Custom Development? How much?

[Speedy059]

It appears that this isn't the same product I bought a couple months ago. It appears you can't have your own third party plugins anymore, you have to pay to contact them, etc. With so many changes that goes on each week, this is not the same product we purchased anymore. When we purchased we were able to create tickets and create our own module. If we have to pay a minimum of $200/hr to have a module created, then this is down right crazy. I'm about to do a chargeback and bite the bullet and just stick with WHMCS. I don't have a clue what HostbillApp is anymore or where it is going.

[Patrick]

It appears that this isn't the same product I bought a couple months ago. It appears you can't have your own third party plugins anymore, you have to pay to contact them, etc. With so many changes that goes on each week, this is not the same product we purchased anymore. When we purchased we were able to create tickets and create our own module. If we have to pay a minimum of $200/hr to have a module created, then this is down right crazy. I'm about to do a chargeback and bite the bullet and just stick with WHMCS. I don't have a clue what HostbillApp is anymore or where it is going.

Unfortunately, it is not.  They shift road maps quite often and it's like checking the lottery every day to see what has changed when visiting their site.  On that note, keep in mind if you paid by credit card through Paypal and you file a charge back through the credit card company, i THINK paypal hits you with a fee but i'm not 100% sure.  You mentioned 3 months ago, so i'm guessing it's over the 45 day maximum PayPal offers. 

[Speedy059]

We paid via CC, and have 180 days regardless if it was done through paypal or not. Paypal has no control over that. This is a bogus product ran by a tyrant developer. If we would have known this we would have started developing something in WHMCS a lot sooner.

I like how he says that everyone is grandfathered in for the third party extensions....but for how long? How long is he going to continue to develop API's and integration into his system that he no longer offers to clients? We are only a couple of months away until he realizes he is spending precious dev time keeping up with his API's and Extension integration, for his old clients who aren't paying him anything for it. He will drop this in the future, or just stop developing it making it worthless for those of us grandfathered in.

Whole thing is a joke, this guy obviously needs to let someone else run it for him. He needs some kind of annuity as oppose to all of these one-time fees. He's trying to increase all the ways possible to get additional income, but not 1 thing is an annuity and guaranteed. This business model is going to hurt everyone soon....as he has blocked out all potential clients already with his stupid $100 pre-sale question fee. I never new of a business who was doing sooooo well where they could charge $100 to a potential client to ask a question about a product. Never heard of this, never was taught this technique in my top 20 business college I graduated from, nothing. The more I think about the time we wasted, it just ticks me off even more.

[tallship]

We paid via CC, and have 180 days regardless if it was done through paypal or not. Paypal has no control over that. This is a bogus product ran by a tyrant developer.

Good for you.

You're fortunate since your not exceedingly vested in this software already. Even the rest of us who are, have spent a lot of money already preparing parallel and exit strategies.

You should also know this, if it offers you any sort of satisfaction, that everytime you do a chargeback the vendor is dinged for money out of their pocket too - not just the money that is refunded to you

Even if someone loses a chargeback, the vendor still pays the chargeback fee assessed by their merchant provider, usually twice too.

And too many chargebacks results in that vendor no longer being able to run charges. 3Co has already closed them down, and PayPal will be shutting them down next.

[Enterprisevpssolutions]

You can always hire a coder from freelancer you can get better prices. I have asked to get a custom module built for hosting module that is compatible with hostbill and whmcs. Opensource all the way, more can get done if you have a bigger community to work with. Not everything is about making money of a module it should be about what you can offer that others can't or wont and build from there.

[electric]

You can always hire a coder from freelancer you can get better prices. I have asked to get a custom module built for hosting module that is compatible with hostbill and whmcs. Opensource all the way, more can get done if you have a bigger community to work with. Not everything is about making money of a module it should be about what you can offer that others can't or wont and build from there.

