Should "cannibalism" among developers be permitted?

[fotisevangelou]

http://extensions.joomla.org/component/ ... Itemid,35/

Second line:

"...Free alternative to SIG PRO..."

I wouldn't call this "fair play" exactly. It is totally irrelevant to the description of this extension and all it does is hurt a hard-working dev team, behind the original idea, which BTW offers BOTH a free and commercial version.

The Joomla! Extensions team should not permit such "cannibalism" among joomla developers in my opinion.

I, as a developer, have never written one single extension description, in which I'm comparing my creation to someone else's... It's best to let the community decide on that...

Regards,

Fotis
JoomlaWorks

[ot2sen]

Hi fotisevangelou,

Thanks for bringing up this matter
Can only agree that it shouldn´t be necessary to lean against already popular extensions in ones description of own extension.
Think the users are clever enough to judge themselves.

We will take note of this and discuss if its really needed to write down a rule for an obvious thing like this.

[fotisevangelou]

Asking the developer to remove his reference would also be a good starting point for the Extensions Team.

Cause these 2 products both launched with less than 24 hours difference (JoomlaWorks' product came first), STILL mainting this reference causes potential losses for us.

[ot2sen]

Removed the above mentioned reference and sent a friendy note to developer asking to respect the editing done.

This match will now continue in the spirit of Fair Play. May the best team win 

[fotisevangelou]

Thank you for your immediate response. 

[opware2000]

désolé pour cette erreur, ce n'était pas dans le but intentionnel de créer une querelle entre nous. 
Comme je t'ai répondu fotis, c'était une maladresse de ma part, maladresse qui a été corrigée.
J'ai modifié ma description ainsi que retiré les références à sig pro. 
en espérant ne pas vous avoir mis en colère.

Pour information ma version alpha est sortie le 18 mars 2007 sur la forge officielle.

--
english translation from google 

Sorry for this error, it was not with an intentional aim to create a quarrel between us. As I answered you fotis, it was an awkwardness of my share, awkwardness which was corrected. I modified my description and remove the references to sig pro.
while hoping not to have put to you in anger.

For information my version alpha left on March 18, 2007 on the official forge.

[eyezberg]

Fotis, I am sure a mail to Nicolas would have solved this as easily, more so as it is non-intentional? Same as not bringing commercial disputes to the forums somehow.. Glad it's settled though.
(edit:typos..)

[fotisevangelou]

Fotis, I am sure a mail to Nicolas would have solved this as easily, more so as it is non-intentional?

I did actually... It was the first thing to do, but fortunately ot2sen was more responsive, even though I posted later here on the forum, having gotten no response from Nicolas. Either way, "cannibalism" really did take place, in my opinion.

We need to set some posting rules in the extensions site, otherwise, trouble is on its way...

Imagine the developers of X free product saying "hey, why pay for the other Y commercial product when you can get ours for free". This is unfair, unethical and potentially deceiptful for the end users, for various reasons. E.g. the developer (I'm not talking about Nicolas in particular here) might offer this product as "donationware", or might offer this product with NO FREE support ("pay and you'll get an answer"). Or this developer might sell other services related to this product or even ads! And in the end, the commercial (Y) product might prove to be of higher quality and a less "expense" for the end user (both in terms of money and time).

The JoomlaWorks project is a part-time job for me, right now, cause I mainly focus on website development. But others rely on joomla development to make a living. For example, how would the community accept me and what would happen if I started copying commercial templates and releasing them for free to make money e.g. from Adsense? Eventually, people would prefer the free copycats and the guys I'd rip off -who really did the hard work- would close down their businesses. And the biggest loser in this case would be Joomla.

Both as a devoted joomla user and professional, I've been extremely fair to the community and other developers for over a year now. And I've made many good friends on this extremely intriguing venture! But I've NEVER compared JoomlaWorks' work with others' and I do not intend to start so. So the community (=we) needs to set some rules on how we interact with each other on such levels.

