New alpha/beta version available?Answered

I had the same concerns when getting started, as it looks like dead software at first, but the software is solid and the developers are responsive. Even if they never release another update except to fix compatibility issues, wyBuild/Update is a good choice, IMO.

If I am not wrong, the features I am looking for, such as creating a project from command line or Wix integration, are not yet available.

You can add, remove, modify versions, release updates, etc. from commandline. See: https://wyday.com/wybuild/help/commandline.php

We do not currently have a way to create projects from scratch via commandline. But we also don't see that has a huge failure (you need to define the project properties anyway, so why not define them in wyBuild itself rather than in a fragile XML file?)

At any rate, it's a popularly requested thing that's added to the next version.

>> "Wix integration"

Next version.

The current binary file format is not repository friendly, with XML we could see what is different.Isn't any of the new features ready to use?

Yes, when the next version is released. Not until then. We've talked about this in numerous forum posts.

wyBuild is not profitable as it is, hence a a long stagnation and now a direction shift. This direction shift should generate more revenue and justify allocating more engineering resources towards its development.

Short answer: yes, it's coming. No, we're not releasing a roadmap.

There are several threads with feature requests that get answered with something like "will be included in the upcoming version 2.7". The thing is that has been the answer for *years* now. Last discussion I joined was February 2016, asking specifically for a feature to upgrade to some specific version. The answer was that it will be included in version 2.7 which was to be released until end of 2016 (https://wyday.com/forum/t/3246/not-dead-product/#post-16078).

Not it's April 2018 and the answer reads just the same. I'm fine not to know "hard dates" and wait until the next version is ready, but I just don't see why I should keep hoping for that version to be released *ever*.You pointed out that wyBuild is not profitable and that some shift in product strategy was required. I think the situation will not improve by ignoring customer requests and not keeping up to your announcements for *years*.

Build an improved version of the product, call it 3.0 if you like and charge me again for it! I will be happy to reward the improvement with an additional license fee if it provides improvements that I need. Probably still much cheaper than switching to another solution.But I think it will be hard to generate more revenue with an outdated software product with the latest release > 5 years ago.

Sorry to be so harsh, I whish it wasn't so... But its also annoying for customers like me to build a software on an update framework that turns out to be a dead horse and to be forced to invest in other solutions after some time.

A new version is in the works.

not keeping up to your announcements for *years*.

We should not give hard dates without a schedule. That's a hard lesson we've learned. In the last year we've stopped giving hard dates to all of our products without a firm schedule in place.

But I think it will be hard to generate more revenue with an outdated software product with the latest release

wyBuild has never been profitable. LimeLM has been profitable since the first year. Any development to wyBuild has been subsidized by the profits of LimeLM.

We want wyBuild to stand on it's own two feet, hence a direction shift.

Long story short: wyBuild is not dead. We still answer support questions, we still take pull requests for wyUpdate (when there are genuine bugs), and we're working on a new release of wyBuild and wyUpdate. Features take time and money.

Just want to throw in my opinion. I'm using wyBuild for, oh my, over 4 years already (just checked mail: mine was bought on May 8th 2014). It's great, reliable tool though designed primarily for manual use, and I had to invent some workarounds to make it work nice in CI/CD environment. I can't say I'm 100% happy with the outcome, but it does what it is expected to. Still every time I have to change something with it, I feel pain. Then I go to this forum just to find another thread on the first page asking "Is wyBuild still alive?", or "New versions coming?", or something like that, with constant answer "New version coming later this year". Well, except of this, last one, which is "No hard date"... Which is even more disappointing, because sounds rather like "Never". I can understand that: it's not bringing you any profits. It costed me as much as 20 bucks a year, which is incredibly cheap, so I don't have any reasons to complain, do I? If that was all I could afford, I'd say yes. But I'd gladly pay waaaay more. I need such product, and competition is nowhere near. It's sad to see that it's not getting any attention.

Is there any way we, users, change that? Fundraiser maybe?

"...shut up, and take my money." picture here.

