So someone has generously given you free code without warranty, and you see it as their responsibility to also give you free support for it.
Does that about sum it up?
So someone has generously (and for the purposes of marketing their company’s services) given you free code without warranty (that has, after months of problem free function, now failed to work as advertised), and you see it as their responsibility (to address failures in their tools that I have brought to their attention) to also give you free support for it (although having specifically written that I don’t need support, because I’m competent, so perhaps I’m a bit confused there).
There – I fixed it for you.
If you’re competent, just debug and fix it yourself. The most proven business model for GPL-based free software like WP plugins is paid support.
If something doesn’t work (or stops working), and you ask the author (or anyone else besides yourself) to fix it, you are definitely asking for support, whether you classify it as such or not.
+1 davidryal – smartest thing said so far in this thread.
would be nice to have the fix with the package due also i’ve got the same problem (no twitter connection for the new post)
He had the idea and offered the solution, or at least a prototype of it.
If you want it done for free, do it yourself, fix it or develop something better.
Many of my plugins are forks of existing ones. I get a plugin that I like, but it’s not perfect (some are very badly coded and I see I can make it much better), so I take the algorythm and make it as it should be.
If you don’t want or isn’t able to do it yourself, then my friend you don’t know how the system works. Why would somebody give you free support? You can ask somebody to do the job for free (which you are doing, searching for another free plugin), but if you don’t find another idiot then yes you must pay for it.
In the same way that, if you have a need and find no existing software that already does that, you must hire somebody to develop it.
Anyways, the function works perfectly for me, so I REALLY don’t need support. 😉
It’s honestly pretty sad how many people feel like they’re personally entitled to tech support for free, GPL-based projects. I know more than one geek who’ve quit WP-related support jobs because of this lack of understanding.
I wish there was a reputation system on .org so these +1’s could mean something. 🙂
Actually I don’t think the users are entirely to blame.
Some of the fault lies with we the programmers. Too many of us have given our code away (which is good) but then also given away free support (which is bad). Giving support away is bad because it devalues us and programs the market to expect support for free.
Every time someone gives support for free they make it that much harder for the next programmer to charge for support.
Over the last decade we have educated our market to believe they are entitled to free support to go with their free software.
Its going to take a lot of re education to get the market as a whole aligned with a paid support model.
What makes it worse of course is not only do many feel entitled, but they also feel they are entitled to be rude when asking for free support
shidouhikari you know that for the GPL license, if you change a plugin you must make it available in the same conditions of the original one?