Thread

Mark,

Chill out. The “fate of EllisLab”?  “Survive?” What on earth are you talking about?

We continue to grow at an impressive rate (this means we continue to sell more EE licenses every month). EE is being adopted everyday by many people. We just hired another full time staff and another part-time staff, the list goes on. 2.0 is taking longer than expected but that is not a sign of the apocalypse.

I think everything that needs to be said in this thread has been said, so I’m closing it in the morning. If anybody wants to get last words in, you have until I wake up tomorrow.

Erdal, Andru: Okay, so we publish a feature list that includes something that you’d have to hire a third party developer for to have now.  When we release 2.0, the feature doesn’t do what you thought it would, or had to be dropped altogether.  What now?  And if your answer is “I’d be okay with it, and then hire a developer to build the feature,” that’s great, and we’d appreciate your understanding.  Others won’t see it so benevolently, but as us letting them down at best, and as being liars at worst.

Of course that’d be my response, I would be okay with it. If it didn’t do what I needed, I would ask a dev if an extension or plugin would be appropriate. If not, I would have it built. Same as I’d do if something I expected in Leopard didn’t work as planned or got cut. Or anywhere else.

Those who would feel let down or that you are liars are people who obviously haven’t been working in the tech/software field for too long, because it is a regular occurrence, happens all the time, and in the end, isn’t that big a deal. I would prefer seeing what is planned, seeing the direction you guys are going, what you are thinking, well in advance. Again, this is the software that I rely on to run my business, and to that end, you have to see where I’m coming from. “Where is this tool that I rely on so heavily going? What is the mindset and direction the developers are setting for themselves? Is there anything I should know about it before it is available, for planning purposes?”

As an example, from the video on the File Manager, I already know that:

1) I am going to wait, rather than using a third-party one.
2) I have some ideas for ways to simplify our workflow based on what I saw.

That helps me, a lot. 😉

Rick, let me start of by saying…

1) I have 2 Bachelor’s degrees, 2 Master’s degrees, I have my MCSA/MCSE/CCNA/CCDA/CCDP/CHFI/ECSA/LPT.  I have taken the CISSP course and plan to sit for the CISSP in the spring.

I’m not a dumb or stupid person.  I’m waving my hand in the air, and am offering to HELP EE.  Why do you choose to IGNORE us?

I’m sure there are PLENTY of smart and talented people in the EE Community that would be willing to come together and HELP with the future development of EE 2.0 (and associated modules/plugins), and all we need is a simple nod of your head.

I read the post about:

First, find me the post about the death of the 1.x branch. If you mean 1.x and not 1.6.x then maybe you have a point, but from all I’ve read there will be support for 1.6.x for some time.

No, it’s been a two-year wait already.

The post I remember about the death of the 1.x branch was made right here on the ExpressionEngine website, in the autumn of 2006. Paul Burdick referenced the fact of the announcement in a post on the EE Developers Blog, and Blogging Pro wrote about it in November 2006—two years ago. We were at that time on the 1.5 version of EE—it was therefore a surprise to me that 1.6 was released after this announcement.

Nobody says 1.6 will stop working once 2.0 is released. I intend to spend my money the first day of 2.0’s availability, and if 1.6.5 is released first with some interesting feature I’ll probably ante up with the $40 to download that too. It’s just that I vehemently disagree with the choice not to communicate anything about project status.

Yep, I agree.  Anyone that’s been around long enough, already knows that we’ve been waiting for 2+ years for the EE 2.0 release.

Why do we NOT want to buy or purchase EE 1.6?  Well, would anyone want to BUY or PURCHASE Windows 3.1 when they can download Windows XP, or Windows Vista, or Leopard OS X 10.5 for FREE?

That’s the same concept.  Joomla and Drupal are both FREE products (the number 1 and number 2 best CMS programs out on the market, and they are BOTH free, and both are OPEN SOURCE).  Supported by thousands of users from all over the world.

EE is just a small drop in the bucket compared to Joomla or Drupal.

So why not just waive the white flag, and just surrender, and just give us a EE 2.0 Alpha release starting tomorrow morning, and just make it a “limited release” to developers (with ZERO support).  This is NOT for users, but instead is for EE Developers that work on EE modules or EE plugins, or want to work on adding new and additional features to EE, such as an eCommerce module).

Just stop being so “hard-headed” and just let us HELP you.  That’s all I’m asking.  Anyone that’s been in the IT/Computer industry for any length of time understands that as a company/business grows and expands, sometimes you have to seek help from the Community.  Apple does it, Google does it.  Look at Google Gears.  Look at Apple Darwin.

All open source projects.  I’m not saying that EE should turn Open Source, but I’m just saying that EE should at least open up their doors to let Developers come in and help.  At least help get EE back on their feet, and bring them out of the dark ages.  At least this way with maybe 10-20 additional developers (or even 50), then we can start moving more quickly with new feature adds, and help make EE a revolutionary product.

Something that can at least “compete” in today’s modern day in age.

There are so many strange and twisted thoughts in Mark’s post above that my eyes hurt almost as much as my brain’s “logic board.”

