Moom's cask can convert paid users into demo users without any warning

[rg-manytricks]

Output of brew config

N/A

Output of brew doctor

N/A

Description of issue

Many of our apps, including Moom, are sold with one year of included updates. After that, updates may be paid. For users who update within our app, we determine whether an update is paid or free for them, and proceed accordingly: Free is installed, paid gets a warning dialog the user must work through and then choose to update.

But the unofficial Moom cask posted here does no such work. It simply checks if the user's version is older than the version on our server. If it is, it installs the update. And if it was a paid update for that user, they now have Moom in demo mode. Invariably, these users then contact us, upset that we would convert their paid app to a demo app without any warning. They also don't generally tell me they used homebrew to update, so it takes a bit of back and forth to find out that yes, that's what they did.

Ideally, the cask would read the date from the user's license file (found in their Library > Application Support > Many Tricks > Licenses folder), and compare it to the date in the sparkle:thresholdTimestamp key/value pair in the appcast file. If the license file date is older than the date in the appcast, then this is a paid update for that user, and it should not be automatically installed.

A non-perfect but simpler solution would just be an interruptive warning about possibly converting their paid app to a demo app if they go ahead with the update—this could be a one-time thing, just so they're aware of what using the cask may do.

We understand the value of homebrew and the cask system—I use it myself for lots of Unix apps, though no GUI apps at present. We'd just like the Moom cask to be a bit more cautious before converting paid users to demo users.

thanks;
-rob.

Relevant casks

moom

[SMillerDev]

Updates to the cask definitions don't happen on the user device, they happen in CI in https://github.com/homebrew/homebrew-cask. So I don't think we can do either of these things. Is there no way for the app to check if it was paid or not?

[rg-manytricks]

I'm not sure I completely understand the question: When you update within Moom, it definitely checks if it's paid or free, and acts accordingly. But with the cask, we have no control: The cask runs, and the fully-licensed Moom app is replaced with a newer version that requires a paid upgrade, and is thus in demo mode. There's nothing we can do to prevent that, which is why we were hoping the cask could do the required work up front.

We do have a button in the License window to let them easily revert to the last paid version, but this can get into an endless loop: They revert, the cask updates Moom, repeat.

-rob.

[SMillerDev]

So, my point is that we don't have any way to do this. Updates are not checked per user device. They are checked in a centralised place using the appcast file: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/99f3820afb0dbf40d77c71f1fa77452571c34e25/Casks/m/moom.rb#L10

If there is a different file for paid users I think the best way is to remove the cask because we have no way to handle that.

[rg-manytricks]

Ah, OK, thanks, now I understand. It's the same file for paid and free updates, we key everything off the date in the appcast and the user's license purchase date. And while removing it seems like an easy fix, the problem is that there are clearly people who rely on it; I hear from only a small percentage each time we do a paid update. So removing it would upset a lot of people who are using it and understand its limitations.

Showing my lack of knowledge of how casks work (I'm the non-programming half of the company), is there no way to insert a one-time warning about possibly converting a paid app into an app in demo mode? Like when the cask is first installed, or run for the first time? I'd hate to see it go away, but I don't like dealing with upset users over something we don't control.

[MikeMcQuaid]

I'm the non-programming half of the company

It's probably best that the programming half of the company get involved here.

[rg-manytricks]

He has been involved in every single reply, approving each and every one of them, but I happen to be the one with a GitHub account.

[p-linnane]

The cask simply installs the DMG published at https://manytricks.com/download/_do_not_hotlink_/moom#{version.no_dots}.dmg. Homebrew has no knowledge of a user’s Moom entitlement. Moom reads the license and decides the installed version should run in demo mode, so this needs to be handled by Moom rather than the cask.

[rg-manytricks]

Moom cannot handle this, because the cask has already replaced Moom. The old app is completely gone, so the new app is in demo mode. We also don't know that the user installed it via homebrew, so we can't act any differently when they launch it. Basically, we cannot change anything about this process, because it's over before we're involved.

