Please make this open source and accept help from others.
 

Dear Carbonite Authors,

I understand that you want to keep control of your addon because its like your baby. You created it and brought it into this world so I can totally understand why you don't want to let other people touch the code.

However with that being said you told us that because the sales are not what they were before you just don't have the luxury of being able to devote as much time to this project as you have in the past.

So I propose that you create and application process and hire on volunteer coders, writers, and testers to assist you with updating the database, fixing bugs and implementing new features. To this end you can take advantage of the free resources at source forge to assist with implementation of an SVN repository and the overall project management.

This will allow you to devote the little bit of time you have in focusing on the course and direction of your addon, (the big picture) without having to worry about all of the little stuff.

As for my part in this I don't know much about coding I can help with the database. Adding new quests is fairly easy to do even for someone like myself that has little to no knowledge of LUA scripting as I already have a template to work off of.

Signed,
Joshua
Magi of The Knights of Justice.
Server: The Silver Hand

I have to ask....Why?

Is Carbonite broken? Have they stopped supporting it? Have changes stopped coming through?

You've said it yourself that you understand they don't want to lose control of their addon. If it was to ever go open source under one of the various licenses wouldn't they then to an extent lose control of it?

I'm sorry I may not be understanding your intent, but I for one would rather see this great addon stay in complete and total control by the Authors that did spend so much time, energy and devotion creating it. If at some point in time they choose of their own accord to relinquish control of their creation,then so be it. But until such a time comes,if ever, why ask for it?

Just my 2 cents.

I have to agree with the above reply.

At the end of the day, no other addon out there comes close to matching Carbonite in terms of functionality and usefulness and if you use a combination of addons that even come close, you end up with a much larger performance hit on your machine than you do using Carbonite.

So...the question is, what benefit would there even be to open source? Clearly, up to this point, only the authors of Carbonite can manage to do what Carbonite does...

They are still giving us regular updates and feature additions even (just look in the supporter forums and you'll see a half dozen examples where they said "done and will be in the next update"). I don't see what benefit there is to anyone, at this point in time, for what OP suggests.

Should add a vote option of "I don't agree with the premise of this poll."

Then they don't have to make it open source, but it would still be nice if they could allow some of us to contribute to their project through other means. Not everyone has extra cash to spend on stuff in this economy, but we do have time. So for those that don't want to or are not able to donate $$ maybe they could donate their time and expertise instead.

Well...last I checked WoW doesn't have a play-for-free option either, so no one using addons is lacking the extra cash to spend on frivolous things...

Donations are just that "Donations", personally I think anyone using any more complex addon religiously should donate at least a little bit to the folks spending the time on it. If a person can pay the WoW monthly fee, I would think they could at least spare a dollar or two in a year toward their favorite addons.

I give 10 to 15 bucks annually for the "big" addons that I use, merely in the hopes that it encourages the people making them to keep them up to date. Personally, without addons, I would quit playing WoW, because the blizz interface completely blows, and for me, the interface can make or break whether I play a game or not.

Mind you, I am not saying you SHOULD donate. It's a matter of whether you want to or not, and it's not for me to judge others. I'm just sharing my viewpoint too. :-)

I do agree that it would be nice if they gave some more guidance on how others could potentially help out, like with providing new quest info or gathering node data. I've no idea if, or how, even such simple help could be given.

Then there may be a better question that should be posed to the Authors. Something as simple as this even:


To Faatal and Havok (I probably spelled your names wrong :o )

Is there anything that we, the community of your supporters, can do to help you out with anything?

Spread the word. Encourage your friends to try out Carbonite.

Keep giving us feedback - the good, the bad and the ugly.

I do. At every opportunity. You're probably wishing I'd stop posting yet more feature requests ;)

As for open source: Nah. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Anyway, it's not as if the Carbonite team are working in a vacuum:-

.. from http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...8&postcount=10

Yeah I'd volunteer as a coder, writer, spell checker, coffee grabber, heck I'd even do a UI posting thread to promote people coming together and sharing their game play experience..... oh wait....

Open source? No.

Good job on the addon guys. Keep it up.

Just a thought: A compromise might be to add a documented API to some of Carbonites key features so that other authors can write plug-ins for it. This would probably be a non-trivial exercise though and would almost certainly involve a lot of "behind the scenes" time investment - ie requested features would be slower in coming while the API was being implemented.

I want to chime in. I would definitely volunteer for coding, code reviews, or whatever is needed to help move things forward at a faster pace. We've had the new In-Game Instance maps for several weeks now and they seriously need to be integrated into the Carbonite maps. This and a number of other features haven't even been discussed as far as possible delivery time frames.

I love the app, was happy to donate $$, but would donate time of it would get things rolling.

Unfortunately I can't code to save my life but I would definitely test. New developments would greatly benefit those of use who enjoyed this addon but found it's features lacking with reaching the end game content. Given that Carbonite doesn't support my only gathering profession ( fishing ) or the instance maps ( where I spend 5 nights a week ) I disabled it :(

Helping developing the addon is not the only way to contribute to the work. I, for one, sent in literally thousands upon thousands of herbalism and mining nodes data to get the CarboniteNodes addition to work.

Things you can do to help:
Report bugs
Map unknown quests
Recommend Carbonite to others

Those three should be enough to keep anyone busy for a while.

I am sorry, this has always been a great addon. But refusing help from fellow programmers, is not a smart move. Especially since THERE ARE NOT UPDATES. Even after me and some friends donated a number of times after the "pay" version was discontinued, we continue to find that this addon is going downhill. (In our Personal Opinions)

I remeber seeing this addon updated every few weeks. This does not happen anymore, and if you had more people helping you to update the addon, this problem would not exist. Additionally, maybe supporters WOULD ACTUALLY get something out of this!

Now I completely DISAGREE with open source, because that would just allow other's to STEAL your addon code. (even though it it already has been done...)


After all what will the point of this addon be, besides the great BG features, when Blizzard implements quest tracking etc. in 3.2!? Not to mention that the quests in this addon ARE NOT ALL UP TO DATE! Multiple quests have been reported to be missing or worng, however there have NOT been any updates fixing them. Allowing for a bigger staff would fix this problem.

And finally, I am not arguing so strongly just to be a TROLL. I am saying this because I do not want Carbonite to become just another addon, and die later on along the road.

Weather an addon is open source or not makes no difference whatsoever to a thief. It never has, and it never will.

Let me rephrase that. it would make it easier for others to use your addon's code. And be much more inviting, compared to a obfuscated source.)

At this point I honestly don't think it matters. I love Carbonite, but I fully expect it to die.

The devs have made it quite clear they have no intention of releasing the code at any point. This thread is pointless and is going to cause flaming.

It has been open for 5 days, without any posts and you just drew attention to it. If people wish to express their opinion about it, then they may. We have no plans to be the thought police.