Following on from http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=22029.0 I think some urgent clarification is needed as in will critical and security updates be released or is the project completely dead? Best to know now so we can switch to an alternative solution for selling images and not waste our time.

Quote from: flotsom on February 25, 2014, 15:50
Following on from http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=22029.0 I think some urgent clarification is needed as in will critical and security updates be released or is the project completely dead? Best to know now so we can switch to an alternative solution for selling images and not waste our time.

What critical or secrurity issues are you talking about? I am completely unaware of any?

It's far from dead.  If you read Leo's post here you'll see that he said he'll be back after he recovers from a year of financial breakdown and stress and that he'll correct issues that occur with Wordpress Updates.
He seems to be backing off to attend to personal needs and since the site is stable and sustainable on it's own he's not actively responding to every wish and whim that were becoming overwhelming.

Seems it is dead, the developer left the project and it is now an abandoned software, I paid $125 dollars for. The OP was perfectly in his right to express his concerns.

Quote from: Waka Waka on August 10, 2014, 20:28
Seems it is dead, the developer left the project and it is now an abandoned software, I paid $125 dollars for. The OP was perfectly in his right to express his concerns.

I can see how you would draw that conclusion having not done your homework. But it is not dead, just hybernating. There are still many plans for it, but mostly a change of direction in quality and membership. The main network is still supported as needed.

I am going by what the developer posted on his website. Seems clear as water to me.

QuoteIts simply not possible to work on this project Anymore.

QuoteThat was the end of this project for me.

QuoteAs of Today, June 29, 2014 Symbiostock has finally been put to rest 

But its also said multiple times I would release my own updates to people and help on a personal level. So I suppose its whatever you want to see.

The main problem with this project is the most troublesome influences usually come from within. If you really want to know the depth of what kept Symbiostock from being what it could have been there is this:

http://www.clipartillustration.com/a-letter-to-the-symbiostockers/ ..its been posted for quite some time.

The main problem with Symbiostock is that it was far too public, and since it started in MSG we ended up with a few real vipers with a permanent latch onto it. The only hope was to build faster than others tore down.

From here on (as long as I own this project) I'll be running it more like ClipArtof.com and dare I say Stocksy. Clipartof.com is a quiet entity which is quite selective, and Stocksy...well, we can dream?

Symbiostock from here on will have two sides to it: The main network, and the symbiostock.com.

Also its worth noting that I will be selling Symbiostock to whatever person or agency would like it after I've established the main site and leveled things out. Then people will have the best of both worlds: Symbiostock creativity and agency-level ambition and ethics.

The software is ready, great, free and works flawlessly and Leo promised me personally he will keep it up with Wordpress updates! Nothing more is needed! If you are not happy with it's functionality it's up to you to choose a different software (good luck to find one even more for free). I'm shocked how ungrateful people can be!

Quote from: stocked on August 11, 2014, 09:10
The software is ready, great, free and works flawlessly and Leo promised me personally he will keep it up with Wordpress updates! Nothing more is needed! If you are not happy with it's functionality it's up to you to choose a different software (good luck to find one even more for free). I'm shocked how ungrateful people can be!

+1 !

Exactly -- I've been running several sites since the beginning of the project and they have never been down for technical problems -- sure, we'd all like enhancements and improvements, but Leo devoted more than a year to this project for a pittance in income and reality set it.

the source is still available for free, and ANYONE who wants to can add to it.   the symbiostock network and global searches still work, driving traffic to everyone's sites, which no other commercial site (smugmug, photoshelter, et al) does.

so, those interested in joing the community are welcome - and can get help and advice at http://symbiostock.pix-now.com  where all the forums, tutorials and documentation now live

--

as a side note we have many European sites who are running fine without the VAT addition.   

My site works fine too, no complaints there. There will be new EU VAT rules effective 1 Jan 2015.

You might want to check up on your business services, before you put your customers in trouble for not abiding to EU legislation.

