Interview With Jonathan Wainwright (AKA Waindigo) - The Sequel

[Lisa]

I am a member of the Church of England. The Bible describes a Christian as anyone who believes that Jesus is God and that he died on the cross to take the punishment for our sin. My understanding is that most Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that Jesus is God, so my witness is very different in that sense.

Ahhh okay. That's interesting I've never heard anyone outside of JW refer to witnessing, so did wonder. Thanks for answering!

 

[Nudaii]

Ahhh okay. That's interesting I've never heard anyone outside of JW refer to witnessing, so did wonder. Thanks for answering!

Witness/Witnessing is common theology in most flavors of Christianity actually (In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16), however we don't go around door knocking like the JW's

 

[Lisa]

Witness/Witnessing is common theology in most flavors of Christianity actually (In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16), however we don't go around door knocking like the JW's

Yeah, it's more a case of all the Christians that I know don't seem to use the term, unless they're the JW variety. I get a lot of people knocking on my door to have religious discussions - I'm probably one of the few who actually greet JWs with a smile and a "how long have you got?" when I open the door to them I love talking religion, any religion - although I'm not religious myself. I find the whole subject fascinating

 

[Syndol]

however we don't go around door knocking like the JW's

No you just shove it down people's throats every chance you get

 

[R0binHood]

Oh Google...




Nice interview btw

 

[Jon W]

No you just shove it down people's throats every chance you get

Please don't take it out on Richard for my mistakes. I'm the one who is guilty of not holding my tongue when you post Albert Einstein or A.A. Milne quotes in response to a bible verses and I'm sorry for that.

 

[Azareal]

We are asking people to donate the amount of which they feel the software is worth to them. If the software is worthless to them, then they won't be using it so this is a use case that doesn't exist.

We have some suggested amounts on the site and I’m happy to offer a personalised suggestion to anyone who sends me a message. The suggested amount is what we think is reasonable for the amount of support we provide. Anyone who pays less than the suggested amount can use the add-on, but can’t really expect to get any support.

Let's translate this from marketing speak.

The add-ons are free, but you don't get any support. If you run a commercial site then, you have to pay a minimum of whatever Paypal / etc.'s minimum transfer value is, however you still don't get support.
To get support, you must pay a personalized quote from the developers themselves, based on what they think you should pay judging by the size of your site.

So, what happens if you run an absolutely colossal site that makes next to no money? Are you going to be slapping down $5000?

 

[Russ]

In the UK are there tax benefits to how Jon has this all setup as a charity?

This is by far the strangest charity setup I have ever seen.

 

[Lisa]

In the UK are there tax benefits to how Jon has this all setup as a charity?

This is by far the strangest charity setup I have ever seen.

https://www.gov.uk/charities-and-tax/overview

 

[Jon W]

In the UK are there tax benefits to how Jon has this all setup as a charity?

This is by far the strangest charity setup I have ever seen.

Waindigo Foundation was officially dissolved on 20th January 2015.

There is no charity.

 

[Russ]

There is no charity.

There was a charity for all the paid development work you did though correct? It just recently ended. So I'll rephrase your previous setup was by far the strangest charity setup

 

[Jon W]

There was a charity for all the paid development work you did though correct? It just recently ended. So I'll rephrase your previous setup was by far the strangest charity setup

Correct. It was setup to raise money for good causes when I wasn't really a Christian and thought that I could earn my way to heaven by doing good things to counteract all the bad stuff I was doing/had done. I tried to change the charity after I became a Christian to raise money for Christian causes instead but the Charity Commission rejected that request. Given that it was just confusing to most people anyway, I applied for it to be dissolved.

 

[DirtRider]

Correct. It was setup to raise money for good causes when I wasn't really a Christian and thought that I could earn my way to heaven by doing good things to counteract all the bad stuff I was doing/had done. I tried to change the charity after I became a Christian to raise money for Christian causes instead but the Charity Commission rejected that request. Given that it was just confusing to most people anyway, I applied for it to be dissolved.

