[Apologies in advance if cross posting is in error. As the issue relates to users, developers, and admins alike, I thought it best to post to JADMIN, JDEV, and JUSER. If in error, please forgive me.]
At this time, I would like to renounce my support for any new versions of the Windows Jabber client Rhymbox as it is shown on the website www.rhymbox.com. Please note any previous posts from myself regarding this software are in relation to Rhymbox v1.6, which was released in May 2003, and do not carry over to its current state.
This is a long email, but the short version is that something unholy is afoot in the Rhymbox family. I would recommend everyone avoid visiting the website, signing up for any new release, or using any new releases posted there, as it appears some kind of coup d'�tat has occurred. Either one of the two original developers is revolting, or those currently running the site and its matching Jabber server have, in fact, hijacked them. The website in question may or may not represent the true Rhymbox software team, and until all parties weigh in somewhere in a truly open forum (such as the Jabber mailing lists), I would recommend that anything you read on the site be taken with a grain of salt.
Now allow me to explain. One of the many sites I monitor is the Rhymbox website. I have been using the Rhymbox software since v1.5, have used v1.6 since May 2003 without issue, and I have been hoping to see a new release with advanced support for XMPP, etc.
Yesterday morning I noted that the website had changed. I looked, and lo and behold it appeared a v2.0 was on its way. The main page indicated that people could sign up for an early release of v2.0. I decided to check the support forums to see if there was any more information regarding this upcoming release.
The first thing I noticed is that the support forum no longer runs on
ezBoard.com, but rather now was using phpBB. So I thought, "Great. They're updating their site, changing their support forums in preparation for a new release."
However, I also noticed that all the old postings were gone. No feature requests, and no history of problems & solutions. I figured this was an unfortunate side effect to changing forum software. There was a few posts in the Problems & Solutions section, and I decided to check them out.
It was here that it became clear that something was wrong. One of the
posts read 'Open Letter to the RhymBox Community', apparently written by
one of the 2 authors of Rhymbox as listed in the 'About...' box in the
software itself. Reading his post, it became clear something was
wrong. Instead of paraphrasing, I am attaching the HTML version of that
page (Rhymbox_issue-stripped.html), which luckily I saved at the time so I could do some copy/pasting with ease.
I posted my own message to the forum, and less than 12 hours later, found the entire forum had been wiped clean again. I reposted, asking for clarification of what was going on. My repost I also attach here so as not to paraphrase (Rhymbox Support email.txt).
Please note that today I found the forum had been wiped clean yet again, and I received a private email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] titled "Your concerns", attached here as well (Rhymboxfinal.txt).
Now my personal opinion on the matter. The 'official' response from the
Rhymbox website basically says nothing of substance, and their actions
of basically censoring their users seriously makes me believe the open letter's validity. (They never did this in the past...I had several posts in their forums over the past year) I have also emailed Sebastiaan Deckers at the email he provided in the open letter, and Sebastiaan actually telephoned me. I have no reason to believe this was anyone other than who he said, and our conversation was consistent with the open letter.
I have no idea what the legal situation is, nor will I pretend to be such an authority. However, it seems painfully clear that something unhealthy is occurring with Rhymbox.com. This is extremely unfortunate, as the software has worked well for us in the past year, and I was looking forward to a new release. I suspect we will see a new release by the author(s) under a different name, and I would recommend anyone out there currently using Rhymbox or contemplating doing so stick to v1.6 until the authors indicate that they have a new program.
Thanks to all who read this far.
Could someone please shed light on what exactly is going on with Rhymbox? Earlier today I looked online and saw that for the first time in over a year, there was an announcement of a new version. I proceeded to the forums, which I check from time to time to see what problems/features people have run into/requested. Turns out the forum is no longer on ezBoard (no loss) but rather is run on phpBB (though it appears to be an outdated version if the copyright is any indication).
