Why it's free

Free, and not a trial of anything

There is no paid version waiting behind this one, no subscription, and nothing that stops working after thirty days.

Years in radio stations, in one job after another, taught me the same lesson every week: the work is not the clever part, it is the hundred small ones. Cutting the pauses out of a long take. Getting a voice recorded in somebody's kitchen to sit next to one recorded in a studio. Putting a bed under it, checking the level, sending it before the hour.

The programs I did it in were not built for that. They were built for music, or for film, or for selling a subscription - and they all made the hundred small things slightly harder than they needed to be. After enough years of it, the shortest way to a better afternoon was to write the editor I actually wanted.

So Seston is not a product with a user somewhere. It is the editor I use for my own work, every week, and that is the whole reason the awkward parts get fixed: they are awkward for me too. Charging for it would not make it better. It would only mean deciding who is allowed to have it.

It was built to be used, not sold

Seston is the editor its author wanted for his own radio and podcast work. That work still happens in it every week, which is why the awkward parts get fixed - they are awkward for him too.

There is nothing to charge for

It runs on your machine. There are no servers doing the work, no accounts to keep, no storage to pay for. A price would be a price for nothing.

No advertising, no data, no bundles

Nothing is collected and sold, nothing is installed alongside it, and no screen is rented out. Free here means free of those as well as free of charge.

What it is not. It is not open source. The program is free to use and to pass on, but the source is not published - one person maintains it and that is the arrangement that keeps it maintained.