Originally Posted by Tristanian
Guess you haven't been to the UI and macros forum recently 
As for Rendus, it is well within the rights of both WoWI and Curse to protect their investment, moreso since they provide the source of the files. WM is just a smart distribution mechanism (and you can debate that it isn't by mentioning technicalities such as "hotlinking" etc for 100 more pages, for 100 years, it won't alter the outcome), that offers nothing to those that are providing the source, which is ultimately addon authors. You see the real difference is, for sites such as WoWI and Curse protecting and supporting the providers of the source (aka authors) > user convenience (despite the fact that they also gain from it but why wouldn't they, at least they provide a valid service) and quite frankly this is an important reason on why many of us, continue to post our work here. |
And therein lies the problem. The authors of addons feel that the ability of the user to actually find and use their addon should be inhibited for whatever reason - I'm not sure if it's vanity, if it's some misplaced desire to control every aspect of their project, if it's just open hostility toward the people they wrote the addon for.
I have never, and will never, argue that WowMatrix's method was the correct one - I'm, believe it or not, on the side of the site maintainers in that regard, as the owner of a moderately popular site of some variety myself. Hotlinking denies them the ad revenue they'd receive from visits.
My point is solely this: I cannot understand why the addon authors, who have no stake in WoWInterface or Curse, are so vehemently against alternate means of getting their addons. This change did, as far as I can tell, break other addon updaters that did not have the issues people speak of with WowMatrix such as editing of addons and unauthorized rehosting (which is it - Do you want them to host the addons themselves, or not? You get arguments from both sides of that fence). There's likely no technical solution that would single out WowMatrix that wouldn't make it trivial to work around, but baby with the bathwater and all that.
The 'I'm going to rehost for my guild' comment was as much truth as bait of sorts to draw out the very sort of comment it did - DMCA takedowns for redistributing an unmodified copy of a work that is freely available, and almost certainly doesn't have licensing information made available on a page I can access without actually downloading the addon. This rehosting provides no further burden to WOWI/Curse, provides fantastic convenience to the users of these addons in that they will have a one-stop shop for addon updates that have been verified to work by their guildmaster and without having to deal with the oddities of the 3.1 Survival Guides and such that will crop up all over the place, with many of them being of dubious accuracy.
But, authors > users.
Originally Posted by Dyspeptic
Ok to all you people *****ing about your preccious WM getting broken on patch day.
I have used WM for quite some time (in ignorance of the harm it causes WoWI and Curse) after reading the (legitimate imo) concerns towards the way WM pulls addons and even alters them I swapped my updaters to Curse client and WoWiUD, within 10mins every addon I use (around 100+) were covered and updated with minimal effort on my part.
There really is no issue here except the one of your own damn laziness to switch to an UD client that is friendly to these sites which provide you with much more than the raw addons.
In the time it has taken most of you to post here whining about your preciuos WM you could have DL'd and installed CC and WoWiUD and saved yourself the inevitable flaming you will surely recieve.
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Myself, I have my addons updated. It's the other hundred or so people that'll be looking to me for help that I'm not looking forward to, and no amount of sloth on my part is responsible for it.
Want to walk your average WOW users through this? At a casual glance, I can't even find the WoWInterface installer. Find? Nothing. Community? This. Addons? Well, those are addons. Projects? Nope, a SVN repository of addons in various questionable stages of quality. Forums? This heap again.
I google for "wowinterface addon updater", and first hit has this gem:
Please Note: This updater is being discontinued. We're allowing you to continue downloading this current version until the new one is ready, but please be aware that it may not work as well as could be hoped for.
Well... That's... Good. So do I download that or not?
I know I wouldn't. And given the Downloads: 74,943 figure, I suspect many others aren't convinced either.