100% with you buddy, the worst part of ST for me has become this community. Don’t like visiting this place any more, too many people just want to be negative and not move on. When people ask me about the pros/cons of each hub, I used to say they all have their issues so you basically just have to pick your poison, now I tell people, ST has issues like everyone else but the community will drag you down so much you’ll wish you never bothered.
As the saying goes, shit or get off the potty.
The hope, theoretically, whether stated or not, is that by picking up their balls 
and stomping off the playground, they will motivate SmartThings to treat Community Developers better and/or put more effort into fixing overall long-standing product and platform issues.
All this despite being offered the best efforts of the available resources.
It has been easy for folks to wrap the above in various wordings and, yes, completely valid justifications. Obviously no one wants to overtly sound like a brat demanding that the rules of the game be changed to what they feel is appropriate or that will earn sympathy.
Sincerely… I empathize and no offense intended yet perfectly understandable if anyone feels offended.
###Here’s my wording, BTW:
I strongly advocate on behalf of the users of SmartTiles. I emphasize to SmartThings that SmartTiles’s users are their Customers.
But I think they know that already, don’t you think?
It’s interesting to observe: Don’t hate the playas; hate the game? I guess I’d better duck, 'cuz I’m sure I’ve just invited a few darts to fly towards me 
. I ought to just stay out of the tussle entirely, but… I can’t resist mixing metaphors: I’m not judging any of the contributors here on their posts or choice of actions, but if it talks and walks like a duck… 
.
This is a serious situation. Perhaps this craziness will lead somewhere helpful to everyone.
And when the company advocates promise transparency but turn right around and blow smoke up our butts… That’s the community dragging it down?
When support blames the smartapps. That’s the community?
When it’s said that an app was not submitted for publishing to the very people that were past of the discussion when it happened…
Come on… Every one knows where the fault is, and it’s not the community.
The community is fed up with the bs.
So, these guys can blame the developers for pulling out all they want… The truth is very well known.
It’s simple enough to store the contents of state variables on an external server. It’s a whole different ballgame to read them back in when you need to restore. That’s a platform limitation.
Better devs than I (@Mike_Maxwell) have tried and found it too difficult for practical use.
Ok, so who do you hold responsible for the new bugs introduced with every single platform, mobile app or firmware release? Every. Single. One. Who is it, seriously? Pagan gods? Forces of nature? Space aliens? 
LOL …
It makes sense for developers to take precautions for things that have the potential to fail, but you can’t seriously expect developers to take precautions against things that are documented as working a specific way.
It seems like every time ST fixes one problem they create 2 new ones and non-developers have no idea how frustrating it is to waste hours trying to troubleshoot a problem only to find it’s a new bug in ST.
I completely understand why Bruce pulled RM and I don’t blame him. I personally would have changed the licensing so someone else could have taken it over, but I’m fairly new to ST. Ask me again in a couple of months and I may have a completely different outlook on things.
I have a feeling that as soon as there’s a viable alternative that can run locally, most developers will end up jumping ship and then it’s only a matter of time before SmartThings cuts its losses.
I totally agree with @geko, it makes sense for @bravenel to pull his app because why does he have to spend countless hours supporting and answering questions when he spent HIS time to write it and ST platform is making it unstable.
ST needs to be working w/ the developers that add value to their platform, and sending them items and working with them, giving them priority access to QA. People like @bravenel and @625alex and @geko and quite a few hours their apps are why a LOT of people have come to this platform.
I mean, so don’t complain about “hurting the users”, it is tons of their time to support and maintain their apps and if they aren’t going to be helped by ST then why should they.
If you haven’t written and app or been supporting one during this platform meltdown @nosnhojm or @N8XD you shouldn’t be trying to give thoe developers a hard time.
Really… I was sad when SmartTiles went closed source because I had donated to it, but i understood at least.
[quote=“bamarayne, post:23, topic:45032, full:true”]
And when the company advocates promise transparency but turn right around and blow smoke up our butts… That’s the community dragging it down? [/quote]
SmartThings actually has a community… Wink has an unofficial Facebook group.
SmartThings has a bi-weekly ‘video’ chat who anyone is allowed to attend to.
SmartThings is also lucky enough to have @pstuart who does a Live Code Fridays every week which SmartThings also attends to help out.
SmartThings has a developer slack channel and invites anyone who wants to and will directly help developers.
Which other HA platform has this? ST is about the most transparent company I have ever seen and once they get past the issues they are having, they’ll be able to concentrate on working with developers even more. You won’t get this with other HA platforms.
The community wanted ST to blow smoke up the community’s collective butts, the community wanted continuous and pointless hand holding updates, the community got exactly what the community wanted.
The support team cannot support community apps, the support team is there to assist with issues with the ST hub and connectivity and on top of that, they’ve got a lot of newbies currently learning the ropes. In the future ST will likely have the resources and the ability to hopefully provide more help with regards to community apps.
There’s more too this.
The issue with the platform is ST’s fault, the attitude of the community is entirely down to… the community.
And I’m tired of the complaining and pathetic tantrums some people throw and yet STILL stay on the platform.
None of the ST employees have blamed or disagreed with the developers pulling at all.
You’re right, looking at it in that perspective it is very transparent. I stand corrected.
