I created an open source application called AI Runner. This is a solo project I've been working heavily on for many months. It was never intended to be a full-time project.
I experienced some burn out from my last job and took some time off to explore my own small projects. During that time Stable Diffusion was released and I started building my own interfaces for it.
Over time I have built up an active user base and I am constantly adding new features, tweaking the design and fixing bugs... it has turned into a full-time project, I have run out of money and have had a difficult time getting hired again.
Although the app is available for free if one should choose to compile from source or install bare metal, I have started charging a small amount for the compiled version which I distribute on itch (see link).
My sales are rather low and I'm facing a crossroads - do I scale back development, try to seek funding, get a part-time job or pick up contracts that will help me pay rent so I can continue developing this app, run a Kickstart campaign, or something else entirely?
I actually enjoy working on this project. It brings me satisfaction to help my users and add unique features, however I've got bills to pay.
Have you found yourself in a similar situation? What choice did you make? What course of action would you recommend?
The only relation is that I used that plug-in prior to writing mine. I was inspired by it to make my own. I originally created a NSFW filter for that plug-in you mentioned. The code still exists but I closed the branch. No offense intended to the authors but...
The code in that repo is not in great shape. It is forked from stable diffusion webui and has diverged from the parent fork (at time of this writing "This branch is 473 commits ahead, 271 commits behind sd-webui:main").
I've seen multiple complaints regarding the code. It was hard to add the NSFW filter, and even as such the maintainer never merged by pr. Streamers can't use the plug-in without a ban risk on twitch.
My code is very clean and well documented. Adding new panels etc to the krita plug-in itself is extremely easy thanks to the classes i wrote.
Furthermore the existing solution uses a webserver, whereas mine uses sockets. Existing has blocking requests (click button, wait for image for 8 seconds or more) whereas mine is non-blocking (uses threads and a queue system so you can keep working in krita while it generates).
I realize mine is still in a broken state, but it won't be much longer. If anyone wants to contribute that would also be helpful.