It is pointless to develop anything for hostbill ourselves, because as the OP pointed out... Kris is going to eventually remove the API or at the very least, stop developing it, once he realizes all he's doing is wasting his time and losing money by continuing the development of it.  (ie: If he continues to develop the API for customers like us, who are grandfathered.. then we aren't EVER going to buy any of his modules since we can simply create our own.  Do you think Kris is going to allow that to continue.)

No.  At best, the API will stay like it is now, with no further changes or anything added.  At worst, Kris will find some way to kill the API so it can't realistically be use any longer by us.

[Lawrence]

No.  At best, the API will stay like it is now, with no further changes or anything added.  At worst, Kris will find some way to kill the API so it can't realistically be use any longer by us.

There has to be some legal grounds here. How many of us have spent countless thousands of dollars developing our own stuff only to have it nulled out and no longer valid with a simple rule Only modules made by KBKP Software are valid?

[nibb]

Where did you heard the API would be remove? I don´t think that is correct, I speculate on him removing all developer options, but that was mere and simple speculations.

The software would be crippled without hooks, api, etc. The reason is that many companies and me included need this for creating some services. Like running a hook after XX product is created, or runing this API command after customer clicked this....etc.

The only think that Kris remove, was the ability for third party developers to create modules for hostbill and he did not removed this technically, but its a license issue, so other companies will not create modules for it.

This does not mean you cannot create your own personal modules for your own use. And also, as stated several times, holders can still do this. Hostbill would not remove features that would make this product worthless, he spend many hours developing this features, in particular the API, allot of time and work is spend in the documentation and functions. Hostbill was always advertised as developer friendly. I understand some changes gave a terrible feel to this, but the features are still there.

Now going back to the topic, everyone is saying "Yeah, this freelancer will do it cheaper, with bugs fixes for free, etc"

Really? Where?

Please post names or companies, because this is not really a solution. Speculation.

I know I can now go to the hostbill website, pay him 2000$ and have the module next week. I don´t know about you, but a business needs to move fast. Do I want to spend many hours showing someone the product and what I need? No.

This post was a suggestion, if some want to jump in, perfect, if others don't, then don't.

Im getting a bit tired of bashing hostbill all the time instead of getting clear solutions to our problems. I do not expect to pay 5$ for something, that is not realistic, unless you live in Africa and your income per capita is 1$ per day. Im not rich, and I don´t have money to spend around, every buck hurts me, but im not a dreamer either to expect things to come for free.

Also, did someone even mentioned that this or that release fixed their bugs? I find bugs fixed every week and I never see a post of someone claiming it was fixed. Its seems we humans by nature go to the Internet to post bad feedback but never good ones. Same with WHT, the first thing people do when they have a problem with their hosting company is "XXX sucks" but when they have 100% uptime for 1 year, you never see them posting anything or saying how great your services are.

Are we becoming the same lousy customers that we ourself do not want in our hosting services? Those that want to pay 1$ and build the next Google for that. Have 24/7 support and pay you 5$ a month.

How many posts here say something positive regarding the software? Not the company and owner which is clearly an idiot, but the software itself?

You want it or not, are in the same boat here. If you go down, we all go down. If hostbill goes down, you will be a world of hurt and we surely are not being too positive about it either. We complained already about almost everything. And this is fine. But lets not turn every single post into how awful hostbill is.

If someone is not using hostbill anymore, I would advise them NOT to share things here. If you are still using hostbill, why are you still using it? We must be the dumbest idiots on planet world, im sure visitors to this forum must think that. Why in the world are they still using the software if everything is bad.

I have spend too much time ranting, and I need a business to run. It seems must of us here, have way to much time in your hands instead of actually working.

[Lawrence]

Im getting a bit tired of bashing hostbill all the time instead of getting clear solutions to our problems. I do not expect to pay 5$ for something, that is not realistic, unless you live in Africa and your income per capita is 1$ per day. Im not rich, and I don´t have money to spend around, every buck hurts me, but im not a dreamer either to expect things to come for free.

