Last updated: November 16, 2024
Above all, PixInsight Forum must be a tool for PixInsight users to help each other. As a small software development company, we lack the human resources to carry out the extensive support work necessary to cover the wide variety of practical problems that arise while performing the complex data analysis, data reduction, and image processing tasks for which PixInsight has been designed and is being developed. In other words, we need the help of our users to support our users. Fortunately, we are lucky to have many people here willing to contribute with their knowledge and experience.
However, PixInsight Forum, like any dynamic online community, needs a set of rules to be useful. Without the necessary regulations and their enforcement, an online community can quickly become degraded by excessive noise, off-topic content, and generally inappropriate content.
The required management and administration are particularly difficult and sensitive tasks for PixInsight Forum, an online service dedicated to supporting a large and rich commercial software platform. In this document, we want to answer some frequently arising questions, clarify some important concepts, and provide the necessary guidelines to help our users understand some delicate rules and