Finally Curse have been silently funding the wowace servers and bandwidth for months now. So your accusation of them "selling out" is invalid . You have been getting a free service for years for a service that costs thousands in bandwith costs per month. Now it's time to give a little.
honem, I've not primarily had a free service for years, but I've contributed to this community like many other addon developers (and if you'd take a look at my >1000 postings, you'll see that I've been doing free support for years).
I guess it's our right to express our concerns with the decision Kaelten has made (and the fact that he's been hired by curse obviously explains why). Personally, I have a serious problem with IGN (google a bit and you might find out why), and I'm still strongly considering if any of the addons I originally developed (and now are maintained by others) shall in future be hosted by IGN (with them making money providing access to my intellectual property).
Currently I'm strongly convinced moving to github or any other website that's not owned by IGN is the way to go. Even if that might drastically reduce the number of users of these addons. And the fact that in the future we'll only have one proprietary addon downloader that does not disclose its source code does not make things better.
honem, I've not primarily had a free service for years, but I've contributed to this community like many other addon developers (and if you'd take a look at my >1000 postings, you'll see that I've been doing free support for years).
I guess it's our right to express our concerns with the decision Kaelten has made (and the fact that he's been hired by curse obviously explains why). Personally, I have a serious problem with IGN (google a bit and you might find out why), and I'm still strongly considering if any of the addons I originally developed (and now are maintained by others) shall in future be hosted by IGN (with them making money providing access to my intellectual property).
Currently I'm strongly convinced moving to github or any other website that's not owned by IGN is the way to go. Even if that might drastically reduce the number of users of these addons. And the fact that in the future we'll only have one proprietary addon downloader that does not disclose its source code does not make things better.
um you do realize that curse is in no way owned by ign?
As its currently going, it sounds a lot less like a crash debug helper than a stat gathering tool for advertisers. If the client collects system data automatically and uploads it with no option not to do so, I'm not going to be using it.
I have the same feeling, and I think I'll do the same decision.
um you do realize that curse is in no way owned by ign?
Kaelten, curse.com makes it pretty difficult to find out who it's owned by. Yeah, "Curse Inc." and Hubert Thieblot (who seems to have moved from Neuilly sur Seine to Huntsville recently). But who is Curse Inc. owned by? As I live in Europe I know how to find out who european companies are owned by, but I don't know how to get this information for US companies.
In any case, it's a company with business interests (which is nothing bad), but the problem is that wowace.com is/was a very open community with the spirit of an open source project lots of people were contributing too. And changing wowace from a non profit community to a business website is a major change. I'm fine with you now being an employee of curse (so I heard, and ckk seems to have been hired as well), but I'm really unhappy to see the upcoming changes to wowace.com - as I have no interest in contributing any kind of content (via community support or addons) to a company that's making their money with this content.
I'm fearing that many developers will be gone soon, for one reason or the other. And that's the end of wowace as we know it.
Curse is owned by Curse Inc. We get funding through VC.
Okay, and what's the goal of VC? An IPO within 18 months if all goes well. That's the big difference the future will bring: someone (at least the VC company) has the goal of making a lot of money. Out of a community which was created by addon developers - who have/had a different spirit in mind.
They're totally seperate. WoWI is part of Zam Networks - http://www.zam.com/ you know, the people who have a copyright and trade dress infringement lawsuit against Curse Inc - Zam Network, LLC, v. Curse, Inc., CV08-02224 PSG (C.D. Cal. 2008), Summary
Should I use the WAU or the CC to install and update Ace mods?
Currently, the Curse client cannot update addons from WowAce. You should continue using WAU (or another WowAce updater) to update your WowAce addons for now. Once the "big change" happens, then you will have to use the Curse client to update from WowAce, as other updaters will no longer be allowed access to the addon repository.
Quote from Saynt »
...a copyright and trade dress infringement lawsuit against Curse Inc...
That's interesting. I didn't know about that, but I did wonder about wowdb being a virtual clone of wowhead.