Also, did someone even mentioned that this or that release fixed their bugs? I find bugs fixed every week and I never see a post of someone claiming it was fixed. Its seems we humans by nature go to the Internet to post bad feedback but never good ones. Same with WHT, the first thing people do when they have a problem with their hosting company is "XXX sucks" but when they have 100% uptime for 1 year, you never see them posting anything or saying how great your services are.

You're right Nibb, I myself dislike reading the bashing every single post. I admit I've put in my two cents of negativity with a few of my posts, but it's getting way out of hand. If we intend to continue using the software, the least we can do is try to support it a bit more (Be a bit optimistic). Forum rules coming up soon regarding spam.

It's human nature to notice the negativity as it's what triggers our emotions, and that's what sticks in our memory. When things are fine, they become passive so we don't give credit where credit is due.

It seems must of us here, have way to much time in your hands instead of actually working.

< ----- Freelancer here, not as busy as most typical web hosts.

[Patrick]

Question is this; how do people give credit as if it's been earned after a multitude of issues over long periods of time.  It's as if asking us/everyone to say thanks because we were given a cookie and we should be thankful for him giving us a bone.  It doesn't work this way.  Our trust, our respect as business owners, our loyalty is shown by being here on a hostbill related forum, helping others who use hostbill because we stick by the product. 

Where did you heard the API would be remove? I don´t think that is correct, I speculate on him removing all developer options, but that was mere and simple speculations.

The software would be crippled without hooks, api, etc. The reason is that many companies and me included need this for creating some services. Like running a hook after XX product is created, or runing this API command after customer clicked this....etc.

The only think that Kris remove, was the ability for third party developers to create modules for hostbill and he did not removed this technically, but its a license issue, so other companies will not create modules for it.

This does not mean you cannot create your own personal modules for your own use. And also, as stated several times, holders can still do this. Hostbill would not remove features that would make this product worthless, he spend many hours developing this features, in particular the API, allot of time and work is spend in the documentation and functions. Hostbill was always advertised as developer friendly. I understand some changes gave a terrible feel to this, but the features are still there.

Now going back to the topic, everyone is saying "Yeah, this freelancer will do it cheaper, with bugs fixes for free, etc"

Really? Where?

Please post names or companies, because this is not really a solution. Speculation.

I know I can now go to the hostbill website, pay him 2000$ and have the module next week. I don´t know about you, but a business needs to move fast. Do I want to spend many hours showing someone the product and what I need? No.

This post was a suggestion, if some want to jump in, perfect, if others don't, then don't.

Im getting a bit tired of bashing hostbill all the time instead of getting clear solutions to our problems. I do not expect to pay 5$ for something, that is not realistic, unless you live in Africa and your income per capita is 1$ per day. Im not rich, and I don´t have money to spend around, every buck hurts me, but im not a dreamer either to expect things to come for free.

Also, did someone even mentioned that this or that release fixed their bugs? I find bugs fixed every week and I never see a post of someone claiming it was fixed. Its seems we humans by nature go to the Internet to post bad feedback but never good ones. Same with WHT, the first thing people do when they have a problem with their hosting company is "XXX sucks" but when they have 100% uptime for 1 year, you never see them posting anything or saying how great your services are.

Are we becoming the same lousy customers that we ourself do not want in our hosting services? Those that want to pay 1$ and build the next Google for that. Have 24/7 support and pay you 5$ a month.

How many posts here say something positive regarding the software? Not the company and owner which is clearly an idiot, but the software itself?

You want it or not, are in the same boat here. If you go down, we all go down. If hostbill goes down, you will be a world of hurt and we surely are not being too positive about it either. We complained already about almost everything. And this is fine. But lets not turn every single post into how awful hostbill is.

If someone is not using hostbill anymore, I would advise them NOT to share things here. If you are still using hostbill, why are you still using it? We must be the dumbest idiots on planet world, im sure visitors to this forum must think that. Why in the world are they still using the software if everything is bad.

