..Moderator hat on..

Ok Jay, I appreciate your support but most of us do look at things as a general customization community. Artistic people squabble more often than most but differences in opinion are not differences in principle usually.

DeviantART has done a great deal for that community. Different websites are tailered for different people. And as our community grows, and it is growing quickly, more and more sites will come into existence. Deskmod is coming back. Heck, even Skinz.org may return at some point. And that's how it needs to be because there are now so many users into what was once our little private club that no single site can contain them all.

I take it you're a software developer, Jay? Because I too just as most of the mainstream skinners and developers feel the slight sense of queaziness about programs that 1) Patch someone else's DLLs without their permission and 2) Use their format without permission. The whole thing brings up memories of the Napster debates on skinz.org. Some people didn't see the big deal. But those of us in the intellectula property business did see it as a big deal. People who create things should have control over those things. Like it or not, Microsoft created a UIS1+ level skinning format for Windows XP. And they decided for their own reasons to put security in it.

If someone else wanted to use it, they could have gotten a license. ICQPlus just licensed the WindowBlinds UIS skin format. That's the proper way of doing things. You get explicit PERMISSION.

How can any site that would support MSSTYLES ever say no to a rip? What's the difference? Is it okay to rip Microsoft's format because they're a big company? OS skins have always been a gray area, but it has been long established that other people's formats are a no no to use without permission just like using other people's skins. But my opinions on this are constantly called into question just because MSSTYLES competes with WindowBlinds's UIS format. That's a strawman perspective though because just about anything that involves customization will compete with something Stardock makes at this point.

And it should be pointed out that of all the software developers in this market, only Stardock hosts skins for other programs - even competitors (we host Dangeruss's Hoverdesk themes for instance). If someone knows of a developer in the community that is LESS competitive with other devleopers in it, let me know.

As I said to Jark earlier, look at how aggressively he defends his site in a MESSAGE BOARD. Imagine how I must have felt to logon and read an interview in the main news section read by tens of thousands of people in which I am personally attacked. Not Stardock but ME, Brad Wardell. And for what? Because I pointed out that Style XP is just a DLL patch? It clearly didn't do very much good because there's still people running around thinking it's a skinning app and now requesting to have a Style XP section (if you're going to have a section, it should be called MSSTYLES since that is what they are).

If the interview was supposed to clear things up, I would say it made things worse. More people than ever think that Style XP is some sort of customization program. It's not. It's a 200K download which includes a skin in it and an installer. Why do users think it's so small? Because it doesn't do anything but patch a DLL.

But I don't think it's fair for you to attack (or "Savage") DeviantART. They don't claim to be a technical site. Clearly a lot of people are not familiar with what this program does. They just see something that gives them basic skinning for free.

Being "paranoid" I looked at the people who criticized WindowBlinds or boosted this progrma. They aren't WB users. None of htem had ever commented on or created a WB skin. None of their screenshots showed WB in use. So from a business perspective, does it matter that the people who previously were happy using either nothing or that font that changes the title bar buttons are planning to use a crack that lets them have different colors of Luna?

Has anyone noticed how many of these people who hate paying for a $20 program already have Windows XP, a $150 upgrade days after release? These are not the types of people who pay for software in the first place. And if skin sites in the community want to cater to the "Warez" crowd, that's certainly their right. The more warez people that leave here and go elsewhere the better.

JayG: First off you cant possibly be more off-base about Dev Art. Since when does interviewing someone constitute being a corporate lackey? If you "dont give a damn about the skin community" then why the hell are you complaining about it? Dev Art and Wincusto are part of the same community your complaining about. They just have different demographics. And furthermore, how do u figure it's jark's fault how his interviewed guest answers questions? I mean that's ridiculous. Think about it a second. No matter how you feel about TGTSoft has nothing to do with reporting the news. News is supposed to be Un-Biased. Am i correct? So how is it jark's fault how his interviewed guest answered?

Brad, it certainly sounds like you should be accepting jark's offer to interview.

Why tack? So it can start all over again? Brad's made his point, if people choose not to listen that's their business. He's made the point so even non-coders like myself understand it. I think doing a counter interview would be a bad thing. Personally having looked back on all of this and the debates, it's really up to Microsoft to do something. It's their intellectual property that TGT is messing with. It's really their business. Windowblinds got their certification, so i only see one winner in this debate.

I'm certainly not suggesting a counter interview, or rather an interview with the attitude of a counter interview.

Simply that Brad should take the opportunity to offer the community (or at least the DA community, if you want to look at it that way) the same Q&A opportunities with the same amount of legitimacy. It's simply an idea, and I would think would relieve Brad of the sensation that he has been cornered on this issue without a fair amount of publicity in the matter. But perhaps you're right to suggest that the issue should simply fade.

Something more interesting that may have been brought about from this interview style is whether or not it is a good idea at its core, for any subject. If the general sentiment is that inflammatory questions were leading to inflammatory answers, should the policy then be to disallow general community questions on an issue unless it's in a forum?

If it's not, of course, and solely the answers are the inflammatory issue, then really I again fail to see why DA called to task for publishing verbatim responses to community questions. Blaming the site for interviewee response would be no more realistic than blaming the originator (or even host) of a serious forum thread for every response, mature and immature. In this instance I agree with you, TSF, that it's simply killing the messenger.

Jayg:

If you'd bothered to pay attention, you'd notice that we opened up the debate for people who wanted specific questions about Styles XP answered. If you had any questions, we more than likely would've passed them on to TGTSoft. Many of the questions we asked during the interview were from users, so this "thinly disguised advert" that you mention wasn't really part of deviantART's secret plan to become filthy stinkin' rich. It was designed to inform the community and give them the necessary tool to voice their concerns to TGTSoft. So in other words, please don't gush out about how the interview was an advertisement for Styles XP when you could've easily contributed. As for letting them get away with counterfeit answers, we can't exactly control the content of what another person is saying in the interview.