The community wanted the updates, substantial updates because the advocates said they were going to give it, which they have not been doing.
Right again, but when support is telling users things that are direct contradictions to what the advocates are saying here… well, I’ll just leave that one out there…
I’m sure there is more to it, lots more. But don’t say it was never submitted when in fact it was.
Yes, It is the fault of ST. The community has changed over the past six months, also because of ST.
I’m not pitching a pathetic tantrum. I tell it like I see it. If I’m wrong, I’ll gladly admit (see above). But saying one thing at one moment and something entirely different later… and then when called out on it going silent… well, that speaks volumes.
Also, I never said anything about the employees of ST blaming or disagreeing with the developers pulling out.
I’m coming at this from the perspective that the developers put a lot of their own time into their contributions. I appreciate every bit of it, even for the apps I don’t use. But when this time and effort is being built on the rules and regulations of the company platform, then the company should own up to their mistakes and not blame the developers. I don’t blame them for leaving. I blame the company for driving them out.
I’ve said over and over and over, that even with all of the problems of ST it is still the best thing out there. I want it to succeed. I do not want to migrate anywhere else. I have faith in this platform and I absolutely love the system. I have no problem calling BS when I see it. But I also have no problem singing praise about this system.
Well, can’t say fairer than that.
For reference the ‘temper tantrum’ comment wasn’t directed at you.
I just hope this will blow over soon 
Thanks for clarifying that it wasn’t at me. And yes, I hope it does blow over soon. I hope that this BiG announcement that Tim is talking about is really something amazing. I really hope they’ve figured out that they need to fix the problem, not bandaide the problem. And I sincerely hope the forum can get back to something close to what it was 7 months ago… because this community is the #1 reason that I came to ST. When I bought my hub I had about 20 bulbs and an Amazon Echo. I could have gone anywhere, but this place drew me in.
I just want it to be what it actually can be.
In case you have missed it, Patrick said it all too well…
My opinion? No matter how much ST thinks this is going to fix the problem, don’t believe it, no matter how big of an update it’s going to be, don’t think it’s going to be the fix that’ll end all fixes.
While this update has been long over due, I’m not getting my hopes up and I firmly believe that there is still going to be a lot more to do after. The problem is a lot of people in these situations (be it for ST or anyone else) always gets their hopes up and builds things up to be something more than it can be, setting themselves up for disappointment and whatever company in question for failure.
At the end of the day, not ST, not Wink, not any other HA platform at this consumer level is going to have the reliability people are hoping for, certainly not on a platform this open.
[quote=“SBDOBRESCU, post:32, topic:45032”]
In case you have missed it, Patrick said it all too well…[/quote]
And that’s all fair and good but that’s not the reason why I tagged him or the point I was making.
I am confident most of the things he mentioned is coming, but at the moment ST must concentrate on the bigger fish and that’s platform stability first, what good is everything he mentioned if you have an unstable platform that no one wants to develop on… which is exactly where we are today.
If these apps were commercial, this line of thinking would put you out of business. I fully understand and appreciate the work and time that developers have put into creating and maintaining these applications, which are then provided free to us end users; but ultimately the tactic of withdrawing an application does hurt the end users and diminishes the developers’ reputation.
I’m curious for whom did the developers write their applications? Themselves, the developer community, or end users?
So developers can complain about ST support, but end users are not allowed to complain about developer support? I’m not intending to give anyone a hard time; I want to provide the perspective of an end user and how it has impacted my view of this community.
And who said it was? Had no intention on arguing with you, just adding a different perspective.
That is a key question that you don’t seem to comprehend. Most people ‘share’ their own code with people who are incapable of utilizing ST platform to its full potential. Under no circumstances should a developer be held responsible for maintaining their code. You can use it at your own discretion if you like the results, but complaining about their code is like complaining that a free lunch doesn’t have enough salt. The salt shaker is on the table, dude.
Complaining about a free lunch and salt…hmmm…how much a month do you pay for SmartThings access?
How much a month do you pay for Google? Amazon Echo? Apple’s Siri? Countless other services that seem to work?
You are certainly entitled to your opinion but IMHO I believe you are very wrong on this. Does removal of the best application - commercial or community developed - for ST hurt users? Absolutely! But if you understand how we got here, we need to point the fingers in the right direction and I fully support the action @bravenel took. He spent countless hours writing and supporting an excellent app for a platform that is failing in many ways including corrupting data system-wide. To then have the support staff say it’s Rule Manager’s fault and we can’t help you (in so many words) that’s every bit worthy of doing what Bruce did. This, in spite of the fact that many people have repeatedly told ST that the state issue on their end was the biggest of many issues - which was ignored until recently.
Hopefully, ST will get their sh!t together and fix this issue (and others) to make ST the stable powerful platform it could be. Maybe then, Brue might decide to come back to support the single most important application - the one that makes ST useful and keeps many of us here. But if not, I understand that too.
Again, you are entitled to your opinion, but I think in this case, your opinion is off base,
My comparison was simple…apparently it’s not OK to complain about those that code free groovy apps for smart things, but it is ok to complain about the free stuff Samsung coders give you to write the groovy apps. I’m not for dual standards. I’m not saying we should whine about hard working app developers…I’m saying we should NOT whine about the SmartThings system builders. THEY are our partners…without them…nobody writes smartthings apps.