I have spend too much time ranting, and I need a business to run. It seems must of us here, have way to much time in your hands instead of actually working.

ranting about everyone having "too much time on our hands" as his very own rants contain (above) 3694 characters is pretty unfair to those heavily invested in our businesses. 

If you or anyone can provide me an answer and i'm being level headed here, being very fair; as to where we should provide respect to Hostbill, the owners and smile because 5 bugs were corrected and another 3 are broken i'll shut up and apologize.  Don't ever expect a business or lets just leave it as we're each regular joe's trying to feed our families, don't ever expect respect to just be given.  I believe too much loyalty is shown towards hostbill (Thus these forums).  Out of pocket expense's, and yes our time.  You're complaining about us having too much time on our hands as you have the same amount of time to write 1 post that is a page long.  You're here for the same reasons as myself and all of us. 

To me i see these forums as a way to support each other during our day to day uses of the software, talking about bugs (Yup they piss us off and we discuss them and it brings us in a loop of the "bash hostbill")  but i do not see these forums as a way to hopefully drive sales up for Hostbill.  If you care to show me actual progress, please do because every time KBKP Software takes 2 steps forward, they take 3 steps backwards a day later.  So if you're tired of seeing the bashing on here, on WHMCS, Blesta or Webhostingtalk by all means send the near  $20,000 it costs to own everything in hostbill over to KBKP Software and support their cause.

You know what the bonus is of me being the "CEO" of my now 4 business ventures?  I get that opportunity to sit back and make money while i have my staff operate the business with little intervention from me and I can research more business ventures.  It's why i'm over a $200,000 invested over the last 8 years and been a self made businessman for over 17 years.  Some businesses more successful then the other. 

To finish, i agree with Lawrence, it's human nature to notice and complain.  If we had a stellar product, odds are we would comment on a bug knowing it's going to be fixed next release.  I'm busy helping people via PM on WHT and others by email with their hostbill installs because i have that reputation to help.  So please don't act like someone who is better than others because we have time to talk on these forums.  You have an issue with it, i'll gladly step aside and deactivate my account here.  I take personal offence to that comment of yours.  I will not be one to show gratitude to Hostbill over 5 bugs fixed 3 more broken and no support.  I along with others have made it exceptionally clear that we all love the software itself, if you've missed it, it's time to start reading more.

[nibb]

Lawrence is more than sick of this as well, he has expressed this at least 3 or 4 times already, so by all sakes if you are offended by what I said, you should with him as well, as he is not happy into what the forums have turned into.

Every single post made, goes out of topic. And when I said we have too much time in our hands, I was referring to all of us, me included. I'm the first person here to blame me for the same errors I accuse others. So I include myself in the list of stupids and having too much time to rant here.

By all sakes, if you made 200,000$ why are you using a 350$ software? Why don't you use Ubersmith for a few hundreds a month, or Citrix Cloud billing which starts at 50,000$?

I would. Hell, I would run something 100 times better than hostbill, completely custom coded. You keep mentioning all the time in several post how much money and years you are in business, but this does not take away the point that you are still using hostbill, so unless you have a better choice for all of us, I think we should start to look back a bit, and try to make this community a helpful online place with resources, vs ranting on every single post. Me, Lawrence, everyone has ranted, yes, but must we convert every single topic into the same?

Why don't we just create a category rants, and put there all the rants we want? Because this topic again from custom development has turned into nothing. Its ok to turn one, two or three threads around, go off topic, then go back on the subject, everyone has done this, me included, and its normal, but every single post? I mean, absolutely every single post ends up taking about hostbill the company or Kris, and not the software itself.

You don't need to show gratitude to hostbill, im sure not asking everyone here to post how happy they are, but lets keep emotions in the office or at home.

