Xtension List EMERGENCY!

[Marty Roberts]

That’s a good point, Heather.

Personally (and I realise it has no bearing on anything lol), I would not want to see XTension move to a subscription model. As much as I have put in a lot of work writing scripts etc in XTension, I would just move to one of the other open source HA platforms if that happened.

That’s not saying I don’t believe James should be compensated for his development of the software. Last year, when I saw in the release notes that he recommended people move away from 10.11 as he will drop support for it eventually, I was worried I would be left behind, as I use an older Mac mini (2009) to run it. I paid the equivalent of a week’s rent for the app & XTDB (AUD $245), which is the most I’ve ever spent on any app (SoftRAID for my Mac Pro being a close second). Happy to do it, as it controls my whole home life.

What I suggested was that, seeing as he is constantly improving and creating new interfaces to support more devices etc, maybe users could pay for any new interfaces they wanted? Half of the interfaces I never use, and I’m sure others would be the same, but if he brought out a new one that allowed me to integrate Aqara or similar zigbee sensors into my setup, then I would be happy (actually stoked lol) to pay for the interface to be added-on!

Thanks for the tithe idea- I had no idea about it. I just searched for purchasing info on the wiki, and saw it listed there. I hope he hasn’t gotten to the burn out point as well lol. Stay with us, James! ����
I walked away from a secure public sector job, supporting I.T. users in Hospitals across the state, a couple years ago, so know the feeling haha. I can distinctly remember the point where it happened, too. A nurse had rung support after having keyboard issues. I suggested we do a bit of troubleshooting & then maybe try a different one if that didn’t work, and her response was: “Ugh, can’t you just send someone with a new one right now, or fix it without me being here on the phone? ��”. Pretty sure the twig snapping noise inside me was audible to my colleagues. I took an extended “stress break” after that call hahaha. After that point, I was dead inside going in every day ����, and felt like a mix of Little Britain’s “….computer says Nooo….” Lady and The I.T. Crowd, as an employee. Hopefully James hasn’t reached that point yet…. ����

Marty.

On 4 Jun 2022, at 9:31 pm, Heather James <thewebgal at gmail.com<mailto:thewebgal at gmail.com>> wrote:

At my end, it appears the last message I got from the ListServe was May 7th.
I work as a technical writer, and I know my employment world changed radically since COVID became a thing - I did 100% telework for 2 years and when the last contract ended in Nov, I basically retired.

But what about James? Since Michael set XTension up originally as a pay-once, use it forever software (basically, hobbyware?), has James has gotten any significant funding since he took over full responsibilities for the package. I know with all the changes from Intel based to Mac based Processors, with Mac's Homekit feature, and all the changes in the OS functionality, to say nothing of the death of the Insteon tech, it's got to be a thankless job supporting all that. Alone. Unpaid.

On the XTension Licensing page, there is a comment that folks could "Tithe" him to help fund the work - https://machomeautomation.com/doku.php/purchasing
That could be a good start to support him supporting us.

Maybe something like a $60 a year licensing would help out - I know I've paid more for other utility software I use.
Hopefully, James hasn't gotten to the "fully burned-out" stage of being a developer - I don't think any of the other automation packages come even close to this software.

I'm writing James and asking him to restart the listserve -
maybe we can talk about this and encourage him to go forward?
Be gentle, folks...


                Heather James
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            thewebgal at gmail.com<mailto:thewebgal at gmail.com>

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Thanks,
 James


James Sentman                       http://www.PlanetaryGear.org<http://www.planetarygear.org/> http://MacHomeAutomation.com<http://machomeautomation.com/>




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