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Re: The place of ADM among outliners and pims
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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.
Outliners.com Message ID: 5226
Posted by srdiamond15
2006-02-12 17:29:03
I’ll answer only a few of the points, as the rest can be deduced.
> What is the evidence that it is not a genuine commercial undertaking? >
It is not a genuine commercial undertaking because the ordinary conventions of commerce aren’t abided by. The developer claims beta features as product features and then excuses the unusability of the beta because “It’s a beta and you expect bugs!” So there is never an actual product that can be evaluated by anyone fairly. This is what I mean by waffling, and it is corrupt because it is done in a commercial context, where it is more than bad ethics but rises to fraud. The proof of fraud is that I was wrongly excluded from a supposedly public group used as the sole means of real support (remember, my customer support query went unanswered, with a lame excuse), yet I was denied a refund for the product. Essentially the policy is no refunds UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, which in itself smells of fraud.
<In terms of making beta software available, a developer has the right to do so however it chooses, whether on its main site, whether by advising existing licesned users by email, whether by setting up a specific internal group, or a public (albeit privately owned) group such as Jan’s, or some combination of the aforegoing.>
Yes, this is part of the corrupt waffling I spoke of. You change the context from the right of the developer to make certain claims to the right of the developer to release betas as he pleases. The developer can release betas how he chooses. But he cannot call them public betas if they are not open to the public and are even closed to some licensed users of the product. He can’t say he has a public beta, and distribute it exclusively on a private site, where he refuses to take responsibility for the conduct of the owner.
<There are two ADM groups: the development group and the fan group. Both are private in the sense of having private ownership. However, and the sense I was using, the former is private in that it is not posted publicly for anyone to join, whereas the latter group, Jan’s group, is posted publicly and is for anyone to join.>
Yes, I resigned from the developer group, when it was demanded that I not strongly express my opinions. When I continued to express my opinions on he “public” group, I was excluded by the owner, who claimed sole right to make these decisions. To call this group “public” and the beta distributed there exclusively a “public beta” is corrupt waffling on the question of the designation of versions of the product.
But I retract one comment. When the cult leader publicly insulted you, you apologized instead of resigning. I might have been wrong to suggest that you had a double standard in regard to the treatment of others. You accept mistreatment both of yourself and others. The evidence that ADM is a cult is the practice of constantly issuing “kudos” to the developer, who solicits such comments and accepts them with pomp; of the developer freely demeaning members, upbraiding them for being “too demanding” or for not accepting the risks of beta testing when their data goes south; who spouts his half-baked and juvenile “philosophy” in the matter distributed with the supposedly commercial product, including _his_ kudos to his great mentor. Finally, that a product that is really a piece of trash is regarded as great software by cult members, who constantly display their gratitude for having this software in the group. I could go on and on.
Yes, it is a cult in the mold of Scientology, only much, much weaker. Even your style of response is cult-typical. I give an argument, and you ask blankly, “Where is the evidence?”
Stephen R. Diamond