THe current situation with "Donations"

I must after much frustration, air my view on how things are working around here with the so called donations.

First off all, I must send out big kudos to those of you who aren't greedy fucking bastards, who do this to improve your coding skills, and enjoy doing so as a hobby and do not allow Donations; CLU devs and bobby53 for example.

Donation
noun
* an act or instance of presenting something as a gift, grant, or contribution.

Pay
verb
* to transfer money as compensation or recompense for work done or services rendered; to satisfy the claims of (a person, organization, etc.), as by giving money due: He paid me for my work.

Now, to you greedy fucking bastards (and yes, i know i'm cursing - but its to emphasise) Who clearly don't know the difference about these two terms.
Don't camouflage your so called paypal-accepted donations, for something it's not. If the work you are presenting is per definition FREE, either you pay up or not, then the amount recieved is classified as a donation, else we PAY for the service / job done, and thus it is called a payment.

Doctors without borders are something you donate to. You don't have to - but if you feel that it might help them in any way, you do.

You don't donate $5 at MCDonalds, and get a burger in return - you pay for it, and get a burger in return.

Do i have to explain even more?
No? Good.

Now unless you deliver a Routine or profile that kicks any of the free one's ass, then you shouldn't even consider to take money for it. Maybe donations, but that's far stretched too.

Look at Kickass. Amazing example in this; All his profiles are free - and it's a god damn encyclopedia of profiles, but if you want to pay for this guy's lunch a day, you have the ability to.

Thank you, all of you - for your hard work and dedication without expecting nothing but gratitude in return - I deeply respect you with all of my heart.

The rest of you - try harder.

 

When you are good at something never do it for free.

 

People will only donate if they feel that they are getting something out of it, example; see the cute baby panda adverts? save the panda? save the tiger? there are a lot of ugly creatures which are also in critically endangered but you never see them on T.V because then people won't feel like they need to take care of that thing (broody mothering thing that humans and animals have) so wouldn't get many donations.

This could include long term support of a plugin/profile/routine, more features etc.

Apoc claims BSD licence, but they offer the BSD licence and another closed source version which although I think breaks the rules I do think if they really put the effort in then they can accept donations but they call it a donation when infact it's a paid version.

 

It's rather amusing that some of the guys i Want to donate to, don't accept them.. There work is usually superior also.

But you did just remind me that i have not donated to kick in prolly over a year... Incoming paypal kick!

 

Damn you're a wise boy.

 

You're the to quote you "greedy fucking bastard" that want people to spend hours upon hours creating something for you while you give them nothing in return.

 

I have nothing against paying for a service, or donating as a thank you to these people, i maybe forgot to mention this. But paying for a service that is less in a general perspective compared to the free versions, is not only a waste of money, but also wrong in the way that we promote and cheer up "bad" releases.

 

as someone who been running a donation link for sometime, yea it kinda gets discouraging, when you put a bunch of work into something and feel like no one appreciates it, not only that but then having to deal with people who want support for your plugin, or custom class and never say thanks and never post logs and just complain. its hard i know, but when you do get a donation from someone who truly likes your work, its much sweeter then milking it from someone.

heres the other side of that coin, if you guys dont like that someone is charging for a monk CC, or whatever, we have an environment where you can make your own and if you like try and de-throne people who are doing it, but yet no one is stepping up, in almost all cases everyone is complaining and i have seen no attempts to make projects that work better then the stuff they want donations for. if you dont like it, there's 2 things, one your not forced to donate for it, and two if you REALLY dont like it, then you can make your own to share with the community.

i dont know what im getting at, but i think i made a point, i was traveling all day so if it dosnt sorry

 

How about we think of it in terms of an actual program?

Lets say a person created a program that is basically a download manager.
There are 2 versions of it. These being the free and paid version.

The free version is available to anyone who wants to use it, but has limited functionality.
Download speeds are faster than what you could get with chrome, but not as fast as the paid version.
Only certain sites could be downloaded from.
It allows for only one download at time. (No parallel downloads)

The paid version unlocks all of these features.
You get the fastest possible speed.
You can download from any website.
Unlimited parallel downloads.

The same principle applies here.
Everyone who is asking for donations has provided a free version of whatever they coded to the public.
It may not contain all the features the paid version does.
But it is free and if you want everything unlocked, you would pay to do so.

I have only donated for one plugin on this forum, and that was Phelon's PVP plugin.
The free version contained everything, but lacked a GUI.
I wanted the ease of a GUI, so I shelled out $5 to do so.

As CnG stated above, you are not obligated in any way to spend your money on our forum, other than for our bot.
Anyone can make a better and free alternative, but no one wants to do so.