They're totally seperate. WoWI is part of Zam Networks - http://www.zam.com/ you know, the people who have a copyright and trade dress infringement lawsuit against Curse Inc - Zam Network, LLC, v. Curse, Inc., CV08-02224 PSG (C.D. Cal. 2008), Summary
Yeah, I'm well aware of who owns wowi. :) That was my point. ;)
Hopefully most of the release addons will be on different sites as well as wowace, I'd like a choice of where to go for my UI fix needs. Currently I'm somewhat blah about the change, as curse was never one of my favorite sites (got all my addons from wowace/wowi/googlecode). But you never know, we might all like the new Curse-Ace.
Kaelten, curse.com makes it pretty difficult to find out who it's owned by. Yeah, "Curse Inc." and Hubert Thieblot (who seems to have moved from Neuilly sur Seine to Huntsville recently). But who is Curse Inc. owned by? As I live in Europe I know how to find out who european companies are owned by, but I don't know how to get this information for US companies.
In any case, it's a company with business interests (which is nothing bad), but the problem is that wowace.com is/was a very open community with the spirit of an open source project lots of people were contributing too. And changing wowace from a non profit community to a business website is a major change. I'm fine with you now being an employee of curse (so I heard, and ckk seems to have been hired as well), but I'm really unhappy to see the upcoming changes to wowace.com - as I have no interest in contributing any kind of content (via community support or addons) to a company that's making their money with this content.
I'm fearing that many developers will be gone soon, for one reason or the other. And that's the end of wowace as we know it.
WoWAce will in no way change to a business website. All addons hosted here will still be freely available to anyone, you just will not get a mass updater due to bandwidth concerns.
All we actually have to do with Curse it the possibility to directly push releases from WoWAce to Curse. Me and Kaelten even discussed the possibility to add more release pages to that list later on - but all in due time.
No-one will have to pay to get his addons, and no-one will have to pay to host addons here. Any Dev will still be free to do whatever he wants - as long as the principles we established for our community are kept in mind.
The only "real" change is that WAU will cease to exist, because it was no longer maintainable with its excessive use of bandwidth, and i perfectly understand that Curse was no longer willing to pay those bandwidth bills.
We tried running Ads, we tried accepting donations, but as it is with Open-Source, people go insane if you add ads to fund yourself, and donating is a word not in their dictionary. We even considered running a "Premium" version of WAU ourselves, but that was out of our scope at the time. So now, after 2 years of trying, we shut down WAU - or rather, Curse shut-down WAU, because they payed for it.
Curse will still be paying the hosting bills for WoWAce, and we should be thankful for it.
Now we can offer a lot new and awesome features to the addon developers, and its all still for free. WoWAce always was and always will be a community from the developers for the developers - and I'm pretty sure Kaelten will make sure it stays that way, and so will I.
Personally, i won't miss WAU and its excessive updating of Alpha versions. It caused more harm then good, if you ask me. Authors now just need to learn to push their releases to Curse, to WoWI, or to whatever page they prefer - like it should've always been.
Obviously we cannot stop you from leaving, but we're trying to do all we can to resolve the issues that might arise. If you have any specific concerns at all, don't hesitate to bring them up with us.
If you have any specific concerns at all, don't hesitate to bring them up with us.
Nev, if someone is putting venture capital to work, then they aren't doing it because they enjoy using wow addons, but for a very specific interest: money. Even while I don't yet know what the business plan for curse looks like, there has to be a business plan (otherwise there wouldn't be any VC) - in other words, someone has thought of ways of profiteering from this community within the next 18 months.
As long as this is left in the dark, I'm very uncomfortable with it.
EDIT: from the Curse Inc press release from 7/2007:
----
Curse Inc., the premier gaming portal
dedicated to massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and their fan communities,
announced today that it has received $5 million in Series-A funding from leading French
venture capital firm AGF Private Equity and angel investors. The deal helps to further
secure Curse’s position as the leading MMOG destination, giving advertisers access to an
in-demand and difficult to target demographic.
(...)
“Curse’s vision is to build a full-featured, community-driven portal devoted to online
gaming, providing players with invaluable resources and delivering the gaming
demographic to advertisers, as well as partners in the game development and publishing
industries,” said Curse’s founder and CEO, Hubert Thieblot.
----
[...] there has to be a business plan (otherwise there wouldn't be any VC) - in other words, someone has thought of ways of profiteering from this community within the next 18 months.
As long as this is left in the dark, I'm very uncomfortable with it.