...I modified my description and remove the references to sig pro...

For information my version alpha left on March 18, 2007 on the official forge.

The reference to SIG Pro was at least unethical and the fact that you don't speak good English, does not mean you had to "rush" in and publish your extension. You could have asked for someone else's help on the translation and make out something unique. Hell, you could have asked me! Cause you sent me an email the day before asking if I wanted a french translation from you for the SIG Pro. Here's the email:

Hello !
I see that you have released a new version of SIG.
Do you want that I translate it in french ?
But this is a commercial licence and i don't want to pay for translate it .
Regards.
Nicolas

You could have told me, "hey man, tomorrow I'm launching my own version"! You know what? I would have given you my blessings and even helped you on the translation!! This is what really bothered me...

One last thing. Regarding the fact that you mention March 18th as the day you launched your alpha version... Well, that doesn't say much really. And including this irrelevant reference in your current "extension description" for a free plugin is like trying to take credit for the work over someone else's. I don't see your plugin being a stable release. Why release it now? Why didn't you release it when you were on "alpha". Come on man, did you have to wait for us to do so?

I have repeatedly mentioned the planning of SIG Pro -with details of its features- publicly both in this forum and the JoomlaWorks forum a lot earlier.

And I'm sure -as ot2sen said as well- that "the users are clever enough to judge themselves".

BTW, SIG free is actively developed and NEVER stopped in favour of the commercial version. The commercial version came as a request by many professional developers and we simply fulfilled that request.

[opware2000]

If I didn't speak to you about my mambot in my e-mail, it is simply because I didn't want to mix my request for translation in French with my mambot, it is all.
In fact, at this time, I did not even know that I was going to even publish it the evening. I'm waited the feedback of a friend's test.

Why publish it now, quite simply because I had requests of users! As you insist, I will remove my plugin of official extensions and can be to publish it on joomla.org when it is completely stable if it is one day.

I did not want to take your work,  but only  refer to it. Because you gave me the idea to make this plugin to improve the basic functionalities of SIG. Moreover I sent to you a preworking version with caching thumbnails, in January-February.

Excuse me, but I am not always on the official forum nor on your joomlawork forum, and I've discovered your version only Monday, when it left, when I looked at how can I announce my extension.joomla.org!

So I proposed to remove my version beta, and I ask you to accept all my excuses for this awkwardness in my description.

In a friendly way

Nicolas

(sorry for my english, i read  but don't write it very well)

Edit : My plugin is remove from the official extensions site, 4/4/2006 at 09:20 GTM (10:20 French hour)

[ot2sen]

Somehow this thread took a bad turn.

@Opware2000: no need to remove your nice extension. There is room for it 

@fotisevangelou: You got a public apology. It would look good to accept it 

@All: We did take note of the original issue raised "compare other extensions in your own description", and will discuss this within the editorial team.

[opware2000]

ot2sen : to late But i will come back with it when i have a totally stable release.

I don't wan't that this tread took a bad turn, for me it's closed, i make a public apology.

See you soon

[fotisevangelou]

@opware2000
Apology accepted Nicolas (no head was taken!). Just for the record, I did not request for the plugin to be removed, just the description be re-written. If you wanna re-publish it that's fine by me, as long as there are no "obvious" references / comparisons to other people's work.

@ot2sen

We did take note of the original issue raised "compare other extensions in your own description", and will discuss this within the editorial team.

That's good to now.

[opware2000]

Ok  I re-publish it as soon as possible (when i correct the last css bug), but with a french description because it's only in french for the moment
Sorry about all.

[ot2sen]

Ok  I re-publish it as soon as possible (when i correct the last css bug), but with a french description because it's only in french for the moment
Sorry about all.

Note: Only english description will be allowed for Joomla! Extensions Directory 

[opware2000]

Think to the poor developers which do not write well in English!
I believe that I will know googletrans very well  lol !
Don't worry i will found a translator !

even helped you on the translation

euh, hum... fotis what do you do in the future ?