Annual Hiatus

We here at Hargata Softworks are no strangers to developing Open Source Software(OSS) and are very familiar with OSS: the culture, the community, and the workload. Despite LubeLogger being our first major project on GitHub, we have worked and contributed on many, many OSS projects in the past. Basically, this ain't our first rodeo.

Even before LubeLogger was published and released, we have a longstanding tradition of stepping away from OSS in the Summer and Fall months, and it is no different with LubeLogger being where it is now.

Why

TL;DR: we'd rather be doing other things than stay at home and stare at a screen answering questions, committing code, and reviewing PRs when it's nice and sunny outside.

The long version: we live in a part of the world where warm weather is scarce. Our Winters are long, brutal while Spring is non-existant. During these times, we tend to find ourselves stuck at home with nowhere to go and nothing to do(unless you count strolling at Walmart as a good way to pass time). When it finally gets nice and warm, we have a backlog of stuff to do: touch grass, work on our vehicles, visit family, go on road trips, etc. Working on an unpaid basis on OSS is very low priority when the weather is nice and there are other more pressing obligations.

What Does This Mean

From May 1st to November 1st every year, we will not be reviewing PR's nor read any Issues/Feature Requests or Bugs that come in through GitHub repositories. We may pop in once in a while to answer questions but we have no obligations to do so.

You can still submit PRs and Issues or start discussions, but we're most likely not going to see it until we come back on November 1st.

Urgent Issues / Feature Requests

If you have time-sensitive requests e.g: needing something done in a set time frame during our hiatus. It is going to cost you.

Our hourly rate is $200 USD per hour, with a minimum of 40 hours.

Basically, if we implement your feature request and it took us 20 hours, you'll still have to pay us $8000 ($200 x 40). If the feature ended up taking 45 hours, it will cost you $9000($200 x 45)

Note that we will only start charging after we have a signed contract, which means we are not obligated to take on any work.

Reason for the Pricing Structure

Before anyone points out how steep the pricing structure is, remember this: when we're contracted to perform work during our hiatus, we aren't just implementing your features, we're also taking time off from our plans which may involve rescheduling and canceling plans.

The reason for the minimum 40 hours is because it's hard to gauge how complex or time consuming a feature request is, and therefore, when we are contracted to perform work, even if it only takes 20 hours in actuality, we are potentially canceling a week's worth of plans.

The "Final" Release

The release right before we go on our hiatus will typically be about two weeks before the hiatus begins so we can get it tested by users and have any pressing bugs ironed out right before we leave.