Everyone says Don't this, don't do that, and nobody posts a solutions to anything. If its such a terrible idea giving him money or making a piggy bank to create some modules, then please for all sakes, post another alternative. Because the fact is that I still need some things, and with all the ranting in the world, I will still need them at the end of the day. And I will still need them tomorrow. If you all think Blesta will work for you this year, or even next one, good luck, because you will be stuck for at least 48 months so far with Hostbill. Assuming Blesta goes into stable in 1 or 2 months, it will be very basic, so the year is almost at its half. Knowing its development most will probably start to migrate next year, and will still miss most features, as more people jump into, next year its going to be the year that third party developers are going to show interest and develop for it, so the year will be gone before you even start to match the same modules. And if you think it will be bug free, good luck with that as well.

Also, im not sure why you turn subjects which you don't like into personal threads. My reply was very general, not towards any person but you reply as if I was talking about you. Lets not be so emotional about this issues. So if I want to post as long as I want, or speculate about something, then please pick apart my replies again to try to attack someone personally, instead of attacking the topic itself and keep the discussion update, I never went personnel on anyone here, but you keep doing it making assumptions about myself when you dislike something I said.

Nobody is paying me here, and I surely regret each day the time I spend here, because its time I don't have and I could be doing more productive things. I'm glad you have staff that does all the work for you, I don´t. The more time I spend here, the more down every posts gets me and makes me feel very bad about using hostbill to the point I don't even want to do anything on it or even spend time doing basic things. I actually I feel better if I don´t come to this forums for some time, because every single posts is about the same.

The fact is that Hostbill is working for me. I don't have huge critical hard blockers bugs that some mention, and its doing some tasks just fine, if it works why touch it? Yes, it has some bugs and gladly some files are open and I can fix this myself. And other bugs which im to stupid to fix I report them to hostbill and somet get fixed in a week, or two. They did not even had a bug tracker and that pissed me alot when I reported the same over again in their forums, now at least I can track bugs. Is it perfect? No. Its the worst thing ever? The software no, and the changes the company made, did not affected me directly so far. He maintained the agreement and features I purchased. What is most important, is that every week the software increases, bugs and new features. This is something I don´t even take lightly, its clear the software development is very, very active. And is also clear that he tends to read this forums.

[Patrick]

By all sakes, if you made 200,000$ why are you using a 350$ software? Why don't you use Ubersmith for a few hundreds a month, or Citrix Cloud billing which starts at 50,000$?

I have that invested over 8 years.  I do not have that in my business account.  If i account all my businesses together after recent bulk server purchases, we are in debt and will not see green for little while.  To make money, you need to spend money.  This was also spent over an 8 year period, not one month when i was bored and decided to launch a start up.

So many ask the same question on WHT as to why they too haven't developed in house after the sheer number of dollars spent over the years.  The answer is simple.  I'm not a million dollar company yet, at least not in the profit sense.  My goal is to hand over my business to my son when i'm ready to retire.  So to answer your question simply, we went with a software the looked good, functions well and at the time had great potential with a regular release cycle.  Anyone can develop in house, we could have for a control panel like Dreamhost i believe it is.  Unfortunately for them no one that randomly finds them knows their panel.  We stuck with cpanel and recently started offering Plesk and Interworx. 

As for posts going off topic, i'm not sure how irritated you or Lawrence is by it, but this is how forums run.  WHT is one of the most popular forums today and every thread veers off topic.  If you want these forums to continue to be relevant you have to allow freedom of speech.  To an extent.  The fact people are PM'ing him and complaining shows how people really are.  These forums bring him no money, no satisfaction, nothing.  They are here out of kindness.  Doesn't matter if i ran them, you or Lawrence.  People should immediately stop complaining about something provided for free just to keep a distant community together.  The fact anyone whines to Lawrence via PM over this is too funny.  The forums have to mature, categories have to be made as Lawrence is doing.  We can all act like we have a proverbial stick up our class actors or simply act like people who all have the same interests and the same upsets and that means some threads will seem repetitive in terms of "bashing" but it's not always as it appears.  The tone is what feels repetitive. 

