What you actually get.

Vibalos sits deep in macOS APIs that either don't exist or are markedly weaker on other platforms: Apple Vision for on-device OCR, Accessibility permissions for global hotkeys, Sparkle for EdDSA-signed updates, the native NSPasteboard watcher.

Going cross-platform would mean building three separate products — one per OS context. Linux has no comparable OCR stack, Windows has no comparable permission layer for menu-bar tools. The result would be a tool that's mediocre everywhere instead of excellent on one platform.

If you work in a mixed team (DACH reality: 30-50% of devs on Linux/Windows): Vibalos covers the Mac-half. We don't pretend it's a full solution for your whole team.

In 2026, open-source maintainers are flooded with AI-generated pull requests — most well-intentioned, few well-crafted. Maintainer burnout from PR triage is the most common cause of small OSS projects dying.

Vibalos is built by a solo developer who needs the revenue to fund the next features. Going open source would mean spending 30% of the time on PR reviews instead of code. That comes at the expense of what makes Vibalos better as a tool — i.e., at your expense.

Fair question. Vibalos is built by a solo dev. Bus factor 1 is a real concern for multi-year tool usage — especially in professional settings where the tool is part of a compliance stack.

The answer has three layers:

Layer 1 — Continuity Clause in the Terms: Should the provider permanently cease operations, the buyer is hereby granted the right to continue using the software on the licensed Macs indefinitely. License verification is offline and doesn't expire. Updates stop, but the last installed version remains functional.

Layer 2 — License Issuer as open-source option: The Cloudflare Worker that signs licenses can be released under MIT on request. You could run your own license server for your own Macs if new activations become necessary.

Layer 3 — Source escrow for Teams: For business buyers: source code held by a German notary. Trigger conditions: 90+ days without releases, permanent incapacity, or insolvency. Recipients: active license holders, under a 'use for own continuation' license.

Many apps write "no telemetry" on their landing and still ship data — Sentry crash reports, anonymous usage stats, remote feature flags, A/B tests, "phone home" license checks. "No telemetry" is interpreted very generously in the industry.

At Vibalos, "no telemetry" is literal: no active data collection, no external service calls from the app, with two explicit exceptions: the update check (HTTP GET to the appcast URL, once per day) and the Polish call to your local Ollama or Apple Foundation Models.