

Growl 1.3.1 is out, no longer free - avirambm
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/growl/id467939042

======
jacobolus
The complaints about growl being an impossible distracting productivity suck
are overblown, and completely miss the point of growl.

The great thing about growl is that it provides one central place to control
notifications, adjusting their parameters with fine grained control. If you
find some particular type of notification obnoxious, change its behavior or
_turn it off_.

If growl didn't exist, every application would provide its own mechanism for
notifications, and the user would be left turning off distracting crap in 10
places instead of one, and unable to adjust that one vital notification to
behave as desired.

~~~
maximusprime
Seems like something that should be built into the OS. It's a feature not a
product. Why isn't it just built in?

~~~
nailer
Because many people find animated notifications from apps they're not using
horribly annoying.

~~~
maximusprime
If it was built in properly, you'd be able to configure which apps are allowed
to send notifications etc.

~~~
shinratdr
You can do that with Growl right now. Also, users that don't like it don't
even have to consider it if it's 3rd party. I see no problem with the current
system. Apple has had a million chances to buy Growl and never has, it's not
going to happen.

~~~
maximusprime
I don't really understand why they would buy Growl. It wouldn't take long for
them to add in to OSX themselves.

~~~
semanticist
Many third-party applications use Growl for notifications. Buying Growl and
maintaining the API would mean that Mac OS X Margay's exciting new
Notification Centre feature would have instant support across a wide number of
apps.

The actual cost of buying Growl is negligible to Apple.

~~~
JimDabell
It's Apple. All they have to do is issue a beta and they'll have plenty of
people writing to the new API.

The cost of buying Growl isn't just the dollars used to take ownership of the
company. You have to integrate the people and the code. For a feature as small
as this, it's just plain _easier_ to implement internally.

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xal
That's good. One of the biggest productivity gains you can have as an OSX user
is uninstalling Growl. Being interrupted constantly by stuff that doesn't
matter ( Email arrived, iTunes changed song, Download done ) will reduce your
ability to focus on the task at hand and all of those things can be processed
later and don't need immediate attention.

~~~
MrEnigma
I know people really enjoy not being notified. However for things like email
for me, since I need to be reading and up to date on them for work, it's much
easier to look to the upper right of your screen and see what it is instead of
switching apps and checking to see it's just a 'normal' email you don't need
to respond to.

~~~
gojomo
People also enjoy slot machines and heroin.

(Update: FWIW, I believe the parent read "people enjoy being notified", with
no 'not', when I wrote this. Not sure if I misread or it was modified.)

~~~
dextorious
Yes, because not being notified is equivalent of gambling and heroin.

~~~
gojomo
Actually, _being notified at unpredictable intervals_ , as a bit of random-
reward, has effects on the limbic system similar to gambling and drugs.
Onscreen notifications let you binge on these little pleasures: enjoyable,
yes, but rarely productive.

 _Your strawberries are ready to be harvested!_

~~~
gojomo
Also to keep in mind: if you downvote this, you are probably an addict in
denial! Our 12-click program is arranging meetings _now_ in major tech hubs,
check meetup.com for all the details.

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lautis
Even though Growl 1.3.0 was distributed via App Store with the same price tag,
the source code was published at <http://code.google.com/p/growl/source>.
Seems like that practice has stopped as well.

~~~
nspragmatic
[http://groups.google.com/group/growldiscuss/msg/0793d15920fa...](http://groups.google.com/group/growldiscuss/msg/0793d15920faf093)

~~~
chow
Thank you for posting that; the headline of this story implies that the new
version is less free than 1.3.0, which does not seem to be the case.

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thibaut_barrere
Never had an issue with growl "parasiting" my attention. I'm happy to use it
for automated tests feedback.

I have no issue to pay a few bucks for that to help out on maintenance.

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xbryanx
Uninstalling Growl can also save you some embarrassment. I was interviewing
someone last week with my laptop hooked up to a projector (forgot to disable
Growl). It took me a while to figure out why someone was giggling. Growl had
just broadcast across the bottom of the screen, "From Mint.com: You have
exceeded your Fast Food budget for the month."

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haakon
The latest episode of The Basement Coders has interesting coverage of the
Growl situation and they interview someone who decided to fork it:
[http://basementcoders.com/2011/10/episode-47-fork-you-
growl-...](http://basementcoders.com/2011/10/episode-47-fork-you-growl-
interview-with-perry-metzger/)

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sdfjkl
How are new users ever going to try out Growl now? There's no free trial (only
an old version that doesn't work well under Lion).

I also don't appreciate the way this was pushed to existing users: I got a
notification that there is an update for Growl, so I dutifully click on that
and promptly get sent to an iTunes store page demanding money.

