Rigel Kentaurus
Well-known member
I agree with most of what you mentioned.The same methodology could perhaps be the reasoning behind bugs being present in the software package itself. I understand you would rather isolate your addon so its not effected as much by Xenforo version updates but I see several negative aspects of that methodology. To me, the biggest issue is, if you're reinventing the wheel instead of using existing Xenforo framework it provides a foreign experience for the user instead of something they are used to. This also means that when Xenforo does update something, your addon might not receive whatever improvements the Xenforo team has made. You mentioned Social Groups not needing an update for 1.2 or 1.3. While the addon didn't break, it feels out of place because its still not responsive while the rest of the site is. Also, if you are reusing Xenforo code instead of rewriting your own you can almost be assured that its well coded and won't contain bugs.
I hope that this potential CMS integrates smoothly with Xenforo and provides a seamless, professional transition for the end users. Potentially sacrificing these things because the developer doesn't want to do updates when Xenforo releases a new version doesn't seem like the best idea to me and would probably discourage me from getting involved in any crowdfunding.
If this add-on can get a developer that guarantees to be around to fix things every release (probably for free, right?), then there is absolutely no problem with downplaying the maintenance effort.