buffer selection functions
[https://i.imgur.com/htj6xEn.png](https://i.imgur.com/htj6xEn.png)

quite useful and pretty easy to add to if you have a niche that is not being
fulfilled by the standard spacemacs.

a more complex transient state might be for org-agenda

[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/layers/%2B...](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/layers/%2Bemacs/org/packages.el#L336)

and a complete list of transient states here by searching for `define-
transient-state` that you may feel compelled to copy.

[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&...](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=define-
transient-state)

------
itamarst
If you're a magit user please keep contributing, so the author can get paid
better for his year of work that benefits all of us.

------
crispinb
(A bit of an aside) This represents an interesting 1-person 'business model':
make yourself useful (and known to be useful) working on an open source
project. Once established, use kickstarter to gain some full/part-time
funding. The amount of pre-kickstarter work involved to get there obviously
wouldn't make a good business case in purely utilitarian terms, but it seems
like an appealing way to have a chance at getting paid to do some good work.

~~~
tarsius
During the past few months I have seen a lot of blog posts by burned out
maintainers of open source software. One complaint was that companies expect
to be treated as customers without actually paying anything.

My problem is that I am one step further removed from the money - I write
"end-user free software", that's even harder to get companies to pay for than
an open source library. The Magit users among a company's employees might be
among those wasting the least time on version control and make fewer costly
mistakes than others, but while that benefits the employer it is not something
that is being measured.

So the money has to come from the developers themselves. I am very grateful
that so many of them have decided to back my campaign. I also think that the
Emacs community is being very nice with its maintainers. The vast majority of
users are very respectful when they need your help and they are generally a
nice bunch.

I don't know if a second campaign in one years time would succeed though - so
it's unclear whether this could become a successful "1-person business model".
I certainly hope it does - not just for me. It would be nice if fewer authors
of unique free software projects had to throw in the towel eventually and move
on writing "real world software" \- you know things that scale.

I actually did try to get some companies to pay for my work. I hoped that
Github, Gitlab, or Atlassian would see this as an opportunity to gain some
goodwill in the free software world, but that didn't work out unfortunately.

The Gitlab CEO actually replied within a few hours and seemed like a nice guy
(after sending my message but before getting his rejection I had actually
booked a flight to go see him at a meetup), but he was not interested in
sponsoring my work. Atlassian send me a canned response, and Github did not
respond at all.

Nor did its CEO who actually is (was?) an Emacs users who had forked Magit at
one point. I can't really blame him for that, the message probably was just
drowned in a lot of other email.

But I would have hoped that those companies would show some interest. Maybe
now that its users have shown with their wallets that they believe in Magit,
maybe now that changes. If you work for one of these companies, or a less
known competitor, and have anything to say in such matters, you are certainly
welcome to support me now!

~~~
crispinb
Yes it's inevitably a pretty hard row to hoe. It's innate to capitalism that
people without money as their ideological &/or motivational foundation are
rarely going to be in positions of influence. So it will be hard to convince
the denatured creatures that are positioned as real influencers to expend
their precioussss where they don't need to. And they don't need to in this
case.

The bright side is that our world is not (yet) entirely comprised of the
morally eviscerated, so, as you say, money for many widely useful things will
have to come from 'the developers themselves'. It may not form a sustainable
business model, but the temporary expedient is better than nothing.

------
systems
Any recommendation for a good tutorial or introduction article about magit

i use sourcetree, and i like it a lot, but with all the positive talk about
magit, i need to try it

i now only use emacs for org-mode and this mode is also by far the best
personal todo list i used (i.e. if you dont need any social, sharing features
found in web todos, org-mode is the best there is) .. so i know emacs can be
very good

~~~
rcthompson
Magit has an extensive manual that includes a "getting started" section:
[https://magit.vc/manual/magit.html#Getting-
Started](https://magit.vc/manual/magit.html#Getting-Started)

------
servilio
Very happy for this, Magit has been my git interface for years and the best I
have seen.

~~~
michaelsbradley
Indeed. And it's real power starts to shine when rebasing interactively,
working with diff ranges, etc.

~~~
boothead
What's a diff range? Do you have a link to desrciption/docs so I can read up?

~~~
michaelsbradley
some_branch..other_branch

If you've ever compared branches using GitHub, same thing.

------
phanboy4
I've backed the KS, used it every day at work for more than a year, never
going back to another git porcelain.

------
hashkb
Magit is the only git tool worth using other than`git` itself. Only criticism
is that it's too easy and fast.

~~~
taeric
I will confess it is sometimes slow over a tramp connection. Though, really, I
think that is just my VPN being garbage.

------
TeMPOraL
I've backed the Kickstarter too. I use Magit a lot while making money
programming (and even more for hobby projects), so it's only fair to donate.
Thank you 'tarsius for all the good work!

------
100k
I was happy to back this and glad to see it get fully funded. I hope others
will still contribute as the author will be able to work on Magit for longer.

------
nobleach
I still think the best Git plugin for Atom is
[https://atom.io/packages/atomatigit-
robdel12](https://atom.io/packages/atomatigit-robdel12) It keeps the general
spirit of magit which... is probably the best git client out there. Fugitive
is a close second.

------
SadWebDeveloper
Seems pretty difficult to use, almost on the same level as trying to learn to
use vim/emacs on 2017, somehow i expected a "poweful (G)UI" rather than a
text-based one. Anyone has a good recommendation for a good GUI for GIT, GIT-
GUI its a really confusing and jetbrains integrations felt like someone with
heavy background on cvs/svn made the interface.

~~~
taeric
What is difficult about it? I don't mean that combatively. Genuinely curious.
I'd think a toolbar might help some folks, but I also expect some folks need a
different interface.

~~~
CJefferson
From the example of kickstarter, it seems completely undiscoverable -- things
just keep happening and popping up and down, with no obvious indication of
how, or why, those things were selected.

It's a demo which I'm sure appeals to emacs users, who are the target, but I
couldn't imagine using it as a non-emacs user. I previously tried learning
emacs to use OrgMode, and gave up after a couple of days when I failed to
master even basic text editing skills.

~~~
SadWebDeveloper
This is my original point, tbh i didn't know about magit before this post,
when i first opened the link and find out about it somehow i expected a GUI
rather than a text-based app, m sure vim/emacs fans are excited about it but
to me, this type of UIs (text-based) feel old and clunky. it's like we were
still using norton/midnight commander for handling our files.

~~~
lionel-
The point of this kind of UI is that they become an extension of yourself.
Saying these UI are old and clunky is exactly like saying a keyboard is old
and clunky.

~~~
SadWebDeveloper
Sometimes 2-clicks can be faster than 2x 3-key combo just to make a feature
work and also keyboards are old and clunky, ask any k-12 kid today and they
will type faster on touch keyboard than a mechanical cherry-mx powered one.
People still using text-based only IDEs for productivity are just prolonging
the inevitable.

~~~
taeric
Only when training is lacking. And I don't mean this in a derogatory message,
either. People that are trained with a keyboard are pretty much guaranteed to
be faster than folks that have only learned to work with a mouse. Discover,
though, will be much much faster with an exploratory interface. To that end,
the mouse will lead to faster discovery in most cases.

------
uniacid
Looks interesting but I definitely prefer Tower: [https://www.git-
tower.com/mac/](https://www.git-tower.com/mac/)

Best GUI for Mac and they also have a Windows client as well now, just makes
life easier and repos easier to manage especially when you have merge
conflicts!

