southendwoodworker
Established Member
I've had this happen many times in the past in various forums, and it is very frustrating. Sometimes it takes people a while to get back online and post an update, other times they disappear. I give the benefit of the doubt and give time ,but there is always going to be some free loaders. It has made me wary doing stuff like that going forward.
The worst case I had was many years ago I created an operating system for free that could be installed on a digital photo frame, meant you could use the digital photo frame as a full desktop - but with a small screen. I spent hundreds of hours working upon it for free. It was not perfect and required a lot of technical knowledge to use it well. This meant demand for the photo frame became very popular. I started getting loads of support queries, and it started eating up loads of my time, I was puzzled as the support queries started mounting up and people started complaining about me not giving them enough of my time. Eventually I found out that some horrible person had been SELLING it on ebay and made thousands of pounds, and the buyers had thought it was a product that they could get support from me. I was livid. The community was supportive and suggested I put up a donation page and I got a nice number of donations from core people which was motivating, but there was one donation for £2 which got my interest - I then realised that the person who donated me £2 had an email address with the same name as the seller on ebay who had made thousands of pounds free loading off my work. This killed my motivation entirely, I gave up and let the project die. I just didn't have it in me to be exploited like that any more.
The worst case I had was many years ago I created an operating system for free that could be installed on a digital photo frame, meant you could use the digital photo frame as a full desktop - but with a small screen. I spent hundreds of hours working upon it for free. It was not perfect and required a lot of technical knowledge to use it well. This meant demand for the photo frame became very popular. I started getting loads of support queries, and it started eating up loads of my time, I was puzzled as the support queries started mounting up and people started complaining about me not giving them enough of my time. Eventually I found out that some horrible person had been SELLING it on ebay and made thousands of pounds, and the buyers had thought it was a product that they could get support from me. I was livid. The community was supportive and suggested I put up a donation page and I got a nice number of donations from core people which was motivating, but there was one donation for £2 which got my interest - I then realised that the person who donated me £2 had an email address with the same name as the seller on ebay who had made thousands of pounds free loading off my work. This killed my motivation entirely, I gave up and let the project die. I just didn't have it in me to be exploited like that any more.