Popular msstyle author, Bant, has taken his ball and gone home. Seems he's unhappy with the customization community.  In particular, he says that TGT Soft and Stardock are a disgrace to the skinning community.

You can read what he wrote here:

http://bant.deviantart.com/journal/2601098/

Bant is the creator of about a half dozen very good msstyles and 1 very good WindowBlinds skin.

Here's my response:

That's odd, I remember back in 1997 when we were designing what would become WindowBlinds and I just can't remember seeing anyone called "Bant".
 
 I remember when the first customization site, Customize.org got started, I don't recall seeing you there. And as the person who made the first skin that skinned the Windows GUI, I tend to think that this CEO of the "disgraceful" Stardock might have contributed something to the customization community.
 
 Now, in the 7 years we've spent working on WindowBlinds, which we provide a free unlimited downloadable version of that works on Windows 95 through Windows XP, I really have a hard time seeing how Stardock is somehow a "disgrace" to the customization community. I see Stardock as a group of people who have spent many many years working very hard to make it easy for people to customize Windows. Before Stardock came along, there was no Windows customization as we know it today. Feel free to go on archive.org and look back as far as you can at customize.org and you'll see what I mean.
 
 And of the software that we don't outright give away as freeware we sell for between $8 and $20 apiece Or about the price of a couple of pizzas.
 
 I also have a hard time seeing how Stardock is a "disgrace" when it put together the GUI Olympics, a contest in which skinners will make up to $15,000 in it.
 
 Or how about the freeware Stardock makes? BootSkin, ObjectDock, CursorXP, LogonStudio, and so on. Who makes more FREE customization software than we do that is anywhere near as widely used? We also pay for a website with no spyware, no popup ads that also supports our competitors. Hell, we host Samurize.com!
 
 Do you think the "customization" community as you know it just sprung up randomly? If it was so obvious, why did it take WindowBlinds to get GUI skinning going (eFX came later). Why weren't there IconPackager-like programs before IconPackager (iconphile and e-icons came later). There's still no CursorXP equivalent. There's still nothing quite like DesktopX, which, btw, is a free download and uncrippled. There's no WindowFX equivalent (beyond a few programs that add a few shadows).
 
 Stardock has worked very hard to contribute quite a bit to the customization community. It creates a ton of freeware programs and its non-freeware programs are priced trivially.
 
 And Stardock, as a group, participates actively in the community (such as me here and on Neowin and dozens of other websites).
 
 There are also skin authors now who are able to make a living creating skins.
 
 But more to the point, the skins didn't come first, the software did. The software is there for fun. People (like me) make skins because we enjoy doing it. Just like they make levels for Counterstrike or maps for Warcraft III or mods for Neverwinternights. Most people don't sweat that some developer might make money on it. It's supposed to be for fun.
 
 I'm sorry to see you go, I think you have a lot of potential as a skinner. But I take issue with you saying Stardock is a "disgrace".