The future of Jamba

[Mulb]

Hi,

It will be a great shame to see Jamba go. I consider it to be the ideal complement to Isboxer.
Just handing it over to someone or opensourcing it I see as possibly being a very poor outcome, having watched so many great addons die over the years.

I would implore you to consider doing the following.

1. Leave the free Jamba as is - people can take it over/open source/whatever for the free version. Users who want a free option can take their chances on it.

2. Go forward with a paid version that either you fully support (and receive the income) or that you hand over to Lavish to continue to support (and receive the income). I would imagine a fee similar to Lavish's of say $50 a year. Multiboxers are by and large pretty serious players and I'd imagine you'd get as much support for the paid version as you have for the free. You may even receive enough income to allow you to focus full time on it. You certainly deserve it for the quality product you've produced and the dedication you've shown over the years.

Please do consider this. I'd place my money on Jamba not being usable within the year if you don't go down the paid version option.
I've thought you needed to go paid for years - just to give you the focus to be able to iron out the little things here and there.

Kind Regards and all the best for the future whatever you decide.

[MiRai]

2. Go forward with a paid version that either you fully support (and receive the income) or that you hand over to Lavish to continue to support (and receive the income). I would imagine a fee similar to Lavish's of say $50 a year. Multiboxers are by and large pretty serious players and I'd imagine you'd get as much support for the paid version as you have for the free. You may even receive enough income to allow you to focus full time on it. You certainly deserve it for the quality product you've produced and the dedication you've shown over the years.

Blizzard hasn't allowed add-on authors to charge for their add-ons for almost 6 years now. Here's the updated source from that article:

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

[ebony]

Hi,

It will be a great shame to see Jamba go. I consider it to be the ideal complement to Isboxer.
Just handing it over to someone or opensourcing it I see as possibly being a very poor outcome, having watched so many great addons die over the years.

I would implore you to consider doing the following.

1. Leave the free Jamba as is - people can take it over/open source/whatever for the free version. Users who want a free option can take their chances on it.

2. Go forward with a paid version that either you fully support (and receive the income) or that you hand over to Lavish to continue to support (and receive the income). I would imagine a fee similar to Lavish's of say $50 a year. Multiboxers are by and large pretty serious players and I'd imagine you'd get as much support for the paid version as you have for the free. You may even receive enough income to allow you to focus full time on it. You certainly deserve it for the quality product you've produced and the dedication you've shown over the years.

Please do consider this. I'd place my money on Jamba not being usable within the year if you don't go down the paid version option.
I've thought you needed to go paid for years - just to give you the focus to be able to iron out the little things here and there.

Kind Regards and all the best for the future whatever you decide.

Hi i don't know how long you been here, I been playing wow for 6 years, Am not going anywhere I been boxing for a good 5 years since wotlk sometime am not going to quit just like that, If anyone wonted to make a clone of jamba then they can, but the main jamba as it is now and what i been doing over the last few weeks. For now jamba is very safe in my hands!


AND THERE WILL BE NO paid version! right now am not taking any money only what i get from curse that is not that bad to be fair.

[Katestrasza]

First, I wanted to thank you for all your hard work over the years with this add-on. I'm sorry you won't be able to maintain it going forward but your reasons are more than understandable.

Let me try and answer your questions:

Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above? Yes. The primary reason I use Jamba is for the strobe and follow features. The communication feature is very nice because it forwards any messages to my primary character. I don't really use the Questing features.

Should I just abandon Jamba as is? I hate to see it abandoned so I would prefer that you hand it over to someone. I'd like you to please revert the recent changes. Personally I've been using version 6.0.2.3 because the recent changes have partially broken the strobe feature for me. Sometimes it will just stop working for me. I would prefer you simplify it and see if another developer can take it on.

Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba? I love Jamba. Simplifying it will make it easier for another developer to take it on.

Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all? I've been having issues since the last few updates so for me yes. I'd prefer you revert it.

I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone know any multi-boxing WoW developers? As a previous post said Jamba and ISBoxer go very well together. I'd love to see them take it on if that's possible. Maybe contact them and see if they can take it or if they know someone who can. I'd hate to see it just abandoned after all your hard work. I'd prefer a smooth handoff.

Other thoughts? Thanks again for all your hard work over the years. Your time and effort has been appreciated. Good luck to you and your family!

