[Vtigercrm-developers] Dear Blazej

[John Crisp]

On 16/10/14 11:16, Prasad wrote:

> We are always interested in the contributions that would make the
> framework much better than what it is.
> 


Sorry Prasad, but what a complete and utter load of rubbish. He may as
well shout at a deaf man.


> You are welcome to use the updates that suit best and contribute patches
> to us - we appreciate the same.
> If there is a strong dependency - we may have to rewrite - hope the
> license would allow it.
> 
> Please send us the list of vulnerability you would like to share - we
> will review and act on them sooner
> and devise a patch release if required.
>

Hahahahahahahahahaha....................

Contribute patches ? What should devs do ? Write it on a post card and
mail it ?

With all due respect Prasad (and all the vtiger team), and having sat on
the side of this debate (and many similar ones for a long time), you
have clearly 'missed the boat'. He isn't going to give you any more code
because you really don't care, and finally, neither does he.

You cherry pick what you want from devs, and drop the rest. Do I blame
him ? Not one bit. You haven't listened or cared before. Why now....
????? Ahhhhh....... oooops. A vulnerability that you missed...... maybe
you should have listened to him before then ? vTiger team reach out to
the community...... when it suits.

I don't know when the vtiger devs/managers will ever wake up to the fact
that you have lost too many good developers due to your intransigent
isolationist attitude.

Who are the losers ? vTiger, and its users. There are no winners.

Chris Hamono sums it nicely in his post
http://lists.vtigercrm.com/pipermail/vtigercrm-developers/2014-October/030147.html

Look at Joe Bordes, Adam Heinz, and now Blazej, amongst (many) others.
Great developers, but you have ignored them for so long that they
decided they had to vote with their feet. How many users has that cost
you ? How much money has it cost you ? Probably a lot more than you may
think. There are none so blind as those who cannot see.

To me, this thread sums it up :

Wrong Billing / Shipping Address in PO
http://lists.vtigercrm.com/pipermail/vtigercrm-developers/2014-October/030081.html

This is complete and utter insanity. I've heard some pathetic excuses
before, but this takes some beating.

I really don't get what you guys are doing. Bugs outstanding forever and
a day, and your eventual answer is to 'upgrade' after people have had to
hack the system to make up for the fact you couldn't be bothered to
release even simple fixes and thereferore ended up with a bespoke system
that is a nightmare to upgrade ? Don't even ask about my upgrade from
5.2.1 - 5.4 No wonder '30%' haven't shifted to v6 or whatever. How many
of those are now looking at different solutions as it is probably easier
than upgrading to your "not very latest and greatest" and going through
all that pain again ? I'd love a bit of whatever you are smoking - it
must make the world look great.

Open Source is not about making a commercial version, and then offering
belated scraps to the community, which is all you actually do. It's not
about having a 'developer list' just to trawl and hope you pick up the
odd security fix that your team missed, or a brighter idea you can
implement and call your own.

It's about offering quality support to those that choose to pay for it,
and working with your community to make it better for one and all.

You (or you bosses) don't seem to grasp the concept that encouraging
developers to enhance your software can be beneficial to yourselves
because you can use the patches etc to enhance the PAID FOR version.
Free developers. Oh, what a novel idea. Never thought of that before.

Paid for = same software, but better support. Customers get bespoke
functionality that others don't. They get you on the end of the
phone NOW if there is an issue. Others don't. Paying customers get fixed
today. Everyone else gets it tomorrow, or the day after.

But not 2 YEARS (or whatever) after.

I have seen so many great ideas, patches etc suggested here by
phenomenally talented developers, and yet time after time you ignore
them (despite untold promises of how you are going to do more with the
community) and ignore and frustrate them until they feel they have
nowhere else to go but to either use a different product or fork. How
sensible is that ? Are you going for a record as the most forked project
ever ? Yes, you can tell the world about how great your software must be
if people want to fork, but it disguises the ugly truth that the reason
they fork is that you won't listen or work with them. Forks fix nothing.
They dilute the talent pool.

I'm no coder, but have reported bugs in the past. I'm competent enough
to test and report, make changes etc. But you wonder why you bother when
they are just ignored. In the end you give up. The trac is, by and
large, a complete waste of time and resources. As is the forge
http://forge.vtiger.com/ - dead as a door nail. And look at sourceforge...

The upshot is that, and to be completely brutal, you release the open
source version to make yourselves look good in the market place - to get
your 'Open Source badge' to look good on the marketing spiel.

Vtiger CRM Named a 2014 CRM Market Leader by DestinationCRM

"......Vtiger CRM has taken home a Market Leader award for Open Source CRM."

But it's bull you can smell half a planet away.

To you, open source is a necessary evil to further your commercial aims
(or those of your venture capitalists, or whoever is behind your
company). You are leeches trying to suck out as much as you can whilst
giving back as little as possible. I am sure that if you had your way
you would dump the OS version completely.

OK. That's fine.

But what I dislike is your pretence that you care, your pretence that
this is real open source, your pretence at a community, your pretence
that you listen to developers and want to work with them. Because having
looked on for several years now, that is all it is. A complete and utter
110% sham. And I don't think I am alone in thinking that. You should be
ashamed.

This is no more Open Source than it would be if Microsoft released the
source code to DOS.

If nothing else, have the courage and decency to stand up and be honest
about what you really are. Be closed source. Or be genuinely open. Stop
playing charades.

There was a time when I recommended vtiger to people because I actually
believed the publicity. I supported your position in the forums. I
almost got to the point of looking at paid for support myself. But I
can't use your cloud offering. And would I recommend it now ? Not a cats
chance in hell.

Me personally ? I feel both upset and let down by vtiger. You promise so
much, and deliver so little. I've heard the same pathetic excuses time
after time. But clearly cash talks and morals walk.

When the time comes for us to upgrade, it won't be to vtiger itself.
It'll be somewhere where the devs listen and want to work in a two way
relationship, not a one way street.

What a crying shame. As I have so often said. vTiger is good. It could
have been great...........