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Menu Editor Lite

Started by Matthew K., March 06, 2012, 01:05:26 PM

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badon

Here are some alternatives I'm testing right now, if anybody reading this needs them:

* Add or Remove buttons
* Ultimate Menu

badon

Thanks live627, I reported with the following message:

Quote
Menu Editor Lite maliciously cripples normal function of SMF to compel payment for the commercial version, as described here:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=470478.msg3871351#msg3871351

Since the malicious behavior appears to be reversible by uninstallation of the mod, this wouldn't be a problem if the malicious behavior were disclosed. Since it is not disclosed, it is indistinguishable from any other malware that uses an extortion strategy, with malicious actions to compel victims to pay for relief.

nend

Quote from: badon on April 21, 2016, 02:39:41 AM
Here, have this nice bowl of cherries. Oh, forgot to tell you they're poisoned. You should have read the MSDS for the paint on the bowl.
Since the bowl manufacturer didn't read the MSDS, it would be liable, not the paint manufacturer.

I am not saying it is right, but from a legal standpoint they covered themselves. They don't have to make sure the bowl manufacturer reads the MSDS, they just have to make it available.

I can see where the dev is coming from. The modification loads the array and probably stores it for you to modify . This may have some negative effects in that some dynamic generated menu items will have to be recoded back into the modification.

I can see where your coming from, your loosing a feature that once was there to add another feature.

Kindred

You really need to know what mods do before you install them.

Sorry, but this mod does not fit the criteria of "malicious code" no matter how you want to twist it.

It might not do what YOU want or might do what you want in a way YOU don't like.... that does not make it malicious...   and the author makes no bones about the free version being limited.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

badon

I guess my integrity standards are too high. Shame on me. I would never do this. I've met a lot of business people over the years, and I'm always shocked at how many of them will choose a business strategy that involves deception, often without even realizing it, and still pressing forward with it after I point it out even when the honest strategy is much superior. In this case, the deception is facilitated by not making clear what the difference is between the free version and the paid version. In other words, sales are being sacrificed to protect the deception.

Noticing little details like this tells me a lot about the people I'm considering doing business with. Nobody is born evil, but for various reasons, some people have learned to like it - and they like it so much they will screw you over in the first moment they get your attention, instead of delivering an effective, profitable sales pitch.

nend, I'm not going to argue fine points of law with you, but I would like to say a few things in response nonetheless. Firstly, disclaimers generally do not apply to intentional malice. If they did, it would be the ultimate loophole for every every bullet ever fired. Secondly, might-makes-right. It always has and it always will. I have watched people spend years crafting a series of perfect accidents to kill someone...eventually. Was it really an accident. Yes, absolutely it was. But, intentionally increasing the odds of accidental death does not mean it's not murder. Not in my eyes, even if I'm the only person that sees it happening.

It won't even do any good for me to warn the target, they don't want to believe that evil can be so incredibly powerful, but still completely unseen from beginning to end, even when it's sitting on your chest. It's like dark energy and/or dark matter. You can prove it's there mathematically, but people don't want to believe that their own adult children are trying to kill them by giving a "gift" of a hand-made slippery rug on a polished hardwood floor right at the top of the stairs. Or... nevermind,

nend

You do know you didn't pay a thing for the lite version and at your desecration can uninstall it. You also know I don't get a penny either way as I am not affiliated in any way with this modification. I am just stating the obvious which you apparently missed.

From my perspective it looks like your demanding the author make this free. Something he had to put in extra labor in making it work within the modification.

IMHO anyone that supplies code for free even if it doesn't do what I expected has went above and beyond. It takes time to develop, time the author could of used for themselves but being charitable decided to give back to the community.

Matthew K.

Sorry for the lack of responses here from me. I've been busy with Real LifeTM and now see how much this has blown up.

As others have stated...your claims are just ridiculous. First off, I honestly didn't even think about the PM counter not being included in Menu Editor Lite's menu when I developed it, because it isn't added in where I was modifying, and so I just forgot about it. There are countless modifications that remove "features", a modification can add, change, or remove things from SMF and as Kindred stated, just because it removes something you want, doesn't make it malicious or even CLOSE to ransomware. I'm not going to waste my time adding in the PM counter on Menu Editor Lite for people like you who aren't willing to shell out cash for things you want that people spent months working hard on, but are very quick to attack when it's not 100% exactly what you're looking for.

Best Regards

badon

I'm only asking you to disclose the fact the mod will disable some features. One sentence, 9 words. All the other noises you're making are an irrelevant red-herring that distracts from that. I especially dislike the straw-man argumentation where people here put words in my mouth about what I want, and then you beat down the straw-man to show I'm being unreasonable. Let's review what you've said about me so far:

* "aren't willing to shell out cash for things you want"
* "are very quick to attack when it's not 100% exactly what you're looking for"

* "didn't pay a thing for the lite version"
* "your demanding the author make this free"
* "you apparently missed [the obvious]."
* "You should really look at the license [because license]"
* "your claim is void [because license]"

* "you want to twist it [to be viewed as malicious]"
* "the free version being limited [is your reason to claim it's malicious]"
* "[it does] not do what YOU want"
* "[it] might do what you want in a way YOU don't like"

None of that is relevant, and it still wouldn't be relevant even if all of it were true.

Will you disclose the fact the mod will disable some features? Yes or no. You only need one word to answer that, and conclusively demonstrate your posture toward your users as either benevolent or hostile.

badon

Quote from: badon on April 21, 2016, 02:39:41 AM
Here, have this nice bowl of cherries. Oh, forgot to tell you they're poisoned. You should have read the MSDS for the paint on the bowl.