Next I found an 'open letter' apparently written by one of the developers, followed by a reply by the admin of this site, which gave contradictory information. I posted what I considered to be a fair, albeit lengthy, message to the same area, and now I check back and find the entire message board has been erased. The post by the admin, one Justin Fisher, indicated he would resort to requiring users to register is the board was used for anything other than its intended purpose. I now must ask why, Mr. Fisher, you felt the need to wipe out ALL the messages when you locked down this message board? I do not believe my post was off-topic nor was in any way derogatory. It was intended as a straightforward, logical progression of thought regarding the changes which appear to be going on and to which the site does not give any information, how that IS a problem and what solutions can be offered, both to client app users and to the Rhymbox family. As a long-time user of Rhymbox, I would very much like to continue using the program. But the verbal skirmish which appeared here earlier between yourself and the developer doesn't give one much confidence. To make things plain, I HAVE registered myself, I AM now signed in, and I am once again posting what I wrote earlier. I do not hide anonymously, nor do I use false information. I can understand that as we all have our opinions, you may disagree with my offered solution to the problem which appears to be besetting Rhymbox lately. But the fact that the entire message board has now been erased not once, but twice (once in the transition from ezBoard to phpBB, and then today when it was set back to zero messages all around) does not lend you, as the admin, much credibility. I would respectfully suggest that IF this is indeed a 'forum', and not a dictatorship, that you allow my post to stand and let other readers decide for themselves what exactly is needed. To anyone reading this post, please feel free to post any supporting or disagreeing comments. It is important that the Rhymbox folks (I honestly don't know who to address here so I use the generic term 'Rhymbox folks') to know how their customers/users feel regarding this matter, as it lies at the core of ANY software product: customer confidence in the support of current software and its continued development. ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS: ____________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: There appears to be issues going on within the Rhymbox world. SOLUTION: Until further notice, I would recommend that anyone interested in a decent Windows Jabber/XMPP client _NOT_ use any pre-release version of Rhymbox 2. If necessary, download the current release (v1.6) only, which has been available since May 2003. For those who have not been paying attention, go back into earlier postings here dated Sat., 12 June 2004, and note one named "Open Letter to the RhymBox Community", written by one of the two programmers of Rhymbox, Sebastiaan Deckers. Then note the reply by the admin of the forum, one Justin Fisher. [EDITOR NOTE: Not possible as forum has been deleted.] On the one side, you have an original author (see Rhymbox v1.6 About... box for details) claiming his domain name & software have basically been stolen. On the other, you have the admin of the site saying "We find it unfortunate, that Mr. Deckers has chosen this forum and approach in resolving his concerns." (incorrect comma placement left intact) Mr. Deckers provides provides a thorough explanation, complete with URLs to back up his statement. Unfortunately, things like the FedEx tracking # cannot tell you what was IN the package sent, among other things. On the other side, Mr. Fisher attempts to write in a formal, legal manner, yet his writing skills are so poor (especially in the areas of punctuation) one must wonder what exactly his background is. I will not tell you what to think, only that you should think. Whatever your opinion on this matter, it is clear there are legal uncertainties to using this software. Either one of the original programmers is revolting (never a good sign for a software project) or Mr. Fisher is as Mr. Decker portrays him. In either case, it does NOT bode well for Rhymbox users to toy with any newly released software until these issues are put to rest. Instead, I would suggest it would be best to look for alternatives such as Exodus ( http://exodus.jabberstudio.org/ ) GAIM ( http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ ) JAJC ( http://jajc.ksn.ru/ ) MyJabber ( http://www.myjabber.net/ ) Psi ( http://psi.affinix.com/ ) TipicIM ( http://www.tipic.com/ ) at least until issues have been resolved. And in the interests of fairness, it would be best to NOT monitor this website, which is controlled by one party, but rather follow the discussions occurring on the JDEV and JADMIN mailing lists or monitoring independent sites such as www.jabber.org or www.jabberstudio.org . And to both parties involved in this dispute, I would recommend that, once issues have been resolved, you let the Jabber community know in the appropriate forums. This kind of issue does nothing to help the Jabber community. ____________________________________________________________
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Jun 14 23:21:50 2004 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Received: from barney.wvnet.edu (barney2.wvnet.edu [129.71.2.108]) by thelmalou.wvnet.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i5F3Lo226377 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 14 Jun 2004 23:21:50 -0400 Received: from u15149660.onlinehome-server.com (u15149660.onlinehome-server.com [217.160.248.221]) by barney.wvnet.edu (8.12.11/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i5F3LhQK018741 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 14 Jun 2004 23:21:43 -0400 Received: (qmail 26171 invoked from network); 15 Jun 2004 03:21:44 -0000 Received: from adsl-80-7-180.mia.bellsouth.net (HELO NOTEBOOK) (65.80.7.180) by u15149660.onlinehome-server.com with RC4-MD5 encrypted SMTP; 15 Jun 2004 03:21:44 -0000 From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Your concerns Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 23:18:12 -0400 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Importance: Normal X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Status: X-CalypsoFolder: "Received Mail" X-CalypsoMsgFlags: 0x820004 0x10000 X-CalypsoAccount: ""WVNET" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" Dear Frank, We appreciate your continued concern regarding RhymBox. We regret that the posts have to be monitored for abuse. We are resolving the matter in a diligent manner and appreciate your patience. Lastly, we are unable to allow our forum to be used for advertising purposes. If you have any other concerns or questions, we welcome your post and look forward to assisting you. Regards, RhymBox Support
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