Oh boy this sure is turning into a bible punching thread

I actually try and stay away from your add ons as I just find the way you operate a bit strange all round. You seem to go for quantity over quality. You support structure or ideas leave really put me off completely. If you going to make add ons free then those very same add on should be fully supported not made as a form of blackmail to squeeze cash out of people to get them working.

Looking at your prices on your site was also a real killer considering that some of us run hobby forums and don't make any cash from them at all but rather put out cash to keep them going.

Then of course the fact we live in different countries and our currency differs
1.00 USD = 11.6226 ZAR
1.00 EUR = 13.1473 ZAR
1.00 GBP = 17.5290 ZAR
1.00 AUD = 9.03107 ZAR

So things can become very expensive very fast

Over they years I have made it policy that id a coders work adds real value to my forum then I will make a donation of as much as I can afford however in your case my donation would have not come near what you expect. So with that said I now just don't even look at your work

 

[Jon W]

So, what happens if you run an absolutely colossal site that makes next to no money? Are you going to be slapping down $5000?

The highest suggested donation is for £480 per year which is what we suggest for unlimited add-ons on unlimited sites with an unlimited number of members. And you can remove your branding too.

If you were to download all of Brivium's add-ons, the cost would be just shy of $3,000 for the first year. There would be a 30% discount every year after that, so you'd be looking at around $2,000 per year. That is for the package that includes branding on your one site and no premium support, which is less tham what we offer for if you make a donation of any amount. For branding free and unlimited sites, expect to pay triple that price.

I actually try and stay away from your add ons as I just find the way you operate a bit strange all round. You seem to go for quantity over quality. You support structure or ideas leave really put me off completely. If you going to make add ons free then those very same add on should be fully supported not made as a form of blackmail to squeeze cash out of people to get them working.

It is not blackmail to offer something for free and then charge more for a premium service. Every single one of our add-ons works fine for the person who asked for the add-on to be developed for them and kindly allowed you to download it.

Looking at your prices on your site was also a real killer considering that some of us run hobby forums and don't make any cash from them at all but rather put out cash to keep them going.

This would be classified as a non-commercial site, so the suggested donation for this would be $0.

Over they years I have made it policy that id a coders work adds real value to my forum then I will make a donation of as much as I can afford however in your case my donation would have not come near what you expect. So with that said I now just don't even look at your work

I understand that you possibly can't donate enough to get premium support on add-ons that for whatever reason don't work for you and that is unfortunate. But I would be surprised if that were the case for all of the add-ons. I really don't see how your policy means that you should avoid looking at Waindigo add-ons altogether. As I've said, I would be very happy if people donated just £1 if that is what they feel the add-on is worth.

 

[Russ]

Jon W I'm curious but do you pick and choose people who you respond to in regards to support questions on the Resource Manager? I haven't had any negative experiences with your plugins, I recently uninstalled one after finding out I wasn't really suppose to have it without making a "donation".

I'm only asking because it sounds like if someone running a for-profit site is using an add-on and asks a support question if they didn't donate enough or at all you'll simply ignore them. If a small site with no profit asks the same question you'll gladly answer it. Is that right or do I have it wrong?

 

[DirtRider]

Well without having to dig around in my archive's I remember pointing

Jon W I'm curious but do you pick and choose people who you respond to in regards to support questions on the Resource Manager? I haven't had any negative experiences with your plugins, I recently uninstalled one after finding out I wasn't really suppose to have it without making a "donation".

I'm only asking because it sounds like if someone running a for-profit site is using an add-on and asks a support question if they didn't donate enough or at all you'll simply ignore them. If a small site with no profit asks the same question you'll gladly answer it. Is that right or do I have it wrong?

Well this was my point after asking for support on the one add on and was basically told to take out premium support if I wanted it sorted. I then just removed all add ons and don't uses them anymore.

