Hi,

I was sorry to hear Martijn's feeling about FM development as well. He might
just wanted to make a clear statement after reading something that annoyed
him.

I have no idea how many people use FilterMeister but I believe there are
many although that's not always obvious. Not everybody is planning
commercial plugin development in the populair sector. I'm pretty sure
FilterMeister offers more than they ever needed and the average user most
likely is very pleased with it; they just never let it know. I'm sure anyone
who reads this uses a lot of software on their own they like and they never
told the developers they liked it so much :-P

Honestly I don't believe much in fees: progress is only made when either
motivated, dedicated people work on the job (volunteers) or when people can
earn a living with the income generated out of it. The last option would
require drastic measurements like an incredible increase in product price
and serious activities on the marketing thing. And then still it's the
question if the market is big enough or at least if FM could compete with
other plugin developing tools. It would mean a narrower target market
anyway: only pro developers could afford it. Unless lower cost less feature
versions would be maintained and released as well.

But what really wonders me is why there are so few volunteer developers for
FM. I would think it's an incredible interesting and challenging project for
programmers, especially because the result itself is used for a huge variety
of graphical orientated purposes: many applications = many feature wishes =
many programming challenges.
Can't imagine programmers rather spend their time on e.g. boring
administration, logistics or tax software :-))) I know, there's much more
out there than that but still, in my opinion FM development cannot be -not
interesting- for a programmer so I wonder why there's lack of volunteers. Do
programmers know about FM and plugins at all? ... Marketing again.

Roberto

----- Original Message -----
From: "martinvicanek" <martin.vicanek@...>
To: <FMML@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 2:11 PM
Subject: [FMML] Re: Thoughts on FM development (was: Out of memory with pget
and pset)


> Martijn,
>
> "Develop FilterMeister. Which is an unpleasant, unsatisfying, unpaid
> and -- MOST IMPORTANTLY, DO NOT SKIP THIS PART -- thankless job."
>
> Sorry to hear that. I guess there is little I can do about the
> "unpleasant" and "unsatisfying" part. However, it does not have to be
> "unpaid", I am willing to pay for the next FM release (the more so if it
> comes with Functions), and I am sure I am not the only one.
>
> About the "thankless" part: Objection! Here and now, I would like to say a
> big and sincere
>
> /*******************/
> /* THANK YOU!!! */
> /*******************/
>
> to the FM developer team. I know it does not nearly compensate for the
> huge effort invested in all those years to get FM where it is today, but
> anyway.
>
> Martin
> --- In FMML@yahoogroups.com, "Martijn van der Lee" <martijn@...> wrote:
>>
>> Here's the long and short of it, as far as I'm concerned.
>>
>> I could do a number of things with what little spare time I have:
>>
>> 1) Developed FilterMeister. Which is an unpleasant, unsatisfying, unpaid
>> and -- MOST IMPORTANTLY, DO NOT SKIP THIS PART -- thankless job.
>>
>> 2) Develop many other things. Which are fun, challenging, makes me quite
>> a bit of money and generallly have a supportive and productive social
>> environment.
>>
>> The sum of this is that there is very little reason for me to develop FM
>> other than for the parts of it I personally care about and enjoy.
>> Sorry if this sounds harsh, but those are the facts. If you were in the
>> position I described above, you'd probably feel the same.
>>
>> That being said, I still enjoy creating graphics algorithms and still
>> work on FM from time to time (scripting is improved to the point of being
>> usable in the next release).
>> FM development is currently VERY slow, but it's NOT dead. In fact we have
>> a new member who I think may do some good things in the future.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Martijn W. van der Lee
>>
>> VanDerLee
>> Creative Photoshop Plug-Ins
>> Aagje Dekenlaan 34
>> 1403 HH, Bussum
>> Netherlands
>> Fax: (+31)-847-225-047
>>
>> Internet: www.vanderlee.com
>> E-Mail: contact@...
>>
>> K.v.K.: 32114677
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Bill MacBeth
>> To: FMML@yahoogroups.com
>> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 11:11 PM
>> Subject: RE: [FMML] Out of memory with pget and pset
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Martijn,
>> FM is a plug-in development environment. The Photoshop SDK and Visual
>> Studio is a richer plug-in development environment (and yes, I have
>> written plug-ins using it).
>>
>> However, I have never heard it stated by Alex, or you, or Harry during
>> his development involvement with FM that true tiling (and additional
>> features) are impossible from being incorporated in FM. If memory serves
>> me correctly, Alex has stated these could be added to the road map.
>>
>> I guess quite frankly, I question the later versus sooner addition to
>> the roadmap. I would put them second only to function calls. If you
>> have written a plug-in with the SDK and Visual Studio which fully
>> utilized tiling and masking, then you understand why.
>>
>> The lack of function calls and true tiling are serious shortcomings of
>> the current FM. I consider your remark below a 'flip' remark from
>> someone who I have always respected. Please engage in a serious
>> discussion of this.
>>
>>
>> Regards, Bill
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: FMML@yahoogroups.com [mailto:FMML@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
>> Martijn van der Lee
>> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 2:58 PM
>> To: FMML@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [FMML] Out of memory with pget and pset
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>> FM is a great tool for algorithm development and provides great
>> services for
>> easy (resizable) GUI development. But the lack of true tiling (and
>> additional features) that come with full support of the PS
>> filterRecord, as
>> well as the lack of support for the PS ChannelPortsSuite, and PS
>> Color
>> Services are serious shortcomings for commercial plug-in development.
>> The
>> features that I've named are much more necessary than DLLs (for
>> instance).
>> So basically you want the Photoshop SDK and the C programming language
>> without having to use the Photoshop SDK and the C programming language?
>>
>> regards,
>> Martijn
>>
>
>
>
>
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