Hi guys,
before I begin let me tell you that this is the hardest post for me to write out of all so far in this blog. The only reason I decided to write this is because I would feel bad if I had to do something and people then said “why didn’t you say something” – if you dont feel like reading it, just dont, it is rather long, but also important. As you probably know, there have been numerous outages recently, all due to my laptop, which having 11 years and running Win98/Linux, is not usable anymore. Especially not for someone who is an “amateur developer” and wants to support almost 500 users, who often need help via Teamviewer, need me to be able to at least load their site… It is really frustrating to work with it (and having to post this…), everything takes not seconds, but minutes, literally, some things I cannot do at all. I fell like I cannot work like this anymore and there is not much point in getting some second-hand computer, where I would have the same problem in a few months/years.
Another problem, and this one is probably more serious, is that I really need to quit or at least reduce my part-time job to be able to work on Meteotemplate further. On one hand I have to tell you I really love working on it, unlike my part-time job, which is boring and I only do it to get by, is tedious and does not teach me anything. In contrast, thanks to Meteotemplate I have met so many people all around the world, learned new things with regards to programming, most importantly, it is sort of a self-realization for me and something that gives me satisfaction. I said in the past – and this holds – that I will not monetize Meteotemplate, this is not an option for so many reasons (licenses, taxes, my personal goals and values etc. – I mentioned this many times because many of you suggested this to me, see the comments section of November newsletter).
I hate when I have to talk about donations, why? Simply because that’s the way I am, I hate being “sponsored” and I can very well imagine you might feel annoyed by me posting this now. On the other hand, it now got to a point where I had to make a decision – post this or stop Meteotemplate. If you already feel annoyed, do not read further and I understand. The problem is that obviously, unless I gather funds for a new computer, but also for being able to dedicate more time to it (I definitely want to keep my full-time job, which is tied with my PhD and which I know has potential for me for the future, unlike my part-time job). I am a workaholic and I am very modest so I don’t go on holidays, buy expensive clothes, gadgets etc. In fact, the money I make at work I use for rent, food and the basic household items. The way it works here in Czech R. is that with very little work experience you have close to minimum wage, regardless of your degree. The point is – I have no way of saving something elsewhere.
Also, due to some personal and health problems, I cannot do sports, I do not have many friends and so Meteotemplate was an ideal project for me – I can do it at home and I don’t need much to work on it and in the meantime – be able to do something that makes sense, something that gives me good feeling rather than watching TV or playing computer games.
I do not want to make anyone feel bad so I will always talk about these things anonymously. The reality is that vast majority of people download stuff without ever considering helping. Now, I would never want anyone to send me donation for every single update or plugin – I would immediately ask you to stop this and refund you. On the other hand, I get hundreds, literally hundreds of emails from people how much they like my work, yet the reality is they did not find it worth a single dollar (donation/download ratio is way over 1:2500). And the other issue is that even though I said I do not expect you to donate every time you download something, only helping the very first time when you install it is also a problem because if that continues, I can only generate income if I get new users despite the fact even existing users need help and we are back to the problem with time. It is a paradox, I was never making much, but still, looking at the numbers, year ago I had 90 users (now almost 500) and the donations were on average 3 times more and since then I have not just less time, but also about 5 times more work with support, more expensive hosting, and more unusable computer. I tried translating the Donations page, creating blocks/plugins people asked for most and as a last resort, monetized the videos on YouTube. None of that had any effect at all – not blaming anyone, just stating the facts. There is one person who has been helping me on a regular basis and he asked me not to name him. I do not feel good about this either.
I basically had a choice. Either post this and see what the result is, or just remain quiet, which would very likely mean the end of Meteotemplate, or at least a long pause. To conclude – I am by no means asking anyone for money, what I just want to say is this – when you download a block/plugin or install the template, think about whether you think it is useful to you and if you want to support Meteotemplate. My expenses (i.e. time) and hosting are ongoing costs. Based on what happens in the future regarding this I will either continue or maybe even extend the time I spend working on this, or I will just say Im taking a break for several months to save at least for a new PC (and ideally a smartphone for testing) and then continue with Meteotemplate, but only as much as time allows. Or in the worst case, I will just have to say I will pay the hosting to keep the page alive as such, but work on it no more. Trust me, it is very hard for me to write this, it goes against everything I always wanted, but I really have no choice as this is getting worse and worse – I tried monetizing the YouTube videos at least, develop blocks/plugins that people asked for most, but unfortunately it did not have any effect whatsoever.
