The first release

The backstory

I started out building gg in the summer of 2020. At the time, I was thinking a lot about React, which I used up until then for about three to four years. I love React, but I noticed that I tried to hit too many nails with a single hammer.

In particular, I was frustrated with how many code I shipped for websites that contain no dynamic element whatsoever. I knew that there are other tools for building static sites that don't end up creating a full-blown React application, but I also did not want to leave behind the cool things about React: Components and especially JSX.

So I started hacking on my own static site generator. Just something super simple and lean that would let me generate static sites with code looking just like React code.

It got out of hand just a bit.

So today I'm officially announcing gg. I'm also releasing the first version, which is 0.1.0.

There's one caveat: It's not open-source. At least not yet.

How? Why? Let me give you my thoughts on that.

It's not done yet

I'm a perfectionist. That's also why it took over half a year and some hundreds of hours of coding up until this point. I don't like to throw something over the open-source-fence that I'm not totally sure about.

At this moment, I'm pretty confident that the codebase is at a good state. Both feature-wise as well as quality-wise. I built some things myself using gg and it felt pretty good.

There are quite some rough edges still. And I'm not sure how to deal with those yet. And until I made up my mind about these open issues, I just don't want to build up false expectations by releasing something that's likely to change.

Solving my own problems

As I mentioned in the beginning, I started building gg to solve my own problems. In my opinion, that's the way every product should start. I believe that only if you create something that makes your own life easier, you can be really passionate about it. And passion is the driver you need to build great things.

In the future, I'll always want that gg continues to solve my own problems. But I also want to share the solution with others that face similar problems that I do. However, I doubt that there will ever be two problems where the exact same solution will fit. Thus, after sharing gg with you all, I expect one of two things to happen.

First, either gg is a solution that specifically solves my problems, meaning no one else will use it. That's fine. After all, I built it for myself.

Second, there will be other people interested in using gg. In that case, there will also be feedback: Questions, bugs, feature requests, and a lot of discussions. That leads me to my last point.

Future resources

Currently, I have a full-time job, 40 hours every week. And I don't expect that to change in the upcoming times.

The only time I can invest in building gg is my free time. Coding sessions in the evening and taking some time at weekends. I'm fine with that, as long as this aligns with my needs.

It's another story when it comes to supporting others. I want to avoid the common curse of open-source: Continuously fixing and improving something for free only to help other people. I value my free time. And if I need to spend some of it maintaining a software project, I would love to get some kind of compensation.

That is why I decided to go with an approach called Sponsorware, with sponsoring done through GitHub sponsors:

1. For the start, you need to sponsor me to get full access to gg and all of its features and updates. Sponsorship starts at 15$ per month.
2. Once I hit 1.000$ per month, gg will become open source and freely available to everyone around the world.

I hope this will allow me to get the best of both worlds: Making some great software available to all and keep the spirit of open source, as well as having a constant stream of income that compensates my time investments.

If that sounds like a fair deal to you, head over to my GitHub sponsors page. I'd love your support, it means the world to me!

In the meantime, I'll start building some awesome websites with gg! Are you joining?