Removing mods from vb.org in support?

[Kuma]

I heard that argument before today. The thing is... it doesn't hold water. XF isn't IB. XF will never ever do what IB does now. Hence no one is ever going to delete anything here. We have to remember that these mods are not paid for, so no one has any right of claiming anything. When you use something that is free, you know future support is never a certainty.

People who go to a resource site do not care about the day to day interactions, they in all honestly do not care about IB, or XF, or anything else. You or anyone else removing their modification hurts them. You can tell them you are doing it for X or Y and you will make a new product for Z and etc etc. But in the end they see that Mr. Developer left me and tooks his code so I cannot play with it anymore. You hurt your community of people who liked your product. One day it might hurt the parrent company, but not before you have betrayed your own community.

 

[Forsaken]

I heard that argument before today. The thing is... it doesn't hold water. XF isn't IB. XF will never ever do what IB does now. Hence no one is ever going to delete anything here. We have to remember that these mods are not paid for, so no one has any right of claiming anything. When you use something that is free, you know future support is never a certainty.

That argument holds no weight; you can never know what will happen in the future.

I've seen plenty of start ups that seem ethical in the beginning sell out due to unforeseen reasons, and then have the whole company go to crap. Thats not to say it will happen here, but that statement also holds no water.

You also can't reasonably expect people who have had 'their' mods (Most users will consider something they use to belong to them in one way or another, its called entitlement) will feel betrayed and/or harmed in some way by actions taken by someone. Once that happens, it becomes bad PR for whoever made them feel that way, and more often then not, people do not recover.

 

[dutchbb]

That argument holds no weight; you can never know what will happen in the future.

I've seen plenty of start ups that seem ethical in the beginning sell out due to unforeseen reasons, and then have the whole company go to crap. Thats not to say it will happen here, but that statement also holds no water.

You see it does, because I wasn't speaking in general, I was specifically speaking about XF. And I'm pretty sure Kier & the rest won't let happen to XF what happened to vB.

You also can't reasonably expect people who have had 'their' mods (Most users will consider something they use to belong to them in one way or another, its called entitlement) will feel betrayed and/or harmed in some way by actions taken by someone. Once that happens, it becomes bad PR for whoever made them feel that way, and more often then not, people do not recover.

The coders have no intention to harm the admins using their mods. He or she just can't give support anymore since it goes against their moral values. No one has any right of telling them that they are betraying anyone. They work for free, so they decide in what conditions. If they feel bad about a situation in a way that it takes the pleasure out of their work, then they have every right to quit that work. People should understand that. I for one, understand it very well.

Having said this, I can understand your point too. It's very nice when someone cares so much about the community that they would work against their own principles. But you can't expect it from someone, it's entirely their free choice. And you certainly can not blame them for doing what they feel is right.

 

[Forsaken]

You see it does, because I wasn't speaking in general, I was specifically speaking about XF. And I'm pretty sure Kier & the rest won't let happen to XF what happened to vB.


The coders have no intention to harm the admins using their mods. He or she just can't give support anymore since it goes against their moral values. No one has any right of telling them that they are betraying anyone. They work for free, so they decide in what conditions. If they feel bad about a situation in a way that it takes the pleasure out of their work, then they have every right to quit that work. People should understand that. I for one, understand it very well.

I doubt it'll happen with XF, as everyone involved has always proven themselves extremely ethical. However what do you think would happen if they had little choice in the matter, and did have to sell the company/software? You can't take into account situations in the future, because they do come up, which was my point. I hope nothing ever comes up that would ever force that decision, and I truly would be disappointed if it did, but I won't ever say it can't happen without some uncertainty, as I have seen it happen time and time again, and have been in that situation at least once myself.

They might not have any attention of harming administrators, but people do take it the wrong way (The translation mod that was released for vBulletin originally had a lot of bad PR after the original coder decided to remove it without warning due to criticism), and it has happened in the past with other things.

Lets just agree to disagree because I am talking about how people will feel, which tends not to be logical, and you are talking about a logical person thinking through everything, which won't happen if they feel betrayed.

 

[John L.]

I only have 1 mod and it's just a template edit . I don't think it's worth much of anything...

 

[Hannah_M]

Because people will then think if something happens with XenForo, it might happen again.

Once a person has their trust betrayed, it is often hard to regain it, and communities are based around trust.

I honestly think if they feel the need to remove their work, they should do what they want, its just more that it can also be harmful to their image, and it is probably best if they left things and stopped supporting them and made their opinions known.

They made their oponions known by removing their mods. I have seen people who tried to talk to IB the civil way but it fell on deaf ears. Sometimes talk doesn't cut it.

 

[dutchbb]

@Forsaken: I respect their decision either way. And I added in my former post something after you quoted, explaining how I understand your and Kuma's standpoint.

 

[Hannah_M]

I only have 1 mod and it's just a template edit . I don't think it's worth much of anything...

It's the gesture that counts my friend, the gesture.

 

[Forsaken]

They made their oponions known by removing their mods. I have seen people who tried to talk to IB the civil way but it fell on deaf ears. Sometimes talk doesn't cut it.

Actually, it wasn't so much as talking to IB, as talking to their users, to make their standpoint known in a way that they would respect, but also still have the resources available.

"This person has done this or that for me, and if they have taken this action due to the situation I should probably look into this" is an example of the thought process of one person I talked to earlier on MSN (Paraphrased because I'm to lazy to find a quote that wasn't personal).