 

Dunatank, yes, that is the case - and boy that GUI is nice to have, but you still have the option to run with the free version. Same with TuanHA. But it's not a donation - it's paying for a service, and that shouldn't be camouflaged as "donating".
ANd to be honest, they are gimping the Free versions to the point where you feel obligated to get the paid version to get at least some sort of control - unless you got insight as to how the routines works, and how to customize it to your liking.

As I stated above, Kickass' work is fully avaliable to the public, with or without donating.

Atleast dunatank accepts any amount paid as a accepted amount, make it $1 or $1000.
Please just grow the nuts to actually call it a payment instead of donation, and we will be golden. =)

 

well the rules are you can accept donations for your work, but you cannot solicit them (Eg Begging). if you want to Buy and Sell, you need to do it somewhere else, as when you do that it opens up for people to scam each other so its not allowed.

 

Even though I'm involved in the topic, I don't see the need of discussing terms. Sparx, you seem to have a problem with the expression "donation" in the context it is used in, but not with the process of transferring money to recieve an altered, improved or more advanced version of something that is also available for free. Did I get your point right?

If that is the purpose of this thread, I really don't see why you are so furious about it.

In addition, there is absolutely no need to insult developers.

Sincerely,

wownerds

 

If buying and selling is forbidden, then why do you look away at this gray zone that they are in?

Also wownerds, how have I insulted developers?

 

offering features in return of donations (e.g. additional gui, or just an extra log-line in HB) equals selling. its not donating, its selling.
selling is forbidden on the forums.

i don't get the discussion, actually. and i don't get why people are still allowed to sell (features for donations) stuff.

thats my 2 cents

 

That's the reason. If you're asking for money for a full product, as the OP pointed out, it's not a donation. You're buying something. I, personally, don't have a problem with developers selling their routines and the like. I'm a card-carrying cult-member of the open-source movement, so I don't, but if it wasn't against the rules, I wouldn't care one way or another.

That being said, if you are requiring a "donation" to gain access to the full version of anything here that is not one of the bots (ie, plugin, routine, profile, quest behavior), then I think that discussing terms matters significantly.

But, as CodemanG says, when you ask for donations, you can expect to almost never get any. I think perhaps the way to solve the issue is to ask the site admins to consider ways of allowing people to sell their work. But if they say no, there may be a more serious issue.

Also, for those who use closed-source: you might want to consider the possible* ramifications of "owning" some of the projects *(can't say this is at all accurate, but worth a thought). If the project is open and Blizzard asks you top stop, you can stop and anyone and their mom can continue the project. If the project is closed and Blizzard gets an itch in their pants for you, you'll have no safety net.

 

You honestly believe it's a matter of will, rather than a matter of abilities ?

Most of the users here are not experienced coders and don't even know how to post a log. Programming in C++ or LUA is not for everyone and very few people here can do it, and then understanding the workings of WoW and of this bot is also not for everyone. There is too much standing between a person and the "free and better" program.

Following your logic, all The Buddy Team would have to do to deal with this situation would be the following.

-Deliver a better CC, which will melt faces for leveling, raids and PVP and allow for easy customization.
-Deliver a better BGBuddy, which will play like a real player, going after objectives instead of running like a lobotomized zombie.
-Deliver a better Dungeonbuddy, which will play as intelligently as a real person.
-Deliver a few options for selling, vendoring, mailing, restocking on food while leveling.
-Deliver a complete leveling profile pack, with customizable leveling routes, where the player determines which zones HB should visit and the bot takes off.
-Deliver a complete prof buddy, which will automatically go and level up your profs, by going out and gathering all needed mats from all needed mobs with no intervention.
-Deliver a viable multibox botting suit for questing, dungeons, raids and Battlegrounds.
-Deliver a viable navigation mesh that never gets you stuck.
-Deliver a viable, easy way for people to create their own gathering, questing and PVP profiles, with an easy to use UI.

When all of these happen, I can guarantee that nobody will ever develop another paid plugin, or a paid CC for HB, because HB will do it all exceptionally well, right out of the box and users will be very happy, because they won't be faced with additional headaches and additional costs in an effort to JUST GET THIS THING TO WORK OK.

I realize full well this is an enormous task, but if it was purely a matter of will, what's the hold up ?

TL;DR - sometimes, it's not just about wanting to do something, but about being able to. I would if I could, but I can't, so I don't.

 

not sure if that's to me or not, but if so that wasn't my intention not in the slightest.

your Release thread can exist if you have a direct download linked on the thread. (preferably as an attachment), like i said your allowed to have a donation link. there's been cases where people have charged for SVN access and we have allowed it.

i think we're going to lock this thread down as its up to US the moderators and people who run the forum to ether allow, or not allow it,

yea its sad thats what some people are doing
yes its sad we dont have more community developers and support

but ultimately its up to us to decide.

have a nice day.