The Pacer EditionCMS

From the point of view of a user who made the decision to go with WB despite of all the CMS opposition products at the time and ever increasingly so now, I am deeply disturbed by the turn of events. I've always received admirable support from WB.

It seems to be more a matter of a lot of egos and bruised egos rather than setting about a renewed collaborative effort to move WB forward to the benefit of its community.

If the original difference was one of which framework to use in further development, or to rewrite the whole thing and a compromise could not be reached which satisfied all the participants then why not allow those people to breakaway and develop their own version with the full knowledge of the consequences. That being that the success / failure of their endeavours will inevitably be decided by the community? Is that not the democratic way? Is that not what Ryan decided to do? Not sure of the circumstances as to why he chose to distance himself from WB but I see no difference between the two. The manner in which the Pacer chose to do it though is debatable and needlessly shrouded in secrecy.

In terms of the Pacer team announcing their product launch on the forum, does it not indicate that they still have an affinity and allegiance to WB, the first place and natural place to announce the result of their hard work ?

Ethically though (and that's what it comes down to) using code without prior consultation and first asking for permission from its owner (developer) in my opinion does amount to plagiarism and common sense & courtesy would have demanded better behaviour from Pacer.

I think they know that have acted wrongly, having difficulty accepting it and can't justify it which is why they demonstrate such recalcitrance and stubbornness. When pushed into a corner that's a common defence mechanism where hotheads rule. You can sense in one of JohnP's replies his disappointment at receiving criticism rather than being judged on his contribution. Surely a simple apology and an equally simple request to the developer would have been sufficient to bring all concerned on board? The Pacer, you may be completely convinced of the validity and value of your work but your ultimate success surely depends on acquiring the support of all stakeholders , so a defiant attitude will only work against you.

The basic question to me as an end user is how does The Pacer differ from version 2.8? Is the Pacer team willing to resume genuine discussion with established developers to settle any outstanding issues and differences? Are WB developers willing to objectively investigate the product to see if it has any merits, if indeed their product represents an advance in ease of use, operability, breaking technology that can be included into WB? How can the work that they've done benefit future versions? If not then what is the alternative?

You have all the same objective in mind, just taken different avenues, so how can you converge again into the one road that will take the best of both worlds and combine it into a whole which places WB at the forefront of CMS development? The accolades would then with great pride be equally distributed to all concerned.

The Pacer team could also learn a lesson from their impulsive behaviour. In your haste to release the product there is very little assistance afforded to a non tech minded person like myself. If you expect us to make judgements on your product then some simple installation instructions will be welcome. None is provided on your site and neither in the file that I downloaded so I can't even begin to make a comment.

In conclusion, I hope that cool heads can prevail so that a collaborative effort is once more restored to allay as Ryan puts it FUD. The community and its users will then I am sure will be even more pleased to lend its full support and thanks to the altruistic sharing of your experience, hard work and dedication.