I'll wager a few guesses:
1. Ad revenue, primarily from curse.com / wowdb.com
2. Updater revenues from people paying for the one-click-updates-all services (fine with me - it's not as if you look at ads when you do this!)
3. WoWAce is a source of addons, which provides curse.com with actual content. Without content, no visitors, no money.
Either way, our addons are our own intellectual property. If a hosting company starts acting like dicks, we'll take them elsewhere. We know this, they know this - I doubt they'd bite the proverbial hand that feeds them. And if at some point that happens, well, we know what to do. Not seeing that happen right here right now though!
Edit: Your quoted press release seems to support my position.
Like Mikk already pointed out, what they get is a possible increase in user-base.
A lot of addons on WoWAce are hosted on no release site at all, mostly because the authors are too lazy or never even considered it. Now with the new WoWAce, its one click to release your addon to Curse.com.
So their Goal is, to get more addons to their page, which means more users looking at their ads, and even some people paying for "Premium". Whats the best way to sustain that flow of addons to curse? Of course, keep the developers happy, and offer features here on WoWAce and on CurseForge that are not available elsewhere to attract more devs.
Just to make that clear, i'm in no way associated with Curse, nor are Mikk and Ammo. The second i realize that Curse will be doing something "bad" to the Community, i'll leave with my addons, and i won't be alone. But personally, i do not see that happen.
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honem, I've not primarily had a free service for years, but I've contributed to this community like many other addon developers (and if you'd take a look at my >1000 postings, you'll see that I've been doing free support for years).
I guess it's our right to express our concerns with the decision Kaelten has made (and the fact that he's been hired by curse obviously explains why). Personally, I have a serious problem with IGN (google a bit and you might find out why), and I'm still strongly considering if any of the addons I originally developed (and now are maintained by others) shall in future be hosted by IGN (with them making money providing access to my intellectual property).
Currently I'm strongly convinced moving to github or any other website that's not owned by IGN is the way to go. Even if that might drastically reduce the number of users of these addons. And the fact that in the future we'll only have one proprietary addon downloader that does not disclose its source code does not make things better.
um you do realize that curse is in no way owned by ign?
I have the same feeling, and I think I'll do the same decision.
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Curse Premiumyeah... some people think wowi is too... /sigh :)
Kaelten, curse.com makes it pretty difficult to find out who it's owned by. Yeah, "Curse Inc." and Hubert Thieblot (who seems to have moved from Neuilly sur Seine to Huntsville recently). But who is Curse Inc. owned by? As I live in Europe I know how to find out who european companies are owned by, but I don't know how to get this information for US companies.
In any case, it's a company with business interests (which is nothing bad), but the problem is that wowace.com is/was a very open community with the spirit of an open source project lots of people were contributing too. And changing wowace from a non profit community to a business website is a major change. I'm fine with you now being an employee of curse (so I heard, and ckk seems to have been hired as well), but I'm really unhappy to see the upcoming changes to wowace.com - as I have no interest in contributing any kind of content (via community support or addons) to a company that's making their money with this content.
I'm fearing that many developers will be gone soon, for one reason or the other. And that's the end of wowace as we know it.
Okay, and what's the goal of VC? An IPO within 18 months if all goes well. That's the big difference the future will bring: someone (at least the VC company) has the goal of making a lot of money. Out of a community which was created by addon developers - who have/had a different spirit in mind.
They're totally seperate. WoWI is part of Zam Networks - http://www.zam.com/ you know, the people who have a copyright and trade dress infringement lawsuit against Curse Inc - Zam Network, LLC, v. Curse, Inc., CV08-02224 PSG (C.D. Cal. 2008), Summary
Should I use the WAU or the CC to install and update Ace mods?
Currently, the Curse client cannot update addons from WowAce. You should continue using WAU (or another WowAce updater) to update your WowAce addons for now. Once the "big change" happens, then you will have to use the Curse client to update from WowAce, as other updaters will no longer be allowed access to the addon repository.
That's interesting. I didn't know about that, but I did wonder about wowdb being a virtual clone of wowhead.