At this point I've disabled Growl to find out how much I really relied on it.

~~~
sdfjkl
A few days later I'm happy to report that I don't miss Growl at all and have
completely uninstalled it now. Turns out bouncing dock icons are sufficient to
point out when an application wants attention.

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albertzeyer
So, I would say, let's fork it.

~~~
rgovostes
To save $2 and cheat the developers out of earning something for the work
they've put into the program over the past 7 years?

It's still open source and you can still compile your own version, but
nonetheless the developers deserve a tiny bit of compensation for the work and
support they provide.

~~~
albertzeyer
From another comment here, it seems they are discontinuing the open
development, so further features wouldn't be open source anymore.

I'm quite sure that other people have already helped out at the source code.
That is the point of being open source.

Anyway, I think that such a basic and central application for MacOSX should
always be free and open. And if it is not free or not open anymore, the
logical consequence would be to have an alternative project for this kind of
application. And it would be a logical consequence to base this new project on
Growl.

Thus, a fork.

~~~
rgovostes
I don't know which comment that you are referring to but it is incorrect. I
personally confirmed with the project lead that they have no intention of
"discontinuing open development."

Growl remains free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer if you're willing to
compile it yourself. The $2 fee only applies if you obtain the app through the
Mac App Store, of which a mere $1.39 goes to the project's developers.

~~~
albertzeyer
I meant that comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3203473>

So where is the code of 1.3.1? Even when it will be released once, why not
immediately? With 'open development', I also really mean open development, as
in other open source projects.

Anyway, as others said, this is still not an option, it still should be free.
For example, in my own free and open applications which depends on Growl, I
would distribute a free copy of Growl now because I want my users to be able
to use it for free. And that goes for most Growl-using applications.

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andrewljohnson
Really disliked Growl when I had it installed.

I wonder why people like it... is there some killer use case, or does it just
interrupt your work endlessly with Skype notifications, software updates, and
other nonsense?

It's bad enough that I keep my GMail open continuously... I've thought about
shutting that down for most of the day too.

~~~
egypturnash
The key to making Growl good is to prune what it notifies for. What do you
actually care about? Me, I mostly use it as an iTunes track info display, just
a little note in the bottom corner of my screen that fades in and out quietly,
and reappears when I hit a hotkey. I've also used it to display error messages
when debugging an Applescript. There's one guy who uses it to [give himself
instant visual feedback when he breaks the
build]([http://szeryf.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/way-beyond-cool-
autot...](http://szeryf.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/way-beyond-cool-autotest-
growl-doomguy/)).

I don't have it notify me with info about every email. I don't have it tell me
when someone IMs me. If an app starts spamming me with notifications about
something I think is unimportant, I go into Growl's prefs and turn that app
off.

~~~
MrFoof
I agree entirely.

I use Growl for exactly one thing: To notify me of deliveries via the Delivery
Status widget. Because if I don't act on picking them up quickly, I might have
to wait 1 to 2 days to get my package from the office.

Everything else? Off, because there's no material benefit for me being
notified.

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bane
Seriously, how is this not part of the OS yet? Half a dozen different ways to
switch between apps, but no built in notification system to tell that I
_should_.

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MrEnigma
I've been using the paid version for the last couple of weeks, and it works
equally as well as the old version. However they added a rollup feature, so if
you're away it would track them all, but you couldn't remove it. The release a
few days allowed you to be able to disable it, which works. However there are
still some small bugs (like a notification that got stuck and you couldn't
remove). It's really about the same as the old version.

The one cool thing they added was the ability to forward growl messages easily
over bonjour (auto detection). So if you have two computers, when one is idle,
it can forward it's messages to another active computer.

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tezmc
I've never wanted growl on my system, and yet somehow it keeps ending up on
there without my seeming to have any say in the matter. At least this has
given me the reason to uninstall it yet again.

I already have enough distractions as it is.

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GameGamer43
I like may others was using the free version of growl prior to 1.3. When 1.3
came out I paid the $2 and upgraded as I found the product useful and enjoyed
the work the developers put in. Now don't get me wrong, I could have just as
easily compiled it on my machine and continued to use it, but that would
defeat the purpose of continuing to support something I use daily.

With that said, I will say that in 1.3 the roll-up notifications was a true
pain to get used to, as there was no way to turn them off. However this has
been resolved in 1.3.1 and I urge anyone who didn't enjoy 1.3 to give 1.3.1 a
chance.

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bauchidgw
does this mean other apps won't install this attention parasite per default?

~~~
yoklov
Typically I've found that they ask first, however even that is annoying.

