Never rains but it pours, doesn’t it?
Today I’ve release WP eBay Product Feeds 2.4.2. This is purely a cosmetic change, a change in the name of plugin, kinda forced onto me. It’s entirely up to you if you update, as nothing else on the plugin has changed.
Why Did The Name Change?
In short, I was violating copyrights. This was – I assure you – ignorance rather than malice, as for a long time I believed that having ” for WordPress” was fine for a plugin. It may have been, and may have been for a long time, but unfortunately it wasn’t the case anymore. So I’ve had to change the name.
I also took this opportunity to change the logo and design a bit to remove any mention of eBay, beyond the title and having to mention it as that’s what the plugin does.
Why The Experience Left a Sour Taste
The experience however was soured with what happened. In short, it was closed overnight. Without warning. I understand if a complaint was made but this seemed like a bit sudden. This meant I was forced to take one of two decisions:-
- Reorganise my freelance work in a hurry to prioritise getting the plugin back up.
- Leave the plugin down until the weekend, sacrificing potential sales and a bit of downtime.
In the end I decided with the latter. Which was a shame as if anything happened in that time (such as a security bug) had popped up I wouldn’t have been able to fix it.
The weekend came, and it wasn’t a massive fix but fix it I did. I followed the instructions in the email (push an upload), and then….well….nothing.
48 hours passed and the plugin wasn’t back up. Instead I sent a speculative email to the email address.
It was back up in 4 hours.
Nowhere on the email suggested that I had to send an email, just to produce an update and it will be fixed. I don’t know if me emailing caused this to be pushed to the front of the queue, but I supposed it may have helped.
What Could Have Been Better
This whole experience would have been a lot better if we had the following:-
- A grace period to fix the plugin. I get it. Nobody wants to get sued. But this was a pro-active takedown rather than a re-active takedown. A grace period or a warning to fix this would have been incredibly nice, instead it gave me undue stress for a period of time.
- Detailed instructions on how to restore the plugin. If I had to send an email I’d have liked to have been told. Likewise if I didn’t I feel bad for causing stress on the plugin review team. This could have just been a note.
I know no doubt a “patches welcome” comment may hit the spam, or that “you should have read the Make blog” or words to that effect, but like I said, I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. Looking at Advanced WordPress suggests I wasn’t alone.
Anyway.
I’m Human
Finally, I’m human, there may be some crossover of eBay Feeds for WordPress & WP Product Feeds. I’m not updating the product name and URL’s in some places as I’d rather the premium be able to be kept upto date.
Download Links
Anyway, here’s a link to purchase WP eBay Product Feeds Premium, which is £30 for a yearly licence and you can purchase a licence using the link below.
First year. You may cancel your subscription at any time. Ongoing subscriptions have a 30% discount. Extensions subject to yearly license for support and updates.
To download the latest version of WP eBay Product Feeds, please click the link below.
Download WP eBay Product Feeds 2.4.2
Keep Upto Date
To get updates on WP eBay Product Feeds as well as all our other plugins and sites, please subscribe to our mailing list below.
The project is on Github. You can find it on Github here. I’ve also created a list of issues (a roadmap if you will) of changes to implement. Feel free to add (or try and fix) them!
Support for the new version will be provided either on the wordpress.org forum or our Priority Support system.
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