From what I can gather while trudging through all the pieces of your pleading and bleating, ExpressionEngine 2.0’s arrival is later than expected (or desired). That, in and of itself, should not even constitute news, let alone a surprise, and certainly not impending doom.

Software versions, particularly major enhancements, ship late all the time; often with little notice, sometimes with great fanfare, mostly with great expectation, but, often just plain late. No offense, Mark, I enjoy reading some of your posts, but this one smacks of someone having inadvertently entered a rift in the space time continuum, or, via an old Twilight Zone re-run,  accidentally crossed into a nearby parallel universe which has left you stranded where you ought not to be. In this universe, an African American with a strange name was elected President of the U.S., the Red Sox won a World Series, and Madonna is old.

Oh, and EE 2.0 will ship later than expected, but is unlikely to have any impact on the world’s current economic crisis.

The juxtapositions of improbable analogies mixed with your seeming doomsaying have left me temporarily speechless, though I can still type and snicker, often at the same time. The snickering is because I figured out, while wading through your impassioned rant, what you really want.

You want ExpressionEngine 2.0 and you want it now, right? Or, unable to obtain EE 2.0 at this very moment through pleading, tears, insults muckraking, or some implied cosmic disaster that will occur if EE doesn’t ship by Tuesday, you want Rick & Team to give you a pre-alpha release and a little badge that says you’re an Official EE 2.0 Tester, Contributor, Developer, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

I’ve been an EE user since the early, early days, and I’m still waiting for EE 2.0. That’s about five years, give or take a month or two. Uh, I’ve also been waiting for Windows 7 for nearly 20 years and it’s still not shipping. I’ve been waiting for OS X Snow Leopard since OS X Hello Kitty shipped in 2001, and I just don’t understand why Steve Jobs doesn’t let me help him. What’s up with that guy? Doesn’t he know I went to community college?

Yes, Joomla and Drupal and WordPress and friends are all open source and free and buggy and insecure at times, despite half the free world contributing pieces of code, but EE is my platform of choice for a variety of reasons yet unfulfilled by the aforementioned free beer apps. Flexibility. Capability. Stability. Affordability. Supportability (I made that up but it was important that it rhyme).

EE is a commercial venture. Rick & Team want to make money with EE. That’s fine with me so long as what I get for what I spend is what I want.

Sure, Darwin is free, but Darwin doesn’t do much without Apple, does it, and Apple is highly commercial, so the embracing of open source by our favorite Cupertino company is nominal, and obviously self-serving. Notice that other Apple Family Jewels are not open source. QuickTime is not. Neither is iTunes, nor Final Cut Pro. Is EE more akin to Darwin or FCP? EE works on PHP and MySQL, both of which are free, as are QuickTime Player and iTunes, but neither is available on Linux. What is Apple thinking? Oh, the humanity. Doom must be near, no? Or, uh, not.

Apple has had great success developing software with smaller, more intimate, highly motivated teams, vs. the open source approach of ‘anyone who can spell PHP can contribute’ vs. Microsoft’s ‘we have 100,000 software engineers and ship the world’s buggiest vaporware for a living.’ EE, as we know it, probably works well for us because Rick & Team focus on basics, almost to a fault—flexibility, capability, stability, and other ‘bilities too numerous to number, and are less constrained with a pre-determined launch date than with the desire to ‘get it right.’

As one of the oldest and longest using EE users (I know, it didn’t sound right to me, either), my preference is that Rick & Team get it right, not ‘right now.’ Soon, yes. But ‘right’ is more important. All of us who use EE can choose Joomla/Drupal/WP for free, but we choose to spend money for EE because of all the previously summarized ‘bilities.’

...with maybe 10-20 additional developers (or even 50), then we can start moving more quickly with new feature adds, and help make EE a revolutionary product… Something that can at least “compete” in today’s modern day in age.

So, EE doesn’t compete? See? It is possible to type and snicker at the same time.

and Madonna is old.

You lie! Next you’ll tell me Cindy Loper isn’t popular anymore.

I was going to wait until morning to close this thread but I think we’re so far off topic now that I’m closing it.

And Mark, welcome back to the community but really, you should ease back in. Its not going to go well if you come in and start swinging a sledge hammer around. We’ve got some fine China in here and we’re found of walls without holes. Also, stop spamming every thread you can think of with 2.0 beta tests requests. That isn’t going to get you access to a beta of any sort. The first previews of 2.0 will be going to active EE developers. If you really want to get involved, your best bet is to become one of those. No forum post is going to get anybody access to a Developer build faster then released code to the EE community.

Why haven’t we done this already? Its not done. No big tight lipped secret or zipped mouths here. Its simply “hey, its taking longer than we thought.”

When there is a preview available you can bet we’ll get it into the hands of the best EE devs out there.

As to EE not competing…. well, everyone is entitled to their opinion but response from the community and EE’s continued growth seem to provide a rather strong counter argument to your perspective.

Thread closed. Thanks for the input all (seriously, we listen to everybody).