For the record I do use plugins. But I would prefer to not have to.
Personally I use plugins and have had no issue with doing so. I also have no issue with plugin developers posting about their products when it will help with an issue a poster has. I generally weigh up the cost of the plugin against the time it would take me to reproduce the functionality. If it’s a personal project I may enjoy the challenge and code it anyway, but for anything that needs to ship it’s a simple time against cost calculation.
I’ve had a full MBS license for a few years and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve found out that MBS already solves a problem I’ve had. I generally find out about the solution through Christian posting a response to a previous query that answers the question. The MBS plugins are so big and far reaching it’s hard to know everything they do. It’s great to find out that you already own the solution to a particular problem!
Obviously more choice would be nice as a bit of healthy competition generally raises value and quality. But the third party vendors I’ve had dealings with have been great and provided excellent support.
The only company that has caused me real issues with discontinued support is Apple!
Maybe it’ s an idea for the (individual) plugin developers to make their sources available if something happens to him/her.
I think it would be a good idea if these developers make mutual agreements with other developers to have their sources transferred to one of the other developers if the original developer, for some reason, can’t continue the development of his plugins.
This way the availability of the plugins is guaranteed.
Just my 2 cents.
Sorry if my explanation isn’t clear, but English isn’t my native language.
There has been some developers of plugins/controls that decided to leave the RB/Xojo community. Some of those people have sold their code to other companies (Bob has picked up a few as an example), or open sourced it and put it up on places like github or bitbucket. Or the later group which is the one we all fear, just went away, code and all.
I know that I would be willing to pick up some of these plugins/controls/modules/classes if someone was looking to leave the community. I know that there are other people that are in the same boat.
Now is that we are willing to take on the code, is that any better than we are today? we are just shifting the code from one small business to another.
I still find the title of this thread uncomfortable. I don’t think there are many people who dislike plugins per se and want them to go away as an option - that would be a bizarre attitude. I think some of us legitimately can’t or don’t want to use them for certain projects. And we don’t want to be repeatedly told to use them if we’ve said we don’t want to. That’s about it. No them and us, no big conspiracy, no big deal. Honestly, this thread feels potentially divisive to me.
I think the original author was trying to be funny mimicking the online meme that speaks like that in their photos. I dont think anyone here really wants the plugins to go away. Some might wish that some of the functionality we get from 3rd parties was built in. But we have what we have.
I wasn’t familiar with that meme! I’m trying hard to resist posting my favorite dog memes now.
I think there were also other factors involved in this thread starting. I locked another one where some other “plugin issues” were being discussed. But I don’t think that threads point was “I don’t want to use plugins” or “I will never use plugins” as might have been suggested by thesis threads title.
There were points made about why some don’t use plugins that have been echoed here
I prefer to own as much of my code as possible, for all the reasons already expressed, but will use plugins when it makes sense to do so. I have a few. I will say this, though. Some of that functionality that I needed plugins for has been incorporated into the framework. Keep promoting your pet feature requests. There is hope.
[quote=72183:@Paul Sondervan]Maybe it’ s an idea for the (individual) plugin developers to make their sources available if something happens to him/her.
I think it would be a good idea if these developers make mutual agreements with other developers to have their sources transferred to one of the other developers if the original developer, for some reason, can’t continue the development of his plugins.
This way the availability of the plugins is guaranteed.
[/quote]
There’s an underlying assumption here that it’s worth the time of the developer who takes the product over. It could very well be a liability. In fact, unless we’re talking about MBS, it’s a safe assumption that ongoing support of someone else’s plugin would be a liability. And even with MBS, Christian isn’t printing money. Hypothetically, I’d have to look real hard at the effort to support that thing versus revenues.
I make available for sale stuff I use myself which I’ve been able to package for sale. It’s accounts for a small chunk of my revenue, and has been more valuable in securing consulting than in selling licenses. My license customers seem to be getting good value for their license investment in the here and now, and we all seem fine with that.
I’d wish there would be more xojo developers spending more money for third party stuff.
It’s a typical egg & hen problem.
I’m not saying that any of you should or have to buy my stuff or Christian’s stuff or anybody’s stuff. If you’re (generic you) that philosophically opposed for whatever reason (all are fine, BTW), I don’t need the headache of you (generic you again) as a customer.
But all this stuff is part of the landscape, and it’s part of what makes the complete Xojo experience complete for many participants here. Nobody here is advertising at you. And if they are to any extent, they’re contributing far more value on balance than whatever terrible inconvenience they impose with what you deem to be “gratuitous advertising”. What you may see as inappropriate, gratuitous advertising, many here see as genuinely helpful.
I hope we don’t lose a sense of general tolerance and collegiality in these forums. The locked thread tells me we probably have. This thread was mostly an attempt to explore whether tolerance for all participants on the whole landscape might increase a bit if perceptions were put on the table and discussed. Not sure the needle moved.
[quote=72244:@Brad Hutchings]
I hope we don’t lose a sense of general tolerance and collegiality in these forums. The locked thread tells me we probably have. This thread was mostly an attempt to explore whether tolerance for all participants on the whole landscape might increase a bit if perceptions were put on the table and discussed. Not sure the needle moved.[/quote]
The needle hasn’t moved - and sounds like it won’t as long as some see no harm where others do.
Tolerance goes both ways.
[quote=72255:@Norman Palardy]Tolerance goes both ways.
[/quote]
Absolutely true. You will never see a complaint over someone posting about an open source project that goes nowhere. Oh, but if you could just see the eye rolling in front of the screens.
Thats not really what I meant but ok
It is obvious from this conversation that different users have different needs, and there is no silver bullet for all problems and situations.
IMO it is healthy for the Xojo community to have both professional developers willing to pay for third party plugins and hobbyists who sometimes enjoy the challenge of building their own solutions or contributing to open source solutions.
Personally I prefer to have all my code in pure Xojo, but support the idea to use plugins where it makes business sense.
Having complete cross platform compatibility across Windows, OS X, and Linux is however a critical requirement for my applications, and I’m not sure if all plugins always supports all platforms?
This is a huge selling point for me. I have learned a ton by being able to see how others approach problems. Reading through a more advanced users code is invaluable when you code on an island (so to speak) and well worth the premium.
I have been around since the late 90s and have never been offended by any plugin author’s plug. I fully appreciate and respect their value in the long time viability of RB/Xojo as a tool.
That is not to say I don’t respect the other side of the argument and understand the FUD factor. I prefer to try and figure something out for myself before “resorting” to a 3rd party solution. I have never been disappointed though when I have gotten to that point.
So to answer the question: I no no like.
i.e.: I like 
What about IT Governance for regulatory compliancy (such as Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI DSS, etc.), I am seeing a sharp increase in companies not allowing 3rd party plugins to be integrated that do not provide full source code.
Well, so far only a handful people ever asked for source here. We don’t even sell a lot of DynaPDF Enterprise licenses (source code included). Most companies rather save the money when I tell them prices.
This works fine when a developer decides to leave the community or retires.
But what if a developer (God forbid) dies all of a sudden? 