Andriy Kvasnytsya wrote:> Just want to throw in my opinion. I'm using wyBuild for, oh my, over 4> years already (just checked mail: mine was bought on May 8th 2014). It's> great, reliable tool though designed primarily for manual use, and I had to> invent some workarounds to make it work nice in CI/CD environment. I can't> say I'm 100% happy with the outcome, but it does what it is expected to.> Still every time I have to change something with it, I feel pain. Then I go> to this forum just to find another thread on the first page asking "Is> wyBuild still alive?", or "New versions coming?", or> something like that, with constant answer "New version coming later> this year". Well, except of this, last one, which is "No hard> date"... Which is even more disappointing, because sounds rather like> "Never". > I can understand that: it's not bringing you any profits. It costed me as> much as 20 bucks a year, which is incredibly cheap, so I don't have any> reasons to complain, do I? If that was all I could afford, I'd say yes. But> I'd gladly pay waaaay more. I need such product, and competition is nowhere> near. It's sad to see that it's not getting any attention. > > Is there any way we, users, change that? Fundraiser maybe?> > "...shut up, and take my money." picture here.

##############################wyDay Purchase <buy@wyday.com>9/27/11to me

Thank you for your order. Your product key is:##############################

I'm also a long time wyBuild & wyUpdate user. I love wyBuild but the lack of proper incremental update support still forces me to other products for my bigger applications. This is another topic that can be found being discussed many times over the years here.

Actually you can check this thread from back in 2013 where the same "It's coming" answer was given:

https://wyday.com/forum/t/1951/deployment-of-updates-best-strategy/

I just wanted to also throw my name out there for being willing to re-buy my license for a "wyBuild 3.0", if it includes all of the features we've been told are "coming" over the years, especially proper incremental update support.

- Ron

I totally agree with the two previous replies. In my previous post I forgot to say that wyUpdate serves us very well for several years now and turns out to be a reliable update solution. Given the aforementioned moderate license fees, one could argue there is nothing to complain about. It works as promised at the time we licensed it.The problem is that our requirements grew (specifically update to a specific version) and we need some reliable statement whether it makes sense to stick to wyUpdate and wait for these features or if we have to search for and invest into alternatives. What frustrates me is the fact that we keep hoping for wyUpdate to improve into that direction for too long now.Again, an upgrade fee or new license for a version 3.0 would be totally acceptable for me. Having a team member search for alternatives, refactor the app to use any new framework and run the risk to switch at some point is not "free" either.The point is my hope is fading that the "waiting for an update"-strategy will pay off in the near future.

Christoph

Echoes into the abyss...

(first of all, your question: How many arms and legs does the typical human have? ... won't accept "two" nor "2" ... I didn't realize the typical human has 4 arms, for example.)

I am sitting on the other side of the tracks from the previous posts, but I keep running into the same hold pattern as the rest. I had an employee several years ago (i.e. circa probably 2010 who worked on creating an ecosystem of the WyUpdate paradigm... subsequently never pushed to production simply for the lack of perceived renewable editions of this product.

On one hand, I'm kinda glad we didn't buy in so tightly to it (i.e. I suppose sitting at 2018, in hindsight, perception has become reality)... on the otherhand, I wish we proved to be completely wrong.

As it stands, we've gone through iterations of all the standard variations of installers like NSIS (Nullsoft), InstallShield, Spoon(+Home Grown Solution), Third-Party consult (epic failure), (etc, etc etc...), and now currently InstallAware (with all sorts of congealed "stuff" being employed just to work around it, and every other previous answer's issues if you know what I mean).

However, I've been in need of a reliable, consistent, usable product exactly like what your product has purported itself to be since 2004... The major battles I have with any iteration of Installer product is the vast difference between initial setup\configuration and maintenance releases (sound familiar?), aside from the semantics of simply being able to accommodate them, when it comes to the ability of future staff being able to keep pace with the learning curve necessary to further development. Sadly, high turn over is just a fact of life where I work as well an absolute necessity for security and quality assurance over non-nominal end-users (Government work at a University)... which just exacerbates the point.