So what type of questions would you ask given the (missed) opportunity? We asked:
-If Styles XP hacks system .dll's
-Whether it's legal or not
-If TGTSoft would drop out if faced with a lawsuit
-What Microsofts thoughts on Styles XP are
-What their agendas and motives are for creating Styles XP
-If they realised how offensive some of the remarks on their web site were in relation to some of the skins located on this very site

It's hardly all sugar and candy in this interview. Please do your research before spouting wild accusations.

If I may be so bold (my disagreement with Jay's response is on record) but:

The questions were good. But nobody challenged their answers.

Do you know what I thought when I first read the interview before the responses? That TGTSoft was screwed. That they had just eliminated the possibility of having any support from the community.

Why?

Because that very first paragraph where TGTSoft attacked WindowBlinds and completely falsified what their program does (and contradicts these statements later on when they admit it's JUST a patch).

So much confidence I had in the community that they would not stand to be BS'd. Unfortunatley, quite a number of people were taken in.

Somebody should have been there to challenge their answers. And let me again repeat the thing that bothered me personally:

My friends at DeviantArt, and make no mistake, I consider Scott a pretty good friend of mine. I don't consider DA a "competitor" to WC or as a businss associate, you guys are our friends. But my friends there allowed an interview to be posted in which ME specifically was targeted for a personal attack. Me. Brad Wardell. That was unacceptable. I would NEVER have allowed an interview that made a personal attack on an individual up on any site I had any say over. If TGTSoft wanted to say that Stardock is being paranoid that would have been totally different (it would have been incorrect but at least it wasn't personal).

Facts are not subject to opinions either. When they claimed WB not seeing non-MS signed styles is a WindowBlinds bug, somebody sould have challenged them in the interview. How is this OUR bug? Why didn't they write their own skin listing program - WindowBlinds and Styles xP coexist fine, it's just that they didn't bother to write their own skin chooser and they're blaming us for that.

Boy, I really am wordy. Sorry.

Come on, come on, it's just an interview. Also mind the crowd, any attempt to respond in a serious tone, will just backfire.

an even better interview could have been Brad & TGT soft done together but of course that will never happen...
so listen to the Dutch guy!

I really "think" MS could care less at this particular point about TGT soft cuz if anything it "Helps" boost winXP sales, however when MS can control this themselves in the near future and they will "Than" action will be taken against them. hehe

Brad:

The simple answer to your quarrels is that the interview was conducted by email, not live, and contacting the community for "follow ups" would have dragged the whole process out and destroyed the timeliness of the story.

People have openly interpreted the responses, and TGTsoft has apparantly made no pretense of coming in and defending themselves, so the same effect has been acheived.

These tgtsoft guys don't know how to use IRC?

It was chosen to be done over email for whatever reasons, so please move off that point already.

Just a little off topic, but Brad, about the msstyles being the property of Microsoft... I agree, but who broke it? Who is ripping it?
How is it that if DA puts up a MSSTYLES section it would be like encouraging rips?

As far as I know, I would be ripping Microsoft's property if I created a program that uses the MSSTYLES format - a little like CustomEyes used to use the UIS format.
But skinning using the MSSTYLES format or the UIS format isn't ripping. Otherwise there would be 1399 Windowblinds rips on this site right now...

As I said in another thread, if there is claim to be made about any sorta illegal or unethical activities, it should be about that DLL patch.
But, it seems Microsoft gave it their OK, as long as they put a Warning upon the installation process.
As you said yourself, the reason why MS put that protection is because they don't want the Tech Support problems. But if somebody releases a patch, and accompanies the patch with a warning, I can see Microsoft not giving a rat's arse about it from then on, since they are then released from any responsibilities.

So the way I see it, everything seems to be legit now. TGTSoft is happy, users are happy, Microsft doesn't care. The only unhappy party is Stardock. But really, you shouldn't be, Windowblinds is way better product. If anything this might bring you more customers, since peolpe will realise that Windowblinds skins a way more cool than any MSSTYLES skins. They are going to go further into desktop customization and you will gain from that.

Really, all this is just silly. Because in truth, nobody really loses anything here, and most actually gain.

quoting brad: it's not a matter of competition, it's a matter of being attacked by a new company.' i want to apologize to, i posted a personal email publicly. sorry brad.

No problem Jay. That's why we have the delete button. We probably need to make it so that users can delete their own posts.

But I'll just share what I mentioned in email:

The isuse isn't one of competition. The issue is one of simply having people coming out of the woodwork attacking our product.

If Microsoft gives third party .msstyles its OFFICIAL blessing then it becomes an open format that anyone can use (including WindowBlinds and SkinStudio). We're not worried about TGTSoft from a sales perspective.

We are somewhat worried about .msstyles obviously but if we supported it then we could make it cross platform (and we're the only ones in a position to do that). And we could extend it.

But the format is very limited and history has shwon that skin authors want more power.

WindowBlinds 2.0 provided skin authors the choice between UIS1+ (faster, more powerful than MSSTYLE) and UIS2, far more powerful but slower. They chose UIS2.

Stardock has to get the message out that WB IS native and make sure it is just as fast and seamless so that the question merely comes over which skin type the user wants.

But Jay, Paxx, the issue isn't one of competitiveness. It's just the distaste of being attacked.

I don't consider .msstyles as warez.