The issue was later sorted out in a release a few release later. I suppose at this stage it was very clear I would not be taking out premium support. Now without having to search around for it I am not able to even remember what add on it was or what the issue was right now.

 

[Alpha1]

Every single one of our add-ons works fine for the person who asked for the add-on to be developed for them and kindly allowed you to download it.

No it does not. Many of your addons do not work well, are plagued with bugs and have performance issues. There are various examples that can be made where your addons do not work for the people funding them. As you know I have funded quite a few. Unfortunately I had to give up on several of them and have them recoded.
Here is a very recent example of someone paying you to develop and addon, but even after many of your bug fixes the addon still doesnt work for medium to large boards because the code is not up to par::

This add-on was developed to your exact specifications. Always happy to do more work on it.

Ok, maybe you're right! I'm so sorry that i didn't mention that speed and performance is important for me. My bad...

In this case as well the investment has been useless and another developer will rewrite it.

 

[Jon W]

Jon W I'm curious but do you pick and choose people who you respond to in regards to support questions on the Resource Manager? I haven't had any negative experiences with your plugins, I recently uninstalled one after finding out I wasn't really suppose to have it without making a "donation".

I'm only asking because it sounds like if someone running a for-profit site is using an add-on and asks a support question if they didn't donate enough or at all you'll simply ignore them. If a small site with no profit asks the same question you'll gladly answer it. Is that right or do I have it wrong?

If someone who has donated asks me a support question, they should always receive a timely response. For everyone else, I respond in my spare time if I get a chance, but I just don't have the time to respond to every request in my spare time for people who don't donate.

No it does not. Many of your addons do not work well, are plagued with bugs and have performance issues. There are various examples that can be made where your addons do not work for the people funding them. As you know I have funded quite a few. Unfortunately I had to give up on several of them and have them recoded.
Here is a very recent example of someone paying you to develop and addon, but even after many of your bug fixes the addon still doesnt work for medium to large boards because the code is not up to par::

In this case as well the investment has been useless and another developer will rewrite it.

Sorry, I take back what I said. The point still remains though that the add-ons wouldn't be there at all if it wasn't for the people who contributed towards them.

Sometimes there are issues that mean it is not always true that people get exactly what they think they've asked for. I'm happy to be judged on past performance and I do believe it is true in the majority of cases that the add-on works for the person who contributed (or it did at the time they contributed), but I also make mistakes. I do remember that you received particularly bad service as you were a customer around the time that the company went bust, so I'm really sorry about that. It got sorted in the end though, right?

 

[Syndol]

I honestly don't know what to make of it all. I haven't been able to figure it out for years now.
You are either a great con artist, a swindler, or just a person who intends well but is strongly handicapped by a very flawed business practice.
I would be highly embarrassed if someone paid for a custom add-on and then publicly complained about performance issues. Not only does this not seem to bother you but you want to be paid extra in order to fix the issue.
I used to fix bugs, small or large, within 24 hours. I don't expect you with the volume of add-ons you have to be able to do that, but your practice of mass producing add-ons and then charging for every little fix or feature adjustment is, in my opinion, not right.
It is of course your right to do so and you even have your followers who are willing to pay top dollar for the bug fixes. For your ability to charge huge hourly rates and get paid extra to bug fix, I tip my hat to you Sir. In that respect you are a true businessman.

Now in regards to you "coding for God" and "Jesus is my CEO" stuff I simply find it greatly amusing. Personally I couldn't care less what religion someone belongs to, if at all. I don't care about skin colour, creed, or nationality.
I don't even hate people who live in countries that used to be or still are my enemy as that is all politics.
In my humble opinion, religion and politics have no place on forums such as these. That is why I highly resent the fact when people regurgitate scripture or political rhetoric over and over in the hopes of influencing others.