I don't want growl support, and I haven't wanted growl support in a very long
time. I've yet to see a use case for it that didn't seem bent on interrupting
the user with a distraction, and preventing them from getting things done.

Screw that, I'll stick with programs bouncing subtly in the dock, where I can
ignore them.

(Not to mention, the last time I used growl it (or the programs who used it)
suffered from a few bugs which would cause it to occasionally barf
notifications all over my screen without warning. How rude!)

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bricestacey
I was wary of this change myself, but I was just prompted to upgrade Growl,
which linked to <http://growl.info/growlupdateavailable> and also included a
link to source and how to build and install
[http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-
insta...](http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-install.php)

Major props to the Growl team for subsidizing their work while also keeping it
free.

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liar666
This is a well known technique to capture a market: release a free (as in
gratis) version and when there the market share is sufficient or the
competition killed, make a non-free/gratis release with most-wanted features.

Maybe some day people will stop being stupid and understand that Apple is here
to make money. If you want reliable software, use free (as in "free speech")
software. Or at least OpenSource sofware, you'll always be able to use the
latest release!

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buff-a
Still free for programmers:
[http://groups.google.com/group/growldiscuss/msg/0793d15920fa...](http://groups.google.com/group/growldiscuss/msg/0793d15920faf093?pli=1)

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blhack
To all of the people in this thread complaining about growl:

You realize that you can configure what it alerts you about, yes?

~~~
protomyth
I think the bigger problem for people with Growl is many apps installed it
without telling you. This tends to put a bad taste in your mouth.

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wavephorm
Sorry, this should be a "feature" of the operating system I'm using, not an
additional add-on piece of software that I have to purchase.

~~~
rbanffy
Actually, it should be a feature of the graphical (or non graphical)
environment you are in, not the underlying OS. The OS should not be concerned
with how or what things appear on a screen.

~~~
icebraining
You're confusing OS with the kernel. The graphical environment _is_ part of
the OS.

EDIT: is -> is (often)

~~~
perokreco
You are confusing OS with the userland. Graphical environment is not
necessarily a part of the OS. If you run Linux you can load a number of
different graphical environments.

~~~
icebraining
If I use Linux I can load a number of different filesystems. Are these not
part of the OS?

While the OS doesn't _necessarily_ have to distribute a graphical environment,
it can and it is often a feature of the OS, unlike what rbanffy said.

I've edited my post above.

~~~
rbanffy
> If I use Linux I can load a number of different filesystems. Are these not
> part of the OS?

Actually, most filesystems are part of the kernel. There is the FUSE
mechanism, on which you can attach user-space file systems. Filesystem drivers
attached in such way are usually (unless you are doing something wrong)
portable across OSs that share similar mechanisms and, as the name implies,
are withing the user space. not OS-space.

> it is often a feature of the OS

Much like tires are a feature of a car. The fact you bought them together does
not mean they are the same object. A tire is not a car much like a GUI is not
an OS.

~~~
icebraining
Never said they were the same thing. My original post was "is _part of_ the
OS".

 _OS space_

Again, that's kernel space. OS is something bigger. Debian is an OS. GNU/Linux
is an OS. Linux by itself isn't.

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vertr
I've always had a love/hate relationship with growl. Sometimes it just seems a
bit _excessive_ and overly distracting. With growl being a paid app now, will
developer support wane? Now that I have to buy it, it might be a good reason
to stop being distracted by it for me.

It would have been a better solution if they released a free stripped down
version, and a 'Pro' version with the new toys.

~~~
Zev
_With growl being a paid app now, will developer support wane?_

If anything, this will help increase core Growl developer support; they
actually profit from spending time on Growl now.

~~~
tom9729
I think he was questioning whether developers will continue using Growl
notifications.

~~~
Zev
That isn't how I read his statement, even after reading your reply to me.

However.. the SDK is still free, easy to integrate (having done the
integration process myself) and users still like it. That last point is,
really, the important part here.

~~~
dreww
since you're being deliberately obtuse, i'll spell it out for you on his
behalf.

WILL USERS STILL LIKE IT, WHICH IS WHAT GETS DEVELOPER SUPPORT, NOW THAT IT
COSTS MONEY?

~~~
Zev
You know? I had a long post written out. About how I'm actually one of those
developers who you're questioning and so on. But, none of that is relevant.
The only thing that matters is this:

 _Growl is the #2 app in the entire Mac App Store._ It has been in that
position since the Growl developers first put it on the App Store weeks ago.
The only thing outselling Growl is Mac OS X itself.

So, please. The next time you want to accuse someone of being "deliberately
obtuse", consider that the person you are talking to _might actually know what
they're talking about_ and step back before you make yourself look silly and
condescending. :)