Complaints continue, as more rules are added the risk of these forums possibly dying out is good and everyone goes their separate way.  I'd like to see these forums around simply to keep in contact with everyone but if people keep whining about something they don't like seeing, the same applies that no one is forcing you to be here. 

I'm all for what lawrence wants to do.  I'm the one who originally contacted him to reach out and up came the forums.  I agree that some things need to change to keep the forum a little more organized per category so that a tone isn't felt no matter what thread you read, unfortunately even the calmest person (Lawrence thus far) lost his mojo today when he seen some new things with Hostbill.  So these things happen and it's very easy to loose sight when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place (Software you don't want to dump but don't know if you should go or stay)

One of the worst things to have on any forum are people, moderators and admins who act like forum police.  These forums aren't life and death, forums exist in general to talk, communicate and build a community, sure the topics turn to hate towards Hostbill but do you seriously expect anything different when so many are unbelievably invested and they too are taken for a ride like it were a game?  I didn't get in business to gamble with idiot software vendors.  Business itself at times can be a gamble, but KBKP has taken this to a whole new level of astronomical proportions. 

Everyone says Don't this, don't do that, and nobody posts a solutions to anything. If its such a terrible idea giving him money or making a piggy bank to create some modules, then please for all sakes, post another alternative. Because the fact is that I still need some things

You ever think it's because it's not a good idea to continue investing in to a software that no one knows has a future yet?  You want unicorns and rainbows but it's not realistic with this software right now so complaining about the lack of alternative solutions being offered is because no one wants to put anymore money INTO this software at this moment in time.  If you still need some things, stop trying to get others to help fund it and go hire a developer to do it for you.  You can't get upset because people didn't all agree with what you wanted and how you wanted it.  If you want to continue investing in a software with possibly no future right now, then nobody is stopping you Nibb.  No one has knocked you for that.  You get upset when things are argued against your suggestions, those arguments turn to bashing because they are reasons as to why people do not feel comfortable investing any more money.  Essentially, you're upset because you aren't getting what you want.

Nobody is paying me here, and I surely regret each day the time I spend here, because its time I don't have and I could be doing more productive things. I'm glad you have staff that does all the work for you, I don´t. The more time I spend here, the more down every posts gets me and makes me feel very bad about using hostbill to the point I don't even want to do anything on it or even spend time doing basic things. I actually I feel better if I don´t come to this forums for some time, because every single posts is about the same.

I like you Nibb, but this isn't just about you, so if  you're looking to be paid to be here, it won't happen.  Because i have staff and you don't doesn't mean you're less important.  Maybe you should be paying more attention to your business to get to a level where you can hire staff, so if reading a forum depresses you enough to hate a software because of what others say, than it's one of 2 things.  You're very easily influenced or there is truth to what you read here and you're slowly realizing what is said may possibly be true about a software you truly do enjoy using and are becoming scared to continue using it.  So you have to have accountability and stop blaming a forum or others.  I enjoy helping you, i enjoy reading some of your threads and you've also helped me and others.  I can provide you with 30+ forums if you like, heck go visit dslreports.com, they have about 200 subforums as it's an enormous site and you'll find negativity everywhere about everything.  So if things upset you when you read them, i really suggest you stop reading everything and stick to what you consider is productive.

[nibb]

What? Im not upset in any way, and you got this completely wrong. I posted this as suggestion, I don´t want money from anyone and im sure not looking someone to pay for the things I want. I posted this as an option, this as suggestion because each one on their own does not take the full advantage and value of having a hostbill community in the first place. If that is what we want, we can just keep this on WHT forums. This forum is based on the topic hostbill, and its supposed to be for customers and getting a strong community feedback around the product.

If we go this route, what is the point of making a petition request board? Or a voting poll? Or a category for suggesting new features?
This post was just another idea for those that do no trust Hostbill to spend 2000$ in a module, since you don´t trust them and don't want to spend money, maybe 100$ or 200$ is not that huge loss as opposed to heavily investing in the software. And by all means, this was just a suggestion, I don't remind asking anyone money for funding my requests.

