maxblogpress

Charge for the plugins that that market would support charging for.
Charge for support.
Develop paid plugins for clients.

There are lots of ways to build a viable business model.

What if someone can’t pay for the plugin? If you have got lots of money then it doesn’t mean you should make everything a paid service and make it harder for the people who can’t pay for the paid plugin.

What if listening to you, google stop showing ads in their search engine and ask you to pay to use their service? What if all the radio starts asking for monthly subscription charge and stop accepting the ads? What if all the tv channels stop showing ads and start asking you to pay huge subscription charge for just watching a single channel? Chip, please don’t think from one side. Look the world from other side as well.

Thanks for pointing out that potential security/privacy breach in WordPress. We’ll have to press the devs to take a look at it.

That’s not a security breach. If you are a good programmer then you should have understand what I have said above. If I was coding under wrong intention and wouldn’t have respected the users rights then I would have made everthing automated without asking for user’s permission. The subscription form is there to make user know that they are subscribing to a newsletter.

And that’s why your plugins are not suitable for the WordPress repository. The registration takes place after download and installation, and thus represents a use restriction that renders the plugins not GPL-compatible.

I can give hundreds of reasons why this plugin is GPL compatible but it would be waste of my time as you are not in the mood of listening from the other side as well. Later, sometime think about the whole thing with cool mind.

By the way, if you really think the plugins are not GPL compatible then you are violating the law by modifying and distributing the plugins developed by us without asking for any permission. You yourself is touting that my plugins are not GPL compatible and you yourself is treating it like the way it is distributed under GPL.

– Pawan Agrawal

You develop plugins for a living, and you just “left in” a couple hundred lines of dead code? Riiiiiiight.

If you know the development process then you probably know that it’s always good to keep the functions as it is in the code which can be used in the future. It’s the worst decision to remove all the codes which are not being used. Some are kept their intentionally to develop on that further in future.

Not the versions I downloaded a few weeks ago. They still invoked the update functionality right after verifying that the user was registered and on your email list.
Further, if you are now updating via WordPress SVN, why does the update link in the plugins point to a current version, rather than a two-year-old version?

Please, check properly which plugin you are talking about. Not all of our plugins are hosted in wp repository. The one which are hosted in our website still check for the updates from our own server.

Every repository-hosted plugin has this functionality, via the “Upgrade Notice” section of the readme.txt file. This notice appears on the Manage Plugins page.
So, there’s nothing you’re providing that isn’t already provided for by the WordPress repository and the plugins’ built-in functionality.

It’s funny to see your interpretation. Well, does that upgrade notice shows the notice in the plugin’s setting page? Most users never check their manage plugins page unless they want to add/remove any plugin. I think update notice should be displayed in the seeting page as well so user get notified about the updates for the plugins they regularly use.

@michaelh: Yes, I agree many plugin developers provide support. But most of them are usually random support and don’t allocate dedicated time just for support. That’s what we do for free.

Also, most plugin user don’t even know where to ask for the support and if they ask they don’t know when they’ll get the reply.

I followed the whole thread. There’s still debate on the donation link and I for sure agree that donation link should be allowed. The developer is already releasing his/her theme/plugin on GPL license. It itself tell the user that they can remove the donation link if they don’t like. It doesn’t mean author shouldn’t put their donation link.

Mike said it very well than me:

Serious Question:

If someone devotes their time and energy into creating a plugin and/or theme and offers it up via GPL-licensing to the community, is it really so bad for them to put a link in their admin section asking for donation, even if it does request them to link to the blog or click a button that says “I already donated?” It’s GPL so anyone who wants can fork it and get rid of it if they like. Some developers may not want their clients to see a donation button, but shouldn’t that developer who is getting paid give a little back to the plugin/theme developer who helped them get paid? It seems like being against this is like “biting the hand that feeds…” (with some thumping NiN cords in the background… 🙂

Also, while I also don’t see why it’s so bad to have an external link on a theme (i.e. not in the admin console), I can see where some might feel that is over the top but still they are providing a valuable service; why shouldn’t they be able to get a link? Again, the user can modify the GPL theme if they like and remove the link.

I do see where they shouldn’t imply that it must be paid to license it because that would violate the GPL, but if it’s made clear it is only a request for donation, what’s wrong with that?

-Mike

– Pawan Agrawal

@dholowiski: The MBP plugins didn’t update via the repository anyway. They use their own update routine, built into the plugin, that checks for updates at the MBP website. (By my reading of the repository guidelines, that also was a violation.)

Chip, it seems you are new to this wordpress development. In the past there was no automatic notification andautomatica installtion for the plugins. We custom developed such features for the support of our user. Talk about dedication. At that time no other plugin developer had thought in that way. I think we were the only one who provided such easy features to users.

Later, wordpress built its own wordpress directory and then provided update notification and automatic install to the wordpress users. Those codes are there as it is from the past. Our plugins now gets updated by wordpress repository in the same way as other plugin does.

Also, there’s still one more unique feature in our plugins. Our plugin have custom notification bar in our plugin’s setting page where we alert the user about important updates. There’s still no such feature available in other plugins.

If I were to keep using it, would you recommend not upgrading to newer wordpress versions?

To make sure its still compatible and all. Im kinda a new blogger.

This message proves people need more than just one time plugin. People, need support and new updates for the plugin. That’s what we have been providing for free.

Eric, if wordpress support us then we’ll continue to provide free support and free udpates. You can upgrade to new version of wordpress without any problem and we’ll keep our plugins fresh and updated over time.

– Pawan Agrawal

I am glad to see the plugin removed… it definitely goes against the spirit of the plugin directory. Has anybody thought about forking the code and writing a ‘sanitized’ version? It’s GPL after all.

I don’t think our plugins goes against the spirit of the plugin directory. In fact I tried my best to make it free for everyone. Instead of making people pay for the plugin, I went the other route and made the plugins available for free by simply asking for trying our free newsletter.

If someone is willing to create a fork then I’m happy with it. But please don’t forget that maxblogpress has developed more than 25 plugins and have continually provided free support, free bug fixes and free upgrades. If anyone can give that kind of dedication and can provide that kind of support then sure go for the fork. Otherwise, please don’t ruin these free services for everyone.

– Pawan Agrawal