[Masochisto]

Thank you for six years of hard work Jafula. I haven’t been as active on the forums. But I’ve been a member and wow multi-boxer for a very long time, and a user of Jamba since your initial release. I use many more features than everyone else, but probably nowhere near all of the features you have implemented in Jamba. You have had a huge impact on our community and created something that cannot be uncreated. Once you step away, others will step forward out of necessity, and their work will stand on the shoulders of your work.
There is a lot of software expertise in the multi boxing user base. I expect many of us have a programming background or work in a related field. As a software developer and manager of developers, I am impressed at the work you have done and am skeptical any single person can fill your shoes as well as you have.

Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above?
Should I just abandon Jamba as is?


Major code refactors, even when refactoring for simplicity tend to take longer than you think they will and require some support time after the dev team thinks it is complete to shake out all the subtle bugs that creep in. My recommendation would be to take some time to update the code with comments and minor bug fixes but no major refactoring. This is your shortest way out, and allows a more stable state for the developers that will be trying to come behind you. My background is in languages with stronger typing than lua, so *I* think lua would be more susceptible to this than java or c#, but I could be mistaken as I don’t know lua.
TLDR: Open the source as soon as possible; spend your remaining development time on comments and bug fixes.

Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba?


Jamba is pretty complex, and has many features that not everyone is using. If I were the architect I probably would simplify it by breaking it into smaller add-ons that interact, but don’t require one another. This isn’t a criticism, as the work you have done is spectacular. I would not suggest trying to refactor for this now, but as individual boxers hotfix Jamba, or prune it of features they don’t care about and release simpler versions I'd suspect it to evolve in this direction.

Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all?


Just document the parts you think work and the parts you think don’t work. Let users who need to get it working pickup from where you left off, and users that don’t prune it away themselves.

I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone know any multi-boxing WoW developers?


I can’t imagine a Jamba without your direct involvement Jafula. Whichever License you use (I’m not familiar with their particulars) please allow for the use of your code in new add ons with similar feature sets. If *I* were going to pick up where you left off I’d want to do so by starting a new project and copying in the code for the features I cared about so I didn’t muck up the source material. I would not want to feel responsible to maintain all the features you have implemented, but would feel that way if I had to stay within the “Jamba” product.

Other thoughts?


Thank you for engaging the community rather than just disappearing. I personally wish you the best of luck to you in all of your future endeavors, but have confidence you will not rely on luck.

[Jafula]

Thank you to everyone for your replies so far. I have rolled back the cross realm support for Jamba and re-released that what essentially is 6.0.2.3 with a few quest watcher and item bar fixes as version 6.0.3.4.

I have changed the license to the MIT License which is a very liberal non-viral open source license, so developers feel free to use parts (or all) of Jamba as you see fit.

ebony, do you want to take over the curse and curseforge sites for Jamba? The only condition I have is that you leave the MIT license in place.

I will try and finalize up a few more things in a week or so.

[Maxion]

I have rolled back the cross realm support for Jamba

Thank you for all the work you have put in over the years!

Though the update today seems to have broken the team list, as I apparently have a bunch of name-realm versions of the team in the list, which I can no longer remove (my team is same-realm), and the real ones then get listed in addition to those, making the team display look very off. :/ Trying to set one of them as master gives the error: could not find area: <name of character>.
Maybe I can find how to fix it in the save data...

[ebony]

ebony, do you want to take over the curse and curseforge sites for Jamba? The only condition I have is that you leave the MIT license in place.

I can try and keep it working when stuff changes (patch's/bugs) thanks for removing the cross realm stuff i need to get my head round the basic stuff before trying to go into deep into that stuff. None else seems to want to do it so i will do my best and try and keep the jamba name going for a few more years.
i have no plans to change license or change names or remove you from the code. You will always be loved!

My name on curse is ebonyfaye

[Jar]

I can try and keep it working when stuff changes (patch's/bugs) thanks for removing the cross realm stuff i need to get my head round the basic stuff before trying to go into deep into that stuff. None else seems to want to do it so i will do my best and try and keep the jamba name going for a few more years.
i have no plans to change license or change names or remove you from the code. You will always be loved!

My name on curse is ebonyfaye

Awesome Ebony!!!! I only wish I could as I am retired and have tons of time. I'm a fast learner Ebony if you would like any help and wish to "show" me stuffs. I used to know some Borlean lol been years tho

[Lax]

Jafula, you are a legend. Thanks much for all of the time and effort you have put into this Addon for the WoW multiboxing community!