Why you should not be paying for VisualHub (Updated)

Wow… it's nice that Kagi wants to please it's customers, but not at the expense and without the consent of the original owners. The source code is free, so if they really wanted to help people, provide a néw product and sell that. Using someone else's software directly and providing a half-baked update for it (which, as the article mentions, will break at some point) hurts the original owner and developer.

In short and to put it bluntly, a pretty dick move. In a longer sentence, it's a not well-thought-out move with software that Kagi never had ownership of nor approval to even patch the software.

This is really a low blow. Tyler has worked with his customers, me for example, to come up with a solution to continue using VisualHub (and AudialHub) in Lion. He provide me and others with patches and even new optimization links. I was very grateful he took the time and effort for his customers and eventually posted the solutions for free on his site. Something the KAGI never bothered to investigate. I received the email blast from KAGI offering the vHub lion updater and thought it was a further solution from Tyler. But it didn't seem right as his email correspondence with me always had me feeling that it was really lucky that he could get it to work... and any update could break it for good. I forwarded the email I received from KAGI to make sure it was something developed by him. If it was, I was happy to donate the $5 bucks to his cause. I use this product EVERYDAY. It still beats everything out there (even more now with the Rob Leatherwood ffmpeg patch update that Tyler posted on his Techspansion site) Shame on KAGI for not contacting the developer to get permission to contact his customers, create an updater or offer to share the proceeds. I hope this unethical behavior deters other developers from using KAGI for anything. Tyler, good luck and thank you...

VisualHub was the first program I purchased when I got my first Mac in 2007. Still remains to be my most frequently used app. I wish you continued support for it, but I appreciate your workaround for Lion. Good luck and best wishes.

I don't get what the problem is with what Kagi did? They spent the time to package up the patch and submit it to the app store, something the original developer didn't do. If they want to sell it for $5, that's their prerogative (people could choose to not buy it). If there's a patch to fix a problem with Adobe Photoshop, even if the fix involves taking a collection of files Adobe provides, does someone need to get permission from Adobe to release the patch for $5? I don't think so (unless there are specific licenses associated with the files).

If they have been answering support requests for the product (probably for the entire span of the product's existence, even while it was being developed actively) it seems disingenuous to complain about a $5 charge for releasing something that fixes the product for a lot of users.

VisualHub is great, sat on my dock since April 2008 and use it often:

https://img.skitch.com/20110816-1xbrsju96bh88q1m4umsf8uwk6.png

Love all the tool tip message humour, same in the reg e-mail:

"You might want to write down that code somewhere. It's rather important. You could try memorizing it if you want...

4: You did it! Congratulations! You may now brag to your friends."

Cheers Tyler

This truly sounds like a huge lawsuit waiting to be filed... I'd prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

So...this is illegal? Or is it purely an ethical issue?

I mean...I know this was a great app at the time, but there are much better alternatives at the moment that do a superior job to anything VisualHub could ever do.

Permute: Full 64-bit and multi-core (GCD/OpenCL) optimized. Supports all the codecs that VisualHub did and more! They also have great/active customer service and support. - http://fuelcollective.com/permute

Squeeze: This is what all the professionals like Cali Lewis are using now since VisualHub kept getting older and older. - http://www.sorensonmedia.com/

Smart Converter: A free alternative to both that supports converting the most common file formats: http://shedworx.com/smartconverter

A quick Google search by either Tyler Loch or Kelly Hodgkins would have revealed the real culprit. Whoever runs http://www.vhub.biz/ has used the open source code made available by Loch to create an updater, and has set up payment through Kagi.