Waste of time

Wow, that’s pretty harsh to rate something one-star when you’ve never used it, don’t you think?

I understand you’re slightly frustrated to download a plugin that will only work with Theme Blvd themes. But, to be fair, I try to make this as clear as possible; it is stated on the plugin’s page in bold and tells you in your WordPress admin immediately after installing.

Is that really a reason to attack the author and their business?

Within the Theme Blvd framework there are many internal elements and other 3rd party items like Twitter Bootstrap integration to make use of. When using a Theme Blvd theme, this plugin gives you an extensive pack of shortcodes to extend the framework’s functionality to your pages, posts, and custom layouts via shortcodes.

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/theme-blvd-shortcodes/

Seems perfectly clear to me.

Hello Jason B.,

I am a member (customer) of envato platform (https://themeforest.net/user/mboosener79), I know that you are one of the best wordpress themes seller/developper, I also follow you on Twitter, but you deceive me when you put a plugin on WordPress directory plugins that is only available for your customers.

Here, everyone is looking for free plugins, paid versions are also available in Pro-Versions.

What is not serious with you is that you offer this non-free plugin to promote your paid themes, it’s not fair while all your themes automatically come with free shortcodes and free lifetime updates.

So, if you want me to give you a 5-star rating, you have to offer this plugin with some minimal options and people who need more options will pay the Pro-Version.

Hope you understand !

Cheers !

What is not serious with you is that you offer this non-free plugin to promote your paid themes, it’s not fair while all your themes automatically come with free shortcodes and free lifetime updates.

This actually isn’t the case, and I honestly find it a little offensive. I’ll explain.

For the last year I’ve been working to re-vamp my framework, which started with the release of Jump Start. This has all been part of a long journey to get all plugin functionality removed from themes, which I have worked harder on than you could imagine. And when WordPress 3.6 drops, these changes will be reflected through all ThemeForest themes using this framework, as they get updated to the latest version to match Jump Start.

I’m not looking to up sell people on plugins and extensions, but instead, sell the themes and offer all the plugins for free. After the next round of theme updates, all ThemeForest and Mojo Themes customers using my themes will be required to use this plugin if they want any of the shortcodes.

So, why do I put the plugins on www.ads-software.com? — Because they contain full GPL code, I don’t want to charge for them, and most importantly, www.ads-software.com provides the means to host them and provide hassle-free updates for my customers, from the most reliable source in the community.

I’m not trying to deceive you or anyone else. I’m trying to make things as easy for my customers as possible. When they install a theme, I want them to be able to very easily access all of the plugins and maintain them.

So, if you want me to give you a 5-star rating, you have to offer this plugin with some minimal options and people who need more options will pay the Pro-Version.

You are, of course, free to rate however you want. If you’d like to lash out against the plugin simply out of principle, without ever actually using it, you’re completely free to do that. I just want to make sure it is clear to everyone where it is coming from.

a. Every plugin author spent time and talent for his/her plugin.
b. How the heck can somebody test your plugin if your theme is REQUIRED?

@letheos It’s a plugin specifically built for the Theme Blvd framework. Just because it sits in the www.ads-software.com repository doesn’t mean it is meant for everytone.

Pippin, I respect you man, but I think you’re wrong here. I found it unethical for people trying to take advantage of the user base the WP plugin repository offers. Sometimes I really get tempted to take their code and convert it to something useful for everybody.

@letheos Do you feel the same way about plugins that are extensions for other plugins? For example, take the free payment gateways hosted here for any of the ecommerce plugins: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search.php?q=payment+gateway&sort=

I think you’re wrong here

And we know that you are wrong. No one is taking advantage of anyone here. Go check the plugin submission guidelines. There is absolutely no requirement that every plugin uploaded to the Repository has to be usable by everyone.

You either just didn’t bother to read the plugin’s (extremely clear) description or you thought it could be ignored. That’s your call and it was wrong. That does not give you the right to start throwing accusations around. Just face facts – you made a mistake.

@pippin Nope.
@esmi I’m talking about the ethical use of the repository. I didn’t say that it didn’t follow the submission guidelines. But seriously, what’s the meaning of listing a plugin that it can be used only if you purchase a specific product by the said developer?

Requiring a purchase is in no way unethical.

Take VaultPress for example. It is hosted for free in the repository, but it still requires a purchase. It is serviceware, and this is very similar.

The guidelines for the repository take ethics strongly into consideration, and this case is one that was definitely decided (among many people) to NOT be unethical.

Since it’s clear this isn’t going to go anywhere, I’m going to lock the thread.