I apologize if I annoyed you by this post or if you are bored of this, I understand and I want to emphasize one last time, I am only summarizing the reality so that whatever happens in the future it does not come as a surprise (positive or negative). I will never blame anyone or feel angry whatever happens, I just had to tell you since it is now up to you and based on what “you” decide I will take action.
Last but not least, what I do not want is you to now go to my page because you feel sorry for me and send me a donation. First of all I hate when people feel sorry for me, second, this again does not solve the problem in long term. All I wanted to say is what the situation is and that next time when you download something, get support etc. just consider if you can afford it and if whatever you got was worth something.
I will not post this on any forum and most likely delete it later. I only wanted to state the facts, make sure people know what the options are and say that what happens to Meteotemplate is not just up to me – the ideal for me would be having a very well paid job, working on Meteotemplate as a hobby and delete all Paypal buttons and enjoy oneself, however that currently is not possible as much as I want to. I know I repeated myself a lot, probably just because I didnt want anyone to get me wrong.
Best regards
Jachym
For my by I give and I will give again such a job merit a financial recognition thank you
I just came across this software over the past weekend.. ALOT better than the other WX type software that I was using. Easy to use, easy to implement. Nice designs and Mobile friendly. I had a little trouble in the beginning (since Ive placed the software on a Sub-domain) and was helped out in a timely manner. Jachym has done an outstanding job on this and helped to get things resolved. This software is definitely worth Donating to this project to help keep it alive.
Hi Jachym,
I appreciate your honesty here and sympathise with the way you are feeling. However this post has left me feeling uneasy about Meteotemplate.
Your work is amazing and so is the support you give. As a result I made a donation in recognition of your work.
Like many others I tried to persuade you to monetise the project, fearing that you would abandon it otherwise, leaving your users trying to find an alternative solution. It appears this time may be coming…
There is no point going through the arguments again as you have made yourself clear on your reasons. However personally I would have more respect for well-organised paid-for software, that has a future. Whilst welcome, so many updates can be time consuming, and sometimes it feels as though we are all beta testers. Now that almost 500 people rely on your work, you seriously need to find a way to upgrade the equipment you are using, and in particular buy a cheap smartphone if only to test the mobile template, which for many of us is more valuable than the desktop one.
Having had a WordPress site hacked before I also worry about security. We are trusting in your php code and upload it to our servers without question. It can be very easy for someone to compromise this with malicious code. We as users trust you to ensure that your code is secure, and most of us would pay to keep Meteotemplate alive, and at least allow you to purchase decent computer equipment and a smartphone. Not many people in Europe don’t possess a smartphone these days!
I hope you will continue to support the project, and the many users that have put so much faith and trust in you.
Kindest regards,
Simon
Hi Simon,
I have to say you surprised me with your comment about beta testers and security.
Testing – everything is tested before released, not just by me. The fact things are sometimes not 100% perfect is simply because whoever was testing it did not try everything, or, more often, someone has something unusual db and such scenario was not anticipated. This happens with each SW, during the test stage you can never try every possible situation, HW etc.
Security – this one I absolutely dont understand. First I dont understand how this would change if it was monetized – if you dont trust the script then monetization would make no difference whatsoever. Second – all scripts are open-source, you can see the code so if someone did not trust the script, they can simply look at it before uploading it to their server. Im not even sure what sort of security you mean. I dont really think there is something the script could do.. it cannot “infect” your computer. And isnt it like this with all SW? When you upgrade any program on your PC do you check every line of the code? If you do not trust a developer in general, then you probably wont use such SW.
A controversial post like this is bound to elicit controversial replies…
I trust you and your software, which is why I use it and why I have spent so much time asking your advice and making suggestions. I even granted you FTP access to my server so you could kindly help me out.
As you know I had security concerns at the beginning, and you reassured me about those.
Until recently you have been very positive about Meteotemplate. This post is negative, and has made me wary again, that’s all.