Perception.

Even if this product were 99% reliable for "when it was built"...Even if this product were 99% "future-proofed"...Even if this product were 99% "feature-complete"...

The perception of the product deteriorates (and in such, deteriorates the perception of any other product, service, etc. of the company and the company itself as the public face of those products, services, etc.) in a non-linear fashion over nothing but "stale"-time. "Stale"-time becomes simply the public-facing time between Major releases with "sign of life" Minor releases.. in most cases even if only compiled as an active "coming soon" page within the product's stable release "site". What you need is a living testament in good faith to end-users

If you were to simply addend your posts and products (think of, say, Windows 7 ProgressBar) with "always updated" iterations (i.e. Windows XP-10 ProgressBar or even just Windows 10 ProgressBar), you give a better perception of a "living" company. Recompile your Panel2006 and make it Panel2018...

Post some other tangential products your staff has inevitably made as replacements and workarounds for the lack of proper stock (\free\available\etc) <things>.

Link through general collaborative space for (if not handled in the above case) what your staff has come across where they were made to at least pause for a moment and reflect upon the "I wish I just had" <thing> but inevitably relented to some other mental avenue for lack of time\money\deadlines\etc. At least then many of the above collaborators could feel more vested in your release products rather than wanton for sign you even still exist, as it were.

Even further into an idealistic view, take your last stable release (and eventually every future stable releases) "as is" and open up a couple sections of the source which most predominantly contain end-user bugs, issues, "feature requests", etc. and let them see if they can fill in the gaps themselves in the meantime. They'll still buy in to the future (literally) while satiating those who come to you as:

1) developers wanting or needing functionality you may never roadmap,

2) contributors to future editions who are able to make their cost-benefit-analysis -time- more bountiful than you've admitted in several responses above to being able to justify with the overall source-revenue of this product,

3) end-users who are ultimately always hamstring'd by the inability to compile their way around a program/need and instead tend to find themselves trying to cobble together disparately sourced combinations of <stuff> at each step of their own process to accomplish each <step> they come across (again, those "opened" sections can at least be provided an "as is" "plug-in" comprised of the above user submissions as well as any "approved" modifications of your own),

4) Prospective new funding sources for you who are going to run the gamut between wanting simple, clear, intuitive final products and extensible, robust, full featured, configurable and evolving integration software (all of which currently are just as likely right now to see the last release date and move on; if not, the next step is generically to find legitimacy within the periphery of the same site leading them to this support forum rife with unanswered premises and the above posts highlighting genuine concern over the future of the products themselves).

None of which are going to take kindly to simply being ignored (or perceive flippantly standoffish responses promising things which "clearly" never materialize, hardened and disillusioned programmers can attest : see Perl6, history)... or for the end-user explanation read the opening and closing sentiments here: https://www.evanmiller.org/a-review-of-perl-6.html) no matter how exceptional your one-on-one support may be.

Ripping a quote from the link above is as eloquently and aptly put as any potentially meaningful drivel I've managed up to this point:"The explanation, of course, is banal: if youre a geek, writing correct computer code is a lot easier than reprogramming peoples perceptions."

I get that (hopefully) the lot of you are tending towards being more software-development-centric vs software-use-centric (me too)... but you've put yourself out to the world as the latter now and there's no turning back so clip that faux-tie on your tuxedo shirt and at least pander to the capitalist end-user crowd... (so we can get back to our dungeons and code monkey-around in the shadows like we all want)

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis.

No need for a clip-on bow-tie. If there is one useful(?) skill that my years in concert bands and orchestras has taught me it's how to tie a real bow-tie.

How many arms and legs does the typical human have?

How many inclusive (2 arms + 2 legs). It's simply to filter out the stupid russian bots. We'd rather not waste our limited time on cleaning out garbage that some computer whirring away dumped on us.

Regarding your other points:

1. The open source C# components (not including wyUpdate and the AutomaticUpdater) will never be updated. They exist for posterity. They are also "feature complete" (they have a job, they do it well).