I also never send any PM to Lawrence of Arabia, that is for sure and he can confirm that. I would not never go and whine to a moderator about this, this is why I posted this openly in the public. I also don't want any kind of police moderators or content regulation. Im 100% with free speech, my suggestions was a personal suggestion so each one tries to have a better attitude, its optional, not an obligation, but if we all want to continue with this negativity then we should rename the forums to "hostbillrants.com" or "hostillsucksforums.com"
Because this is what I see this forum is becoming. Another place to whine and cry all day. Lets be adults here, I also invested heavily as years went by on my business. But in no way would Hostbill take this away from me, I could easily switch to another systems if I feel the need too. I have survived more than one billing software and to be honest, this is the last thing my customers care and they choose me or my company because its me, not because I use hostbill or any particular software for that reason. They choose my service offering and my quality. None software will change that. So what exactly should I be scare off which you are so scared? Because this is what you suggest, that we should be scared on using it or investing it.

Why exactly? All the data is in the MYSQL database, I can read all the data from the tables, even if the license stops working, I would not lose data, is stored in my server. Nothing stops me from migrating to something else if I need too. And lets be serious here, when most people moved, in 2 or 3 years, guess what? Im pretty sure Hostbill will still be around and those that moved will sometimes go to their website and see what is new, or what they lost, regretting leaving it. Because the first time I knew about hostbill it was years back, and it was very basic, as the years went on, it grew in huge ways, to the point it was just too good to pass on, and I purchased it. Hostbill is not something that was made yesterday, they are offering the product for years now and it got better as time went on.

I knew exactly what I was getting. I read many topic sin WHT about people arguing about the owner and not having support, etc. But I knew this. Yes, all this changes took me for surprise as well, but so far they have not affect me in one single way. I still have all the modules and features I purchased, and I did not had to pay 999$ to renew the software either. And I can honestly say that at least 70% or the bugs I reported were fixed in an excellent time frame if I compare this with other software.

Will I invest in Hostbill? Yes. And investing does not mean only money. If I develop something custom, like a script that uses the API, or something that triggers hook, this costs me allot of time, and so I consider this money as well. So yes, I will purchase some new modules in the future from Kris, the ones im interested, and I will spend time developing custom personal things for the software using the API, hooks, and maybe in the future a personal module.

Also, when I was doing some things with hooks, there was a bug in the code, I opened a support ticket back then, it was 15$, and Kris told me the correct code and fixed the bug, so the hook worked for my service. This was in 24 to 48 hours. I also opened a ticket using the license subject when I could not log in to the bug tracker and 4 hours later it was solved.
When Justina had my tickets, they were mostly stupid sales questions and some were never answered, but when Kris got my ticket and they were important things I asked, I got support in a proper way.

So yes, I will invest in my software, and for whatever reasons it does not work for me anymore in the future, I hope that by then there are alternatives around or I will go custom code.

Now, im not a developer, I hate coding. But im not an idiot either.  And from time to time I would need to run some API commands, or trigger some hooks, or run some module, modify a template, etc. And not a single software in the world will ever fit my services and company, so I need a software that is flexible enough that lets me build around it and so far hostbill has all this expectations.

Now, everyone, 1, 2, 3 burn me for this.

This will not change my opinion about the company itself or the owner, but I made my mind that I will stick around for the time being. I hope all of you also make a choice, or less start to migrating your data to a new system as soon as you can. For the rest that will stay, I hope we can help each others out, because we sure need this, instead of bringing us all down with negativity.

[tallship]

Hi, here are the last information that i have for creating a Module:


Hi Danny,

We can do this as paid service

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Custom Development Services starts from $1000 (5 hours of development).
This is the lowest budget we start any custom development.

Our hourly rate is $195.

Domain modules usually take: 5-10 hours.
Provisioning/hosting modules usually take: 5-10 hours.
Payment modules usually take: max 5 hours.