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/traders/e-commerce/index_en.htm

Quote from: Waka Waka on August 11, 2014, 20:30
My site works fine too, no complaints there. There will be new EU VAT rules effective 1 Jan 2015.

You might want to check up on your business services, before you put your customers in trouble for not abiding to EU legislation.

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/traders/e-commerce/index_en.htm

sorry for any confusion, I was referring to European artists who run their own sites

this project was just too ambitious and unrealistic for a single coder and he had to learn it the hard way.

if we look at similar e-commerce CMS they're all written by an entire team and it took 2-3 yrs to reach the point of a stable release.

yeah there are exceptions like the first PhpNuke or OScommerce but they were a disaster for a loooong time before becoming relatively stable, and they started during the web 1.0 era, nowadays it's all a big mess even if using a solid framework and all, and new versions of WP can pretty much screw it up overnight.

Quote from: Hobostocker on August 12, 2014, 07:06
written by an entire team and it took 2-3 yrs to reach the point of a stable release.

Well Symbiostock is stable! This just shows what an incredible amount of work Leo put in it's development. He always wanted to develop it in a team but nobody would or most likely could join him because artists can't code in most cases.

Personally I'm pretty happy with it. I run it on my own website, I log in to find that my server load is relatively low (running two symbiostock installs plus a bunch of other stuff) ... things are good. Once a year a customer gets pissed off at something that didn't work and I give him a free illustration.

The problem isn't unsteady software, but the fact that open source in general is hard to monetize. All the more so when you have microstock people that sell snapshots for $20 complaining that a $75 product you spent 6 months on is too expensive. I'm not even speaking ignorantly - I have some illustrations I spent less than an hour on that have made more money over their lifetime than a photo-selling suite that runs on 180 (known) sites. I mean, lets put things into perspective! Personally I find coding to be a far more valuable skill than illustration, but wow...I must be missing something. I can charge $2000 on a 3d model that takes a week to create if things go well. But I can't charge a comparable amount on creating a plugin which is definitely more complex. One notable person who needed me to make a plugin responded with "Well, my guys in India could do it for less..."

People on MSG have the luxury of opinion because many times they don't see the other side. The ones that do generally come across much differently, and they are known. I used to take great offense to Lobo's arrogance on Istock, but then I realized he was probably the greatest asset in dealing with some of the degenerative characters latched onto that community. So yes, I have learned some lessons!

If you want a fun read, check this out: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-strictly-google-sitemap-strictly-sitemap-and-custom-post-types ...it echoes what man open sourcerers complain about

Sorry for the long post. I just watched the new Ninja turtles with the fam (totally awesome awesome movie) so I'm having a temporary UP I figured I'd run with. Don't worry, I'll delete my account again soon  or I could just create another screen name.

Quote from: Leo on August 12, 2014, 09:24
"Well, my guys in India could do it for less..."

Leo, i understand you.

For very similar reasons i've quit doing coding, and if we talk about CMS and especially about open source CMS the only ones making decent money are the guys selling templates while the coders are starving or keeping it as a side hobby.

Even WP is not making money from coding but just from selling upsells, domain names, upgrades, tech support.

It's such a tragedy and if that matters i've friends giving away their music for almost free and monetizing a bit selling merchandising and doing some gigs ... but gigs pay peanuts to artists so they're scre-wed anyway.

The ultimate problem is since everybody has a computer nowadays they think they can do it themselves and they think it's not rocket science and therefore it must be priced cheap or even being free.

And even if it's free they will endlessly complain and complain again, so much that they complain about their waster time and therefore their wasted money, as if free software was the same as commercial software.