Panel2006 was created in 2006 and it looks like it. We're not sinking time into something that has brought in $0 over the last decade+ (and is functionally useless besides). That would be silly. Even spending an hour changing the name and screenshots would be a monumental waste of resources.

Ditto for the other trinkets.

Our time and money is spent on:

1. LimeLM (and TurboActivate, TurboFloat, [and new unannounced sub-products]). These products are great. And we've spent the last year (and a considerable amount of money) making them even better. If you haven't tried LimeLM, I would recommend you do.

2. [Unamed / unannounced freemium product coming soon]

3. New re-targeted wyBuild version (and wyUpdate / AutomaticUpdater).

In that order.

Also, you're not screaming into the void. We read these posts. But how useful is it for me to respond to each post saying "it's coming"? My guess is not very useful.

The new version will be out when it's out. We don't have a time frame. You can quote old posts saying the next version is coming in 2013 or whenever, but that doesn't take into account that we take external factors and adjust our internal roadmap (where resources are diverted). We don't announce when we make adjustments to internal resources -- time and money -- where would we announce that if we did?

I get it, though. You're frustrated. You wanted a new version and yesterday. I hear you.

No need for a clip-on bow-tie. If there is one useful(?) skill that my years in concert bands and orchestras has taught me it's how to tie a real bow-tie.

--> Misplaced levity; simply a light-hearted moment to pick on the preconceived notion upon which a divide is made between management and worker (specifically in reference to developers)... just breathe and relax.

How many inclusive (2 arms + 2 legs). It's simply to filter out the stupid russian bots. We'd rather not waste our limited time on cleaning out garbage that some computer whirring away dumped on us.

--> Then change the text to read "How many inclusive arms and legs does a human have..." see if that strikes your contributors less dumbfounded (still won't take "four" as an answer, psh)... Or if it's targeting the Russians just try "In Soviet Russia, Human arms and legs include you?" (Yakov Smirnoff, anyone?) <--

1. The open source C# components (not including wyUpdate and the AutomaticUpdater) will never be updated. They exist for posterity. They are also "feature complete" (they have a job, they do it well).

Panel2006 was created in 2006 and it looks like it. We're not sinking time into something that has brought in $0 over the last decade+ (and is functionally useless besides). That would be silly. Even spending an hour changing the name and screenshots would be a monumental waste of resources.

Ditto for the other trinkets.

--> It's simply a matter of suggestion towards creating a better perceived culture of active investment in your own site and products. It appears as though at one point in your fabled history here, there was a hefty amount of wanton community and vested interest in reaching out. Today it looks like a graveyard of "what was" in much the same style of geocites.

Panel2006, as a pointed piece of the above, was, too, a mere pointed "thing" in the "things and stuff" you have, which someone there clearly felt was kitschy enough to garner a public display; so where are those signs of life now? Not everything should be under the cost-benefit-analysis trail (especially for a site touting OSS as an axiom of their business platform).

Your other trinkets are lost to time as well, so if you've really nothing left beyond the limelight (pun intended) of your pay-only purview... maybe it's time you just pass your dead-end products back out to the Open Source crowd and let the torch move forward rather than flicker and fade away into obscurity while it still has the chance.

As I see it (and it would seem a cadre of others over many year spans by now), you are:

1. Interested in your money stream beyond simply trying to keep yourselves afloat and no longer in anything other than the business of being in business.

2. You have a good 2 to 3 plausibly profitable products which you perceive to be far more important than the one(s) being referenced in this chain.

3. The product(s) in this chain is(\are) valued ostensibly more than even other completely non-existent "freemium" products.

4. It's incredibly hard to sell anyone on vaporware coming with no underpinning history of continuing a currently decade (+) derelict product they're actually stopping in to check on.

In that order.

