Appcelerator: extortion is just part of the job | Hacker News Reader

Appcelerator: extortion is just part of the job

weblog.masukomi.org

70 pointsmasukomi33 comments

Saying that Appcelerator is extorting their users I'm pretty sure enters into libel territory. Extortion is a crime, and saying that Appcelerator committed a crime is setting you up for a lawsuit.

It could very well have been an accident on the part of the sales person, and saying that the CEO is deceiving people because he doesn't use the same words that you would have used is simply wrong.

If I were you, I would take down the post, or at least change the wording so that you're not saying they are extorting their customers.

Oh, please.

Look, you can sue anyone for anything you want, at any time, so stop being so worried about it.

Besides, the last thing they want to do is go make a case saying, "yes, we asked for 10,000 pounds after the fact, but it wasn't extortion!!"

You should note the very explicit disclaimer at the end noting that this is my personal opinion. Furthermore, the CEO apologized for the incident, and mentions that it happened before. Logically it happened by their own admission (so i'm not claiming anything they haven't already admitted to) and the conclusions based upon their comments ( like moral bankruptcy ) are A) literally unprovable and subjective and B) explicitly noted as my personal opinion, which is something we are legally allowed to note publicly.

I strongly suggest you read up on what constitutes libel/defamation. Just by saying something is your opinion does not protect you, as least in the US.

https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamati...

They didn't apologize for extortion. They apologized for accidentally charging a developer. That is not extortion. Extortion is a very serious criminal offense. Unless you have proof that they are actually engaging in extortion, and that they are engaging in criminal activities, you are making yourself vulnerable to a lawsuit.

I'm having a hard time giving this current dust up any credence. There has been one user who has come forward saying there was unethical behavior from the UK sales office, the CEO said there have been a couple reports. I'm not seeing a wide spread change in their behavior or offerings as this blog post suggests. While something to keep an eye on, I hardly think it warrants the attention it is currently receiving.

if you followed the story more closely you'd see that there are at least three reported instances, AND a CEO confirming multiple. this should NEVER happen. The fact that it has happened multiple times.... how can you not think that worth a dust-up... or four? You think it's ok to occasionally attempt to extort your customers? You think salespeople shouldn't be fired on the spot for treating your customers with such broken morality... repeatedly?

You are misinterpreting the CEO's statement. He said:

   Was the sales rep over eager and trying to hussle
   to get a deal? Probably. In my opinion, that's the
   job of the rep and we work with hundreds of new paying
   customers each quarter and we've only had a few
   complaints about it.

He's not saying they've had a few complaints about so-called "extortion". He is saying they've had only a few complaints about their sales reps total for all causes.

Erm, something is dodgy here. Either this article is completely fiction or the CEO's response has been edited since this was posted (2 days ago).

Here is the original post, the CEO's response is the accepted answer at the top:

http://developer.appcelerator.com/question/142516/warning-li...

EDIT: Oh these quotes are from a comment by the CEO on the accepted answer.

The CEO's response has been edited a few times since the incident.

I used Appcelerator to build my first app. I just loved the platform and started a meetup in my area recently because one did not existed. Before I built the app, I read the pricing page and went through their pricing FAQ and see that it was FREE if I dont use any of the add on features - and now I read this. I hope it turns out that there was just a shitty salesperson who was being over agressive and nothing else but I am sad to see that there is no clarification on pricing yet. Someone posted a link to an email chain with the companies sales person in that thread - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4600727/Learning%20TI/AppC_Pricing_e... - where the sales person made this statement -

AppC Explore – This is free for anyone who wants to create an app that does not generate revenue in any way.

Why is this statement not on the pricing page or even on Pricing FAQ page?

if i understand the CEOs comments correctly (which is not an easy thing) then this statement

>his is free for anyone who wants to create an app that does not generate revenue in any way.

is just not true (a.k.a. false). but in the current state of this affair, we do not know for sure (and maybe never will).

INTERESTING UPDATE:

The CEOs comments to his "accepted answer", which my quotes were taken from, have since been removed from the Appcelerator forum. Funny that. ;)

No, they haven't. They are just not showing up right away because of the forum software's comment hiding. I just went to the post and loaded the entire text of his comment, which you reference in your post. I can't link to it, again because of their forum software, but if you click 'show X more comments' under the Accepted answer, you'll see the post.

ahh thanks @russnewcomer will update the update comment on the post.

    The iPad app we've been working on is currently 
    using a very useful plugin that can only be found 
    in the Appcelerator ecosystem. I shall be ripping 
    that out and finding some other solution to the 
    problem. There are plenty of competitors in this 
    space.

If you were writing a native app you wouldn't have to rip anything out or have to find it elsewhere. Just sayin'.

I have a fairly aggressive lack of sympathy for phonegap/titanium/"cheap shortcut" users in general and this whole incident is just sort of confirmation to part of the reason why.

