I've received what is, for me, a first: a shakedown from a download site troll.
There's a user on one of the download sites who clearly isn't a fan of my stuff, but goes far beyond the usual complaints: he writes long, detailed reviews that mix some useful technical comments along with attacks on my character (I'm greedy, my stuff is overpriced, etc.). I've made the mistake of responding to a few of his comments, but they keep coming, and now he's e-mailed me personally with what I guess he thinks is an offer I can't refuse: if I lower the price of my stuff to $5 and consult with him on the design of my future products, he'll refrain from further attacks. If I don't work with him, he'll actually start competing with me, releasing free and cheap competitors to my stuff, in an effort to put me out of business. I'm tempted to laugh. I have no intention of working with him. He actually admitted that he's never written a GUI program before, but since he says it should take no more than an hour to do, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for him to release anything. (He seems to be a command-line whiz and takes offense that my apps, many of which wrap command-line tools, don't expose all the power and expressiveness of the command line.) I'm also not afraid of competition, free or not--all my programs have competitors. I'm thinking the best thing to do is simply ignore this guy from now on, both in the download sites and in personal correspondence. Any other advice? Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? --Kevin -- Kevin Walzer Code by Kevin http://www.codebykevin.com