Which is why I was asking if the cask could not ask one simple question, on first use, then never again? "Use of this cask may result in your Moom running in demo mode, if you install a paid update via the cask. Are you OK with that (Y/n)?" That would at least let the users know it's a possible outcome. But I'm guessing the answer is that a cask can't do anything interactive like that in any way, so the answer is no.

If that's the case, we support leaving the cask in place (given it's used by a fair number of people), and we'll just point any future upset users to this topic (after explaining how to downgrade) when they complain to us about the outcome.

thanks;
-rob.

[p-linnane]

I personally upgrade paid Rogue Amoeba apps and Little Snitch through Homebrew without issue. Their licensing survives the app bundle being replaced. If Moom reverts to demo mode after the same operation, that is an issue with Moom’s licensing implementation, not the cask.

[rg-manytricks]

I imagine those apps simply don't show paid updates in Sparkle, so you never see them, so you can't lose your functional app? Otherwise, you'd still be replacing a paid app with a demo app, and wind up just like Moom users. This is how, for instance, CarbonCopyCloner does it: Free updates show in Sparkle, paid updates are a different upgrade path.

Our model is different, as it's not based on version numbers, but when a user last paid. We have done away with "major updates," so there's never a Moom 5 that will cost just because it's 5 not 4. It's just a matter of how much time has passed since you last bought an update.

Our licensing does survive app udpates intact—the license files are all still there—but because the app has been replaced, that license is now in demo mode for users who last bought an update more than a year ago. There's nothing we can change on our end with "Moom's licensing implementation" that would change that.

I think the bigger issue is that this model simply doesn't work well with homebrew. The historical case for most developers was that if it was in Sparkle, it was free, so it should be installed. But times have changed; many devs have moved to pure subscriptions, which we had no interest in.

But we hated the "major release coming, must hide/hold features" that we put our customers through (and the stress it induced on our end), so now you buy the app once, and pay for another year of updates once your included year has expired. If you don't want to pay, you don't pay, and the version you have keeps working. There are other apps that use the same model: Nova, DEVONthink, BetterTouchTool, BetterDisplay Pro, and CleanShotX amongst others.

Our Sparkle appcasts show all available updates. Any given update will be free for some users, and paid for other users. (Other developers may do this differently.) That's the part of the model that the cask can't support—it just installs anything newer than what the user has already installed.

If the cask can't account for the possible "now a demo user" result by warning a user in advance that it might happen, then I don't know what else to suggest. I guess those that use the cask will just have to understand that they'll occasionally wind up with Moom running in demo mode instead of using a fully-paid Moom. If/when they contact me, I'll send them some boilerplate on what caused the problem.

-rob.

PS: As an unrelated aside, the zap commands in the cask are overly aggressive: They remove the entire Many Tricks folder, which will remove the licenses for any other Many Tricks' apps the user has installed.

[p-linnane]

That distinction confirms this is an incompatibility between Moom’s licensing model and generic app upgrades. Homebrew upgrades many paid applications without leaving them in demo mode and cannot implement vendor-specific entitlement rules.

The zap behavior is also documented: it runs only when the user explicitly passes --zap, may remove shared resources, and is unrelated to upgrades. See https://docs.brew.sh/Cask-Cookbook#stanza-zap.

[MikeMcQuaid]

What happens if said user has to do any of the following without cask:

• setup a new machine
• recover from a machine repair
  etc.

Would they do something very different to what the cask is doing? If so, we could do that. If not: not really sure I see what option we have.

[rg-manytricks]

We'll leave it up to you to determine if all of Many Tricks' casks remain, given the incompatibility. However, if you are going to leave them, I would argue that they should be consistent: Moom's cask deletes the Many Tricks folder, but the casks for Name Mangler and Witch do not.

I appreciate the answers, and knowing that there's nothing more that can be done for our apps.