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Curse PremiumYeah, I'm well aware of who owns wowi. :) That was my point. ;)
Oh I know you're aware, I'm just pointing something out I found to be very, very interesting. Sorry for the quote then, but it was 'on topic' :P
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Curse PremiumInteresting, sure, but not relevant to the discussion at hand. ;)
It might not be relevant to this specific thread, but I think it is relevant to the overall situation actually. But I'll leave it at that.
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Forum ModeratorWoWAce will in no way change to a business website. All addons hosted here will still be freely available to anyone, you just will not get a mass updater due to bandwidth concerns.
All we actually have to do with Curse it the possibility to directly push releases from WoWAce to Curse. Me and Kaelten even discussed the possibility to add more release pages to that list later on - but all in due time.
No-one will have to pay to get his addons, and no-one will have to pay to host addons here. Any Dev will still be free to do whatever he wants - as long as the principles we established for our community are kept in mind.
The only "real" change is that WAU will cease to exist, because it was no longer maintainable with its excessive use of bandwidth, and i perfectly understand that Curse was no longer willing to pay those bandwidth bills.
We tried running Ads, we tried accepting donations, but as it is with Open-Source, people go insane if you add ads to fund yourself, and donating is a word not in their dictionary. We even considered running a "Premium" version of WAU ourselves, but that was out of our scope at the time. So now, after 2 years of trying, we shut down WAU - or rather, Curse shut-down WAU, because they payed for it.
Curse will still be paying the hosting bills for WoWAce, and we should be thankful for it.
Now we can offer a lot new and awesome features to the addon developers, and its all still for free. WoWAce always was and always will be a community from the developers for the developers - and I'm pretty sure Kaelten will make sure it stays that way, and so will I.
Personally, i won't miss WAU and its excessive updating of Alpha versions. It caused more harm then good, if you ask me. Authors now just need to learn to push their releases to Curse, to WoWI, or to whatever page they prefer - like it should've always been.
Obviously we cannot stop you from leaving, but we're trying to do all we can to resolve the issues that might arise. If you have any specific concerns at all, don't hesitate to bring them up with us.
-Ammo
Nev, if someone is putting venture capital to work, then they aren't doing it because they enjoy using wow addons, but for a very specific interest: money. Even while I don't yet know what the business plan for curse looks like, there has to be a business plan (otherwise there wouldn't be any VC) - in other words, someone has thought of ways of profiteering from this community within the next 18 months.
As long as this is left in the dark, I'm very uncomfortable with it.
EDIT: from the Curse Inc press release from 7/2007:
----
Curse Inc., the premier gaming portal
dedicated to massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and their fan communities,
announced today that it has received $5 million in Series-A funding from leading French
venture capital firm AGF Private Equity and angel investors. The deal helps to further
secure Curse’s position as the leading MMOG destination, giving advertisers access to an
in-demand and difficult to target demographic.
(...)
“Curse’s vision is to build a full-featured, community-driven portal devoted to online
gaming, providing players with invaluable resources and delivering the gaming
demographic to advertisers, as well as partners in the game development and publishing
industries,” said Curse’s founder and CEO, Hubert Thieblot.
----
I'll wager a few guesses:
1. Ad revenue, primarily from curse.com / wowdb.com
2. Updater revenues from people paying for the one-click-updates-all services (fine with me - it's not as if you look at ads when you do this!)
3. WoWAce is a source of addons, which provides curse.com with actual content. Without content, no visitors, no money.
Either way, our addons are our own intellectual property. If a hosting company starts acting like dicks, we'll take them elsewhere. We know this, they know this - I doubt they'd bite the proverbial hand that feeds them. And if at some point that happens, well, we know what to do. Not seeing that happen right here right now though!
Edit: Your quoted press release seems to support my position.
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Forum ModeratorA lot of addons on WoWAce are hosted on no release site at all, mostly because the authors are too lazy or never even considered it. Now with the new WoWAce, its one click to release your addon to Curse.com.
So their Goal is, to get more addons to their page, which means more users looking at their ads, and even some people paying for "Premium". Whats the best way to sustain that flow of addons to curse? Of course, keep the developers happy, and offer features here on WoWAce and on CurseForge that are not available elsewhere to attract more devs.
Just to make that clear, i'm in no way associated with Curse, nor are Mikk and Ammo. The second i realize that Curse will be doing something "bad" to the Community, i'll leave with my addons, and i won't be alone. But personally, i do not see that happen.