(Dead) Horses in Elggs!

I am watching elgg community for a while. I observed peoples enthusiasm for elgg, and their love and interest too. Many have enjoyed playing with SN through elgg, which they could not think without.

But there are two issues that made me feel anxious! This is about updating elgg. I saw ppl updated to next version and then spent days with nightmare! And what then the admin gets the news about next release! This is somewhat manageable, staying in 1.2 or, 1.5 for ages! But, when it says security updates...then? I appreciate the hard work behind, but I think there should be a cleat harmony. For instance, 1.7 came with limited pagination(does not work on admin page) and users privacy setup problems(if user sets "friends only" it does not show to the friend! but keep private) This is not what is the letter about!

There are loads of nice mods and plugins. Each of them are result of hard work and passion, doubtlessly. But, most of them are not updated to support the next generation of elgg. There are mods that do not have any update in almost a year! These are blocking the way in two sense: one many other dedicated programmars are not taking the idea or code, coz someone else is doing it (which is not true) and the dummy users are getting a poor impression about elgg.

I suggest, a place to track, whats the next update of the engine, and what to expect there, before testing and after! Before a new release, try to fix the problem from earlier version! Most importantly  the update process has become scary for the admins, as there are tons of request for help after the update!

If none of this is possible, mark the mods, plugin as active or outdated! So that no one is trapped into mods that is not future proof. Hence delete it from the download site, and inform others, so what someone else can feel free to build a newer one.

 

Elgg is well.

  • The problem here is most of the plugin creators are not paid for the plugins they place on Elgg.org. The work done on Elgg is mostly a hobby. It's hard to press someone for updates when he spends his free time updating the plugin, with no proffit for his work. Open source has multiple advantages, though also a few disadvantages. Lack of certain updates unfortunately is one of the disadvantages.

     

    We have one more reason to not to update old GPL plugins from Elggdev.com. New policy of Elgg.org don't allow to place images or links in plugin's description. Old releases of plugins can contain links and text, allowing to describe plugin to users in more detail. We had multiple problems with the new policy. Users had a lot of trouble getting the plugin or it's dependencies, or understanding it's purpose. That's why from our perspective it's better to leave some of the old GPL version not updated, and update only the commercial versions for now.

  • There's some interesting points being raised here.. Vazco's point should be noted carefully. "Democracy" has pointed to another interesting issue -- "So that no one is trapped into mods that is not future proof." Having being one of the many enthusiastic Plug-In creators in the early 2008 days, I do find that the aspects of life that I am trapped into (mortgage, groceries, kids' college costs, etc) do not allow for much spare time to indulge in Elgg Hobbies, and so it seems quite hard to find time to spend effort in maintaining my older PlugIns or creating newer ones. And yes, I have deleted all my PlugIns which I did not have spare time to keep updating the freebies. And now.. I usually need to give my time and attention to my usual batch of $clients, because they pay for my livelihood. Another  good point  - "..so that someone else can feel free to build a newer one." Yes ;-) anyone should feel quite at liberty to take any GPL PlugIn and re-code, update, upgrade.. as long someone has got the spare time to take away from their day-time job ;-)

  • @ Dhrup AKA dhruva:

    Funny how you claim that "I usually need to give my time and attention to my usual batch of $clients" .. I personally tried to pay you for a few lines of code to automatically add events to elgg's database and the very FIRST thing you mentioned was that you had too many "projects" in front of me and to give you a few days. I NEVER heard back from you last week!!! If you TRULY had that big a client list, you should have been the last person on here complaining about not making enough money to keep your code updated. You dhrup, cannot speak on behalf of the many programmers on here. I write apps myself, but in Perl (which is the language I used to write the application you had a chance to make $100 for a few lines of code...)

    Again, if writing code takes you that long to develop OR update, then spending time on this site may not be for you.

    @democracy:

    Great points. I too grow tired of the many updates and re-writes of core code and how plugins become outdated. Elgg suffers from the MICROSOFT syndrome! Windows 98 (second edition) was the most stable version to date. Now we have windows 7 which is nothing more than Windows 2000 warmed over. Funny though that applications that would run on windows 2000 will not on windows 7.  Even a house is only as strong as its foundation!!! Build a solid core and THEN work on new features and functions.

    Developers that don't have enough money to work on elgg as a hobby should re-evaluate  their focus! What I DO see is that there are many who TRY to make a million dollars by building a plugin...

     

    ### DRUP's ORIGINAL POST BEFORE HE TRIES TO DELETE OR ALTER IT ###

    There's some interesting points being raised here.. Vazco's point should be noted carefully. "Democracy" has pointed to another interesting issue -- "So that no one is trapped into mods that is not future proof." Having being one of the many enthusiastic Plug-In creators in the early 2008 days, I do find that the aspects of life that I am trapped into (mortgage, groceries, kids' college costs, etc) do not allow for much spare time to indulge in Elgg Hobbies, and so it seems quite hard to find time to spend effort in maintaining my older PlugIns or creating newer ones. And yes, I have deleted all my PlugIns which I did not have spare time to keep updating the freebies. And now.. I usually need to give my time and attention to my usual batch of $clients, because they pay for my livelihood. Another  good point  - "..so that someone else can feel free to build a newer one." Yes ;-) anyone should feel quite at liberty to take any GPL PlugIn and re-code, update, upgrade.. as long someone has got the spare time to take away from their day-time job ;-)

    ################################################################################

  • I missed out big? NO, I got the job done after developing an application myself. Last week was the SECOND time you emailed me about BEING ABLE to develop a plugin that I have yet to see. I now have a web bot that automatically posts events as well as other content to my site. It took me just minutes to create the bot and a couple of hours to tweak it and add more posting abilities.