If my comments come across as personal "attacks" then please be assured that that is not my intention as I have nothing against you personally as an individual. I'm simply commenting on your over zealous religious behaviour and what I consider a questionable business practice.
We are all entitled to our opinions and this one is mine

 

[Jon W]

I honestly don't know what to make of it all. I haven't been able to figure it out for years now.
You are either a great con artist, a swindler, or just a person who intends well but is strongly handicapped by a very flawed business practice.
I would be highly embarrassed if someone paid for a custom add-on and then publicly complained about performance issues. Not only does this not seem to bother you but you want to be paid extra in order to fix the issue.
I used to fix bugs, small or large, within 24 hours. I don't expect you with the volume of add-ons you have to be able to do that, but your practice of mass producing add-ons and then charging for every little fix or feature adjustment is, in my opinion, not right.

There are some great points here, so I'm going to try and break them down. I agree that my business model is not perfect (so by definition it is flawed), but aren't all business models flawed in one way or another? For example, amoung other things the model of charging for add-ons is severely flawed in that it allows pirates to flourish. Similarly, the model of bespoke development without releasing publicly at all is, in my opinion, massively damaging for a software platform like XenForo because it results in massive inefficiency.

That being said, not fixing bugs for a customer without charging them extra is not part of my business model. As you've pointed out, the big problem that has arisen from my business model is that I now have a number of add-ons that is too big to support. This is very true, but then within a year they will probably all relate to an old version of XenForo and be pretty worthless anyway.

So, I have a situation where a customer from June 2012 has recently (in February 2014, referring to an issue first raised by a non-contributor in August 2013) started to raise issues about performance with an add-on that was developed when I didn't know much about XenForo (I had been developing for about 6 months). I had massively underquoted on the job and even agreed to throw in some last minute changes without realising that they would result in a performance issue. As it goes, the add-on is pretty badly coded, but so were most of my other add-ons at that point. I added an option to disable the small part of the add-on that was causing the performance issue and no more was said about the issue until September 2014 when a bad review was left. In November someone offered to pay for the fix, but this never materialised. And now it has been raised again because Alfa1 is having this add-on developed elsewhere. Should I drop everything and re-write an ageing add-on now just as Alfa1 is getting someone else to develop a version? I think my time is probably better spent elsewhere now.

It is of course your right to do so and you even have your followers who are willing to pay top dollar for the bug fixes. For your ability to charge huge hourly rates and get paid extra to bug fix, I tip my hat to you Sir. In that respect you are a true businessman.

Should I have offered to fix it for free in February 2014? In hindsight, yes. Am I sorry for my mistake, yes.

Now in regards to you "coding for God" and "Jesus is my CEO" stuff I simply find it greatly amusing. Personally I couldn't care less what religion someone belongs to, if at all. I don't care about skin colour, creed, or nationality.
I don't even hate people who live in countries that used to be or still are my enemy as that is all politics.
In my humble opinion, religion and politics have no place on forums such as these. That is why I highly resent the fact when people regurgitate scripture or political rhetoric over and over in the hopes of influencing others.

If my comments come across as personal "attacks" then please be assured that that is not my intention as I have nothing against you personally as an individual. I'm simply commenting on your over zealous religious behaviour and what I consider a questionable business practice.
We are all entitled to our opinions and this one is mine

This is an interview thread where questions were asked about how faith affects my work and personal life, so I'll assume you are not referring specifically to this thread. It was 28 years before someone told properly told me what the message of Jesus was actually about -- and that was only because I believe that God locked me out of my office and then guided me to a bible teaching church. And I would have called myself a Christian.

I really wish someone would have told me about it sooner. It is amazing news and I urge you not to just dismiss it as over zealous religious behaviour. My best man at my wedding was a guy who is very intelligent and also a massive atheist. When I challenged him about his beliefs, he challenged me back and said "if it is such good news, why aren't Christians shouting about this more?".

I think we both agree that my business practice (in not fixing a bug) was not the best and maybe I'm still making a mistake by still not fixing it. What would you do in my position now?