It isn't about you trying to come in to each post and respond for the sake of completeness. Responses, when made, should be poignant and contributive to the topic(s) at hand. Otherwise, you might as well just ignore the posts, turn the whole section into an archived history of, or simply remove the forums in the first place. There's really nothing to garner further from the site on our end other than the sanity check of whether anything has happened since the last arrival... and I'm guessing 99% of those people already gave up by now.

I don't have any intention of going and digging up old posts, I am merely speaking to plenty of the perceived issues of the rest of your cliente above. I'm perhaps a step worse, I'm a potential client with no current stake in you or your products wanting nothing but to give you money.

Time!=Money intrinsically, or I'd have already made an exorbitant amount from y'all on how long I've been waiting to pay you for yours.

So, no, I'm not frustrated and no I don't need nor want a new version yesterday. I'm a software architect, with my own user base persistently at me to that end, so I can completely empathize about setting ephemeral and ethereal deadlines as well as trying to balance everyone's needs vs wants and yarba yarba yarba... Doesn't change the perception of reality in the glimpse of your outward reflection towards becoming quite far and away from the roots of your company's beginnings. I hope y'all learn to have fun at it again soon.

1. Interested in your money stream beyond simply trying to keep yourselves afloat and no longer in anything other than the business of being in business.

That's untrue. We take tremendous pride in our products. But we have to balance that with reality. Namely, we cannot throw resources at products that don't make money.

Hence, re-targeting wyBuild's next version to a larger audience. Coming soon. No hard date.

2. You have a good 2 to 3 plausibly profitable products which you perceive to be far more important than the one(s) being referenced in this chain.

Yes. Developers costs money. As do designers. And accountants. And servers. And quality software and support. Etc.

Profitability matters for the success of a company and the success of a product. Hence, the re-targeting of wyBuild to a larger (and actually profitable) audience.

3. The product(s) in this chain is(\are) valued ostensibly more than even other completely non-existent "freemium" products.

Huh? By whom? Paying customers? I can tell you with 100% certainty that is not the case. Trust me; I have access to the data that makes that case in black and white.

Again, we want wyBuild to be profitable. Hence, the re-targeting to attract a larger paying audience.

4. It's incredibly hard to sell anyone on vaporware coming with no underpinning history of continuing a currently decade (+) derelict product they're actually stopping in to check on.

The next version of wyBuild has had alpha out there to a handful of customers. We don't (and won't) make them publicly available.

And LimeLM and those sub-products (TurboActivate, TurboFloat, etc.) have had continual updates over the past decade.

So... I'm not sure the point you're making. We put our resources to efficient use, and we continually improve LimeLM and wyBuild. Just because you don't see every piece of work that happens doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Doesn't change the perception of reality in the glimpse of your outward reflection towards becoming quite far and away from the roots of your company's beginnings. I hope y'all learn to have fun at it again soon.

Trust me, as the founder of the company I'm quite aware of the company's roots and values. Making high-quality development tools is what we were founded doing. And it's what we've continued to do.

To sum up: wyBuild's current version (2.6.x) does a great job at what it set out to do (generate patches and deliver those patches to customers).

The next version will improve upon that and do more.

We also have other development product (LimeLM the star of the show) that increase software companies' use of time and money.

Let me also say that in addition to paying again, we would pay a lot more. Call it an enterprise license or whatever bullshit name you want to justify more money, and we'll pay it. We have plenty of paying customers and its nice that its this cheap and all, but we wouldn't sweat paying a good $500 for this.

Hi,

l'm new to this site. I was looking at purchasing a product that could make life a bit easier with giving C#.NET apps the ability to have automatic updates, patches, etc. while having the ability to have rollbacks, etc. I thought wyBuild was the answer until I saw that the last update for it was back in 2012 -- this made me want to inquire a bit further. I'll be honest, but what irks me is I keep reading sentences like "it's not profitable for us...". I see that wyDay is charging $85.99 (or something like that) for a license for this product which, if it were updated more regularly, allowed me to CD/CI with it (allow it to be run as a part of said process in an automatic fashion which I'm sure was requested a long time ago), etc. that I would easily be willing to pay 5 to 6 times more for said license -- maybe even more. I also see that I'm not the only one saying that either so perhaps the real problem lies somewhere within wyDay in one way, shape or form. Even if you do get a new version out, the damage might already be done as who's to say the same thing won't happen again. It's too bad, it looked like something (partially or not) I was interested in purchasing. Food for thought.