Quote from: nend on April 21, 2016, 08:53:53 AM
Since the bowl manufacturer didn't read the MSDS, it would be liable, not the paint manufacturer.

I am not saying it is right, but from a legal standpoint they covered themselves. They don't have to make sure the bowl manufacturer reads the MSDS, they just have to make it available.

I can see where the dev is coming from. The modification loads the array and probably stores it for you to modify . This may have some negative effects in that some dynamic generated menu items will have to be recoded back into the modification.

I can see where your coming from, your loosing a feature that once was there to add another feature.

My point was that it doesn't matter who is responsible for the paint. The jury would still be very angry with me if I deliberately killed you with a bowl of poisoned cherries. That's murder. I might try to make your murder look like an accident, but it's still murder.

Kindred

Bacon, sorry, but you are the one that is in the wrong here...

You called his mod malicious code...
It is not
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

badon

I disagree. I asserted the mod is malicious because you knowingly allow it to cripple forums, and you refuse to disclose that fact. You also do not try to sell the paid version by explaining it fixes that problem, which leaves us with a crime that has no purpose. I made the logical leap to conclude the mod is malicious because it does harm without benefiting the author. Maybe I should have called it vandalism instead.

Either way, embracing and perpetuating accidental damage is no better than intentional damage. I urge you to stop the arguing, and just disclose the one important fact people should know before they cripple their forums by installing your mod. Alternatively, you could just answer "No" to this question:

Quote from: badon on April 28, 2016, 10:09:30 PM
Will you disclose the fact the mod will disable some features? Yes or no. You only need one word to answer that, and conclusively demonstrate your posture toward your users as either benevolent or hostile.

Arantor

This argument is pointless. We have someone who once roused to a cause will not give it up, even when he learns the person he is browbeating has a history of depression. It just seems to encourage him somehow.

I think I might have been the one to mention the number not showing up for PMs originally. It's actually hard to get it right and I totally get why it isn't a thing. I also think I've given this mod's author some critique of the paid version too. So you might say I can see both sides of this, knowing the people involved, as well as the mod.

Honestly at this point, I'd be inclined to add it as a disclaimer to the mod page. Whilst I don't condone badon's attitude and grandstanding for attention, he does have a point buried under the melodrama; the mod page should really list that this is a known issue of the mod. Not because the self-righteous one in the corner says so, but because it is a legitimate defect that for whatever reason won't be rectified and it's good and responsible practice to disclose that.

It just doesn't need all the melodramatics to make that happen. Worst case, one of the Cust team can just add it as a one line mention to the mod page.

Kindred

heya Arantor...

I wouldn't normally disagree that a one line comment might be in order... but badon's melodramatic and exaggerated chicken little impression using emotionally charged words to "prove" his point in page right out of Trump's book gets my dander up (and I suspect does to Matthew as well).

I do maintain the insistence that this mod is not malicious.
It does not "cripple" forums.
There is no "crime".
There is no "damage".
there is no "vandalism".
etc etc etc...

the mod does one thing...
it takes the menu out of the coded array and puts it into the database.
It makes no claims as to anything else... and yes, there are downsides to doing it the way Matthew has chosen to do it...
two of those downsides are actually mentioned in this support thread.

If someone installs the mod without reading the comments...  and it does something that individual does not like (still without reading the support comments), then uninstall the mod and move on...  asserting that the code is "malicious" and continuing to do so in the face of evidence otherwise is just childish and "malicious" behavior in itself... :)

Are there mods which do the same thing? (yes)
do they do it better? (IMO, yes...)
that does not detract from the fact that this mod does what it says... nothing more, nothing less.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Arantor

It isn't so much that it has downsides. It's that the downsides should really be disclosed on the mod page. No one is going to read a 20+ page thread on the off chance something had a downside.

Kindred

they should (read, that is) - however - when it does something that they don't expect :)

mind you...  I actually agree that mod authors should update their description/first post when something is discovered (whether it be an issue with a fix that has not made it into the updates yet or an unexpected side effect...)

I'm just being obstreperous due to badon's attitude...

Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

nend

Finding a desktop environment would of been a breeze if every environment gave a full list of expectations and problems. How malicious of them, the one I currently use it is very difficult to get the notification tray to pull out with the mouse and I have to resort to use the keyboard.

I also just learned my card reader on the desktop is junk, it does not support a few large capacity cards. Even though the card reader is a little aged, how dare them not to foresee this.

You don't want to get me started with the Windoze laptop.

I don't mind a disclosure, but going about this whole thing like the victim, yeah let me  :'(, yeah.

Matthew K.

I have toyed around with the idea of releasing the Pro version for free on the SMF mod site, and closing this one permanently. I'll give badon the fact that it may be wise to include it in the listing, however, none of the reasoning or claims are well-informed or accurate. I added a note in the bottom of the description on the mod site: "Note: This modification does remove the unread PM counter from the "PM" menu item. The pro version allows you to add it or remove it.". Best Regards. I'm not interested in the rude and out of line attacking and arguing.

badon

#477
THANK YOU!




---edited to remove pointless and inflammatory blather

Arantor

And you wonder why you get the reactions you do.

It's this attitude that drives people away from open source development. I have dozens of mods I could release via this site but I won't precisely because if I did I'd then have to deal with this sort of attitude, whether it was you personally or someone else.

Antes

Quote from: Arantor on April 29, 2016, 10:16:55 PM
And you wonder why you get the reactions you do.

It's this attitude that drives people away from open source development. I have dozens of mods I could release via this site but I won't precisely because if I did I'd then have to deal with this sort of attitude, whether it was you personally or someone else.

Release via GitHub ;)

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