This * Free culture is really the root of all evils in my opinion and i would be more than happy living without linux, lamp, android, and the whole cr-ap, give me IIS, Visual Studio, ASP.net, WinMobile, IOS, no problem, but nooo ... people want free or nothing and they want the sourced code too, all served on a golden platter, then they will rant about the lack of documentation and multi language, and the list is endless.

in other words, photography has never been as popular as today, and so is music, software, video, videogames, and so many creative applications and artworks.

and YET it's never been so hard to make money out of it like today.

there was a time people would pay 50-100$ per hour to code HTML 1.0 ... now they refuse to use your app even if it's free.

what's next, will they pretend to get paid as beta testers since there might be a few bugs in the code and so they will suffer from downtime and maintenance ?

and i've never seen such a pile of sh-it apps before the advent of Android and the Play Store ... not that i could care less but it gives us a rough idea of the dreadful situation and it's going to get worse for developers as far as i see it.

LOL Hobostocker. I think we could summarize all the volumes of Symbiostock aggravation into your three posts. Good job.

I wont comment now, because I said it all already long time ago.

Only one thing: Leo, do not blame yourself, you were carried away like any dedicated young man should be, and you learned a valuable lesson: you can not build a skyscraper in a swamp, but you need to dig the foundation deep into the bedrock.

Quote from: JPSDK on August 12, 2014, 15:02
...you can not build a skyscraper in a swamp, but you need to dig the foundation deep into the bedrock.

Very good comment...

Quote from: Hobostocker on August 12, 2014, 10:14
This * Free culture is really the root of all evils in my opinion and i would be more than happy living without linux, lamp, android, and the whole cr-ap, give me IIS, Visual Studio, ASP.net, WinMobile, IOS, no problem, but nooo ... people want free or nothing and they want the sourced code too, all served on a golden platter, then they will rant about the lack of documentation and multi language, and the list is endless.

I'd say nearly free is probably more dangerous. I'm always amazed when someone scoffs at paying $20 for an illustration. I always think to myself what do you think it should cost? Or how much do you think my time should be worth and how much is your time worth?

hi Leo,
i have never spoken 2 u before, but i have followed ur progress here on Tyler's forum .
it's a shame ur dream got hijacked by the internal problems. it is as they say,
no matter what, someone will come in to screw it up; even if it benefits other contributors,etc..

anyway, end of the story being, i know u will be rewarded for all u ventured.

as Hobo points out , we r in the "age of entitlement" where freebies is not considered a privilege but an expectation. musicians paid pennies? well, we won't go into that , safe that, as a teenager
we were paid 300 bucks for a gig at pub-night 2 nights a week = 100 bucks per person as a power-trio.
last time i spoke to today's musicians , they told me they get paid for a case of beer.
one bottle per person for a 6 piece band. 2 for my power-trio if we were young today.

same for the writers of freeware or shareware. lots of criticisms , all for giving away their
work. why?
and we thought ms was bad 

no time for crying over spilt milk, as Goofy says.
it's the reality today. so, go where there is no saturation, and live well and prosper .

Spock 

Not sure why people think people want stuff for free. Speaking for myself only, I have bought several plugins, paid for the premium version, and donated to the project. I also offered to pay for the VAT plugin. I offered to pay for a mobile version. I offered to pay for a working licencing system.

I have paid for plugins that were later given away for free. . At some point someone needed something on their site, and I pointed them to the paid plugin that would do the trick. But the developer offered to inject the code for free instead. Great business sense

Sorry, but thats not my problem. If you want to make money, but charging one person and giving it away to the next is questionable.

As I have said before, I paid as much for LR as I did for Symbiostock. Adobe gives me live time free updates. So I will not pay for symbiostock updates. If that makes me a free loader, then so be it.

I see the project is dead, but the cult is still very much alive. 

Quote from: Waka Waka on August 12, 2014, 19:50
Adobe gives me live time free updates.

That must be a different Adobe I paid for all my updates otherwise I would still work with Photoshop 2.5 (yes the one without CS) the last update (CS6) did cost me 600,- Euros not exactly free..., same with LR (but granted cheaper)