This has been addressed already: https://wyday.com/forum/t/4127/new-alphabeta-version-available/#post-19876

Dear Mr. Wyatt,

I've already read the entire thread. Re-reading it simply doesn't change a single thing that I've written whatsoever. Most of the answers you give in this thread are pretty much moot from my perspective. I could be willing to give you a 1,000 times what you are asking for the product, but I'd never consider it given that it was last updated in 2012. I know you are looking at all of this from only your own perspective, but you might want to take a hint or two from the other perspective as well. Your "attitude" makes me not even want to consider the products that are making you some money -- you just seem to rub me the wrong way for some reason. Have a nice day.

I've posted before, and I'm posting under my personal name rather than my company, although we are a paying customer and I do have 100% purchasing power in this.

Why not let those of us who want to pay more, do so by adding a support tier or some other method? What about having those of us willing to pay extra get access to early builds to test and/or maybe source (I understand why you wouldn't, just throwing stuff out there) Or let us have access to a forum that could be a combo of testing/non-stupid questions/suggestions/etc?

I'm literally telling you we would give you $1000 a year for this. Like, right now. No questions asked. Fuck, I'd give you $1000 right now just because you already deserve it, but if there was ongoing anything, I'd put it on autorenew and go about my day. I'm SURE I'm not the only one.

Consider what a lot of us spend on install software. Sure, it isn't the same, but the pricing model applies. Sure, we could use wix or something (and have in the past), but our needs grew too high and the $ was worth it to save man hours.

I think it's naive to think the price should be what it is. Have you looked around the space lately? There really isn't much that competes, and it all mostly sucks or is crazy complex for most projects.

This is good software. It's been so good that we can keep using the same version since forever.

We are now having to "hack" around it by using some features to implement others (beta channels, etc), which is frustrating, but not a big deal also. It does, however show the age.

/rant. I love you, wyatt, I just think you're so close to the project that you don't see the air sometimes.

I think that we don't receive any update in short time need to move to other software because today we need to integrate on devops, .NETCore ( I can't ask to my customer to install .NET 3.5 for a new .NETCore app it no make sense).

Please give us some breadcump.

To give my humble opinion, we have been using wyBuild for many years in various software projects we have developed over the years. We have projects with over 800k installations using wyBuild.

We are aware of its limitations, but we have developed custom solutions to address these limitations for each of our software projects. Yes, it needs to be updated in many aspects, but for now, it works quite well and hasn’t given us any issues.

It is true that if you think about it, any company or "developer"—yes, in quotes—should not find it very difficult to develop a program that updates their application to suit their needs. After all, wyBuild is another generic software that tries to cater to most needs, but it cannot cover everything.

Remember this: “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

Understand wyDay's side of things. It could be a small to medium-sized company generating income for perhaps one or two people. I don’t know what kind of profits this business generates or if it can really sustain more, and that’s something we don’t care about.

You need to understand that you are purchasing a software product that works and can be tested. If it fits your needs, you buy it. If you have additional requirements, you submit them as suggestions for future updates.

It’s easy to complain without understanding what goes on behind the development process. I believe it is easier to develop everything yourself than to acquire something and then waste time and energy complaining here.

As Wyatt has said many times, yes, it is being developed. But listen, all the revenue generated by Lime funds the other project. This must be taken into account since the company needs to invest in the department that is truly generating this income.

Without a doubt, I can offer to help Wyatt with the upcoming update, and I can even allocate part of my team to assist in the development at no cost. However, keep in mind that I am diverting workers from my own company to offer them here. Who pays for these people? They have bills to pay, families to support, etc.

This is something you must understand.

The update will be released when it is ready. If not, develop something custom if you are a "developer."