No offense Attila but my business experience is a bit lengthier than yours. I've been running a multi-million dollar business for around a decade now so I don't think my business credentials are really at question here are they?

I believe I stressed the point clearly but apparently it wasn't clear enough to some: It is perfectly find to REQUEST help in a free product/good/service. It is perfectly find to REQUEST changes.

It is another thing to make demands. It is another thing to try to view yourself as a customer if you haven't paid money for that product/good/service.

A lot of people, not just Stardock, freely give away things out of personal enjoyment. And we all lose when people like Steven Den Beste get fed up due to people taking the view they are customers and have a right to make demands simply because they make use of a product good or service that is freely given.

DVG: Your McDonald's analogy is not appropriate. Here's why: When you compare an ObjectDock or a JoeUser.com or some other free product/service with condoments like salt and ketchup you are mistakenly assuming that that person is already a paying customer of that entity.

A better analogy would be McDonalds opening a soup kitchen. Those who make use of the free food certainly are free to request anything they want. But they're not *customers*.

Perhaps, Attila, the reason most people agree with me here is that the average age of the user on WinCustomize is 30 while the average age of a user on deviantART is 18.  I think it more common for kids to think that they're somehow doing you a favor for using your free product/good/service.

Frankly, DVG, Attila, I can't help but conclude that you skimmed the article given how often I stressed that people who make use of free things are still free to make requests.  I certainly never implied that people who use a free thing should only "speak when spoken to".

It is that when you are using something you paid nothing for, any request you make should be thought of as you asking for a favor. Not you seeing yourself as a customer that has a right to make demands.

Let me give you a specific example that I remembered this morning:

About 3 weeks ago I got an email from someone who made a fairly lengthy list of changes they felt needed to be made to JoeUser.com to make it "decent".  When I responded that I didn't agree with most of those changes or that the changes would be very difficult to make his response was (to quote):

"Didn't they teach you that the customer is always right."  I looked up the guy in our database, no as a customer only as a user of JoeUser. 

His original email, while haughty, was not unwelcome. But his attitude on response was exactly the type of attitude that makes people who make free things not want to continue to give out those free things.

That is the type of thing that makes people like Steven Den Beste not want to keep blogging. Hundreds of daily email nitpicking what he's written. Most of them fine. But how many emails per day does it take that make rude demands as "customers" before you don't want to do it.

*I* am not frustrated btw.  My skin is long thick and I am not nearly as generous as Den Beste.  When confronted with the situation Den Beste ran into years ago on WinCustomize we came up with the 50 megabyte solution.  That decision lowered WC's traffic growth rate relative to other sites (if you look at an Alexa graph of WC vs. deviantART you can almost tell the day we implemented that feature) but vastly VASTLY increased the # of real customers.

But I thought it important for others to read about Den Beste's case as well as hear a few of our experiences so that next time someone is using a free good or service that they not mistakenly conclude their customers with the right to send demanding emails. Instead, send that email as a polite request understanding that you're asking a favor as a user of something that's been provided freely to you.

Attila you wrote:
PS: Those 5 rules for free stuff is completely inaccurate and not based on respectable business practices. They're made up, ineffective and should be labled as (opinion) not (the rules).

What would you know about respectable business practices? You know I like you but aren't you basically in college or did you graduate yet?

If person A is a chef for a decade and person B isn't a chef. Doesn't it seem presumptuous for person B to tell person A that he doesn't know anything on cooking?

Do you have a theory as to why people on WinCustomize and JoeUser who respond tend to agree with what is written whereas this same article on deviantART would likely be a flame war? 

I provided my theory - age.  I think people who have been around longer tend to be more pragmatic.  They know how limited their free time is and so appreciate it just that much more when they see someone else using their free time to give something away.

Just because you think someone who USES your stuff is as much a customer as someone who pays for your stuff doesn't make you right. You are entitled to your opinion but I don't agree with it.  Someone who USES your stuff is a user. But they're not a customer. There is a difference. And the difference in my mind translates into a user can make requests all they want whereas a customer can make demands.