Hi Simon,
yes and I appreciate your comments and feedback. The only thing I did not understand in your comment is what does security have to do with monetization of the project.
In regards to security – I am an information security professional. No code is 100% safe and I am not sure there ever will be…
That said – I run the code that I run through code analysis to validate it, and I have yet to find a major issue with Meteotemplate
Now – I am no one to you, so you should not trust me .. but verify this yourself 🙂
There are free / open source code analysis tools google is your friend
LOL, ok, this is the first time I will say this…. there was a very serious security issue in versions 5-7. I secretly fixed it in version 8, but of course did not mention it in the change log because at that time many people were still using those versions and did not update immediately. Hopefully now not many are using those versions and even then, it was something that would allow you to control the entire page, but… to do it you would have to know the code and how MT works very well and I doubt anyone apart from me has the necessary knowledge – which however also means that if you are reading this and using v5-7, I can gain full access to your site 😀
Hi Jachym,
I have been using Meteotemplate since begin 2016 and for me it is the best weather data analyzing and presentation software I came across. I have been using the Saratoga and Leuven templates and MesoWx for weewx, now all obsolete.
I regret the fact you have to deal with such old equipment to work with. I have experienced this in the past too where I had to work with old equipment and much time was wasted by just waiting…
I hope you soon will get extra funds to continue your work.
May be it’s an idea to publish a “sponsor list” which I have seen on one of the template sites. According to the info on this site about one third of the users had sponsored (many of them more than one time) with an average of almost 40 Euros.
Thank you for all your work. (I’m each time surprised you created another block and plugin for analyzing weather data).
Keep up the good work!
Cheers, Luc
A small calculation in €:
Lets say we will pay 5 Cents for every within our websites used Block and another 5 Cents for every used PlugIn, that will make in total 3,30 € (for example in my case). Calculated this small amount for 500 customers I think it could really help Jachym.
I think everybody is able to afford some 3 Euros every at least two months – it is only one beer in a (cheap) restaurant in Austria for example…
Good idea.
Above all, excuse my English, Google translation.
I would like to appeal to all users Meteotemplate, Joachim work on this project is really priceless. Have we not few, are the associated costs of operation and development, it counted time. I still did not understand that not even the development toward smart phones, but it is clear to me, just not what evolves.
Try to think about everybody, not force anybody, but each of us users could contribute at least a small amount. I for one sometimes has contributed and will contribute to continue, I would not have thought that there are those who did not put anything.
Only my opinion, do not slander me, please.
Joachim Thee thanks for a job well done and keep your patience with us.
Regards
Hello Jachym,
I have been a Meteotemplate user for several months and am still excited about the development of the template. I also decided to contribute from time to time. There are unfortunately many people who cultivate a “Geiz ist geil” mentality. This is a pity, because a good work “must” be honored. Thanks again for the great work.
With Kind Regards
Alex
Jachym
I am happy that you posted on the blog because it shows honesty, sounds like it seems necessary, and most of all, I understand what you are going through. I have had to do the same with my own forums at some stage because the workload was way too high and no one wanted to help out (or could not help because they did not have specific skills that I possess). I also wanted an ad-free community, which is hard when you only rely on donations, so I completely understand where you are coming from.
I know I should support you more (I have in the past), so I myself are going to state publicly now, that every 10 downloads I will donate AU$10, it’s not that I feel sorry for you, it is helping the process of development, so I am going to go back through the time I have had your template and donate the appropriate amount (on payday). I feel this is fair for just the updated blocks/plugins.
Take your time, make sure you get everything in order and I will still be waiting for your return. I was thinking you may want to think about some type of crowdfunding (such as Kickstarter), this will give you the opportunity to raise much-needed funds and your PC/smartphone, and a plus to this is you already have a product to deliver.
Your work is outstanding and I am happy that you have finally come to this decision and it is a hard one at that.
Will be awaiting the day you’re set up and ready to tackle this harsh world we all live in, with complex personalities and criticisms (constructive or not).
With Kind Regards
P.S. I do class you as a friend Jachym, we have had some great back and forth constructive thinking regarding the liveGaugesWD plugin.
Thanks for a very nice comment Aussie