AND

Hi Danny,

Just for you: $975 (5h of custom dev).


edit:

this was a offer for my domain registrar. They have paid this! and they get the source code from kris, this was the agreement for creating this module.

This Modul is added for all and is for free included. If there is any issue my domain registrar can fix it because they have the sourcecode.

Okay back on track here.

Danny, you're saying that the module you paid kbkp for was released as part of core in 4.6.0 here: http://www.hostbillforums.com/index.php/topic,191.msg1674.html#msg1674 and worked fine from 4.6.0, patch 4308, patch 4324, and through 4.6.2, yet immediately following your update to 4.6.4 it is now broken, Correct?

Man I feel your pain especially because you trusted kbkp to engage in third party development on your behalf. By the way, thank you for commissioning the module and ensuring that it would be available to all. It was a noble and community minded decision, one that were I inclined to commission kbkp to perform, would have specified myself.

Having said that, I know I posted earlier in this thread that I think it's a really bad idea to have kbkp develop any software on a contract basis. They've proven that they are incapable of releasing well tested software (I'm not saying it needs to be elbow checked, but tested, vetted, and beta'd, yes).

When I went to school, not so long ago (okay it's been a while) we were pounded into submission with systems analysis principles - the notion being that once you had performed everything from feasibility to interviews to requirements to design, before any code was written, the act of writing the actual code would already have been completely reduced to pseudo code and any programmer, one that didn't even know what they were writing for, could do it.

There are basically two types of programmers. The first one is like kbkp - you should never hire that kind of programmer. They say, "Oh yeah to do that I'll just whip up this spaghetti code and push it out and it will work". And it doesn't, completely, ever work, without bugs popping up all over the place and sometimes without a return to the systems analysis phase which in turn entails firing them, and hiring new programmers who understand, believe, and adhere to the proven, sound design principles of the second programmer type - The one who won't start coding until everything has been defined, documented, and every user themselves has provided input into what the actual end user process is from their perspective.

In other words, you can do it right, or you can do it twice.

Okay nuff venting here. I have an idea. Can you roll back to 4.6.2, do diffs on the module itself, then perform the update excluding everything from that module? Does that work?

Also, each week I intend to start a new thread just for the particular version of HostBill that is released, where people, once they confirm, can post new breakages (and new fixes) post upgrade, that they're experiencing - that thread is NOT a bug tracker, just a piece of litmus paper to aid users in determining whether it is safe for them, in their circumstances, to perform the updates (safe being a very relative and subjective term here).

For example, and in my case, your breakage alone would not keep me from upgrading, since I don't use your module. But there may be other breakages that are showstoppers for me (No I haven't upgraded yet - I don't have the dev environment to test beforehand - that's why I'm trying to find someone to sell me a HostBill license for $40).

That thread, BTW is here: http://www.hostbillforums.com/index.php?action=profile;u=9 (That's only for this weeks release of 4.6.4, next week will prolly be for 4.4.6, if that is the next version released).

I'm encouraging everyone who finds such breakages to report them there, so I can compile  a list of those breakages and fixes.

The whole point of that is so, for instance, that if support ticket mails break, people who find that to be mission critical to their business process actually know NOT to upgrade for that week until it is once again posted as a fix (No, that isn't one of the breakages reported this week lol).

I'll post your dilemma as a breakage - this is not the same thing as a bug, which should be reported elsewhere - in your case, the bug reporting system at kbkp, and you apparently also need to pay the CEO $75 or $99 to rip you off again, so he is even aware of the shoddy work he apparently performed regarding your module.

I'm sorry you are having issues, even though it is not my place to apologize, but someone should. If nothing else, consider it empathy for a fellow competitor.

In the future, we need to build a list of people who have demonstrated competent development skills to provision new modules for us here at HostBill - especially since there won't be any more from HostBill themselves unless kind-heartted folks like you commission it.

[CBlade]

What about domain registrar module? They change $2000 for other countries domain registrar module?