I’ve written about Álvaro Ramírez and his Emacs projects many times. He’s produced some impressive Emacs apps that many of us take advantage of. Like me, Ramírez is an Apple user and he has also written some iOS apps that that are similarly worthwhile. One of those is his wonderful *scratch* app that provides a sort of Emacs *scratch* buffer on an iOS device. My first thought was “why would I want this?” but I bought it on a whim and shortly thereafter life intervened to validate my choice. I’ve been a fan ever since.
Ramírez also has an iOS app, plainorg, that provides some elementary interaction with Emacs Org files. I haven’t installed it mostly out of inertia and dithering about whether I should choose it or one of the other iOS apps that offers to bring Org to my iPhone. Despite my indecision, plainrorg has been well received and users—in the way of users everywhere—are demanding new features.
That, of course, requires significant effort and Ramírez is wondering the what’s the best way to pay for that effort. Take a look at his reddit post to get an idea on what he sees as possible solutions. He considers a single one-time fee, a subscription plan, and several other ways.
In general, I prefer to pay for a lifetime license up front even if the cost is larger than a few years of a subscription. One commenter suggests a hybrid scheme where you can either subscribe or pay up front once and for all. One thing I don’t like is a one-time fee that devolves into a subscription plan. I view that as a bate and switch scheme and it always puts me off. Several of my important apps have done this and it always annoys me and starts me looking for alternatives.
In any event, if you fall into the intersection of Emacs and iOS users, vote in Ramírez’s poll to help him decide what to do.