     

    Democracy has VALID points... Unlike your many *hot air* posts on this site, why don't you create VALID plugins and stop with Amen-ing every other topic on this forum with the words "LOLZ"...

    Now you could reply to this thread but don't miss a mortgage payment thinking of what to say on a topic that starting off with the word "DEAD"...

  • @Dave AKA D.H.

    Well complaints about hot air from Dhruva because he didn't create a plug-in for you. Seems funny that you then seem to have done it yourself and I notice you haven't released it. We have at least 20 high end plug-ins running on our site that Dhruva coded !!!

    Another Funny post from another Funny person complaining about how other people spend some of their leisure time instead of working for them.

    I happen to know Dhruva is doing a $100,000 elgg project at the moment, along with the stuff he does in his spare time. There are some valid points in this thread you seem to have hijacked it and turned it into some type of personal attack.

    Quote "Developers that don't have enough money to work on elgg as a hobby should re-evaluate  their focus" I work on elgg as a hobby and I don't have enough money and yes I did reevaluate my focus. It is precisely attitudes like your that I deleted all my plug-ins and do not release any of my new ones except to my friends. But thanks for the advise maybe other developers should take your advise as well

  • Seems to me that people who delete their contributions are far worse than ones who complain they can't make money on open scource projects. You give your plugins to "friends"... Glad to know. I did not ask Dhrup to code what I wanted, HE ASKED ME TO DO IT. Check your facts pal before you post. Nobody is mad... Except, well .... you apparently. I posted what simply happened TWICE. Now his body guard happens to chime in.. Please give it a break. The thread was about dead horses and Dhrup changed the game by trying to mention PAID -vs- PROJECT so when it come to hijacking, it is usually the first one to say it who actually DID IT.

    Do YOU want me to release my application when YOU deleted yours long ago? Since I downloaded almost every plugin into an archive (wrote a bot for that in the past), maybe I should re-post them for others.

  • ELGG PLUGINS  2010 05 15 (13 17).html                                                  May Sat » Community.Elgg.org/Mod/Plugins/World

    1 11 Twitter Login for Elgg 1.7 Changed the original Twitter login to work for 1.7 orion9 11 hours ago 15 May 2010 @ 5:48am ⅀ DL   
    AUTO
    2 98 ElggChat - fixed for 1.7 This is only a fix of ElggChat to work on Elgg 1.7.1 Neo1975 yesterday 14 May 2010 @ 8:06am ⅀ DL   
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    3 21 Improved Friendly Time This plugin tries to improve upon the default Elgg friendly time display. PHPlord 2 days ago 14 May 2010 @ 3:23am ⅀ DL   
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    4 68 Flyer This Plugin allow to show a message to the users that iniciated session. The messages is shown as a lightbox. Pedro Prez 2 days ago 13 May 2010 @ 10:50pm ⅀ DL   
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    5 19 Tidypics 1.6.8 Polish Language Pack Tidypics 1.6.8 Polish Language Pack TomDK 5 days ago 10 May 2010 @ 8:10pm ⅀ DL   
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    6 18 Lenguaje español para IP address tracker plugin by Slyhne   xuaku 7 days ago 8 May 2010 @ 8:43pm ⅀ DL   
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    7 26 Lenguaje español para izap_videos 3.61b for elgg (1.5, 1.6.x, 1.7) date 09-Apr-2010 by IZAP   xuaku 7 days ago 8 May 2010 @ 8:25pm ⅀ DL   
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    8 21 Lenguaje español para SuperAdmin by Joeren Dalsen   xuaku 7 days ago 8 May 2010 @ 8:17pm ⅀ DL   
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    9 21 accept_terms_privacy_german AGB und Datenschutzerklärung akzeptieren (Original Registration Terms von Ewan Winslow) Larsen 7 days ago 8 May 2010 @ 4:28pm ⅀ DL   
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    10 110 Group Operators Allows groups to have several operators (a.k.a. admins) caedes 8 days ago 7 May 2010 @ 9:34am ⅀ DL   
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    11 133 Simple Survey Administer multiple choice survey forms Dan 8 days ago 7 May 2010 @ 6:48am ⅀ DL   
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  • Unfortunately, gentlemen, I'm getting tired of receiving email notifications full of your personal quibbles.  If you would be so kind -- work it out privately.

  • sorry i mis-posted.... the full PlugIns index is here http://community.elgg.org/mod/groups/topicposts.php?topic=490806&group_guid=52477/ --> a simple ordered searchable listing of all the Elgg PlugIns as at 2010 05 15 (13 17) ;-)

  • @Dave:

    I will give you 20 hours of my coding time.. name your functionality and I will code the stuff and send you the demo URL. the cost ? $0 ! I am serious... are you game ?