Phonegap has no such issues as it is now becoming an Apache project (see Apache Cordova). Before Apache I would have steered clear as well, for exactly the reasons you're mentioning.

Of course, a well-made native application will perform better, but PhoneGap can be quite smooth too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467826

As a bonus, you'll get to utilize your existing web development skills. Besides, quite a lot of the "native" apps I've seen utilize some webviews anyway.

> I have a fairly aggressive lack of sympathy for phonegap/titanium/"cheap shortcut" users in general

They're fulfilling a need that is the same as someone who customizes WordPress or builds on top of Drupal - people who want custom software, but can't afford it.

If the tools didn't work, then they wouldn't be used as much as they are, and if there was no demand for cheap mobile development with compromises, then the tools wouldn't exist.

> If the tools didn't work, then they wouldn't be used as much as they are

The people who make the decision are not necessarily the ones who know what works and what doesn't. "It has to be HTML5" might just as well be the next "it must be object-oriented".

meh, I don't think this has really got anything to do with "cheap shortcut" methods. this is about broken morals. But, with that said, my impression is that while there are a lot of downsides to using HTML5 for your app, there's a LOT of amazing things you can do with the UI that are much harder in Objective C, and it's a hell of a lot more affordable to contract HTML devs than it is Obj C devs. ;) And when you're bootstrapping an app that is a big deal.

Titanium isn't an HTML5 based app framework like Phonegap. It's a Javascript framework for building apps that use the native UI widgets.

My experience with titanium was really poor. Lots of silent fails with no real error output. Also I found it very limited, more limited than just opening a webview and using html5 really and hooking into it with code for the native functionality.

And horrible doc. Don't forget that!

The docs are pretty good, and the wiki is a wealth of information. where exactly are you looking?

You must be joking. I've built several projects, for pay, using Titanium and find it to be very powerful and fast for building even complex mobile apps. The customers have been thrilled that I'm able to deliver tons of features in shorter time frames and hence lower cost.

As for error output - you just need to look at the logs in detail (and turn them up to trace) to get details for hard crashed.

I built one project with it for pay. It is much more limited than a real native solution like obj-c, monotouch, etc.

What exactly would you do if the client came back to you and requested something titanium couldn't do?

When I was using it it had problems even moving to a page with a webview already loaded up to a webpage.

Have you built a project with a real native language for pay?

"there's a LOT of amazing things you can do with the UI that are much harder in Objective C"

I don't really agree with this. Can you provide an example?

Because there are a million things you can do in objective c with the ui that are basically impossible to do with html5, and many many ui elements you can configure 100x faster in obj-c(they also run 100x faster). Hell even having a reasonable 2 column lay out is surprisingly difficult in html/css.

With obj c/native if you are unhappy with some functionality of the ui you can very easily break into open gl and do pretty much anything you can imagine if you have the talent.

As far as I can tell the only real advantages of using html5 is that you can hit many platforms poorly with one code base, and that maybe you don't really know how to program or understand object oriented programming.

I would not say speed of making a ui is a plus for html unless you are trying to hit a bunch of platforms poorly or do not know the native languages well.

A lack of sympathy would be appropriate if the developer was having problems with the app quality, reliability, performance, etc. then I think we might all be with you that you don't deserve sympathy for your app sucking because you took technical shortcuts.

But for a the vendor of development tools to start contacting my clients without my permission? That's ridiculous for them to even communicate with my clients, let alone try to get money.

Did appcelerator steal your blankie ? It's annouing dealing with developers like this that feel entitled to everything for free.

... free? I don't give a shit about free vs. paid. I give a shit about how morally broken it is to practice extortion on your customers (free or otherwise). I've got no problem with paying for good service. Are you suggesting that it is unreasonable to be upset about a company you deal with trying to extort thousands of pounds from people?

Not your customers... your clients.

If you make an app for someone on a contract basis, then its theirs. Appcelerator might go after then because they're the ones running the project in breach---you're just the developer.

I don't mean to sound patronizing but that's how sales (and business) works. Like it or not when you sign up for apcelerator you are part of their sales life cycle. And sometimes there might be confusion about who to contact about upgrading to a pro license. Sounds like an isolated human error.

If you can't handle the prospect of being contacted by companies don't develop using their sdk, stick with developing apps for gnome or openbsd.

Also you sound so bitter. Give forgiveness a chance.

You wrote "Did appcelerator steal your blankie?", which is quite literally treating him like he's a three-year-old and you claim you didn't mean to sound patronizing? What else could have you possibly meant with that as an opening sentence?

Also, you aggressively miss the point. He's not upset about being contacted. He's upset about having them threaten to take down his app.

If someone licenses a product to you for free, you are entitled to it for free, without the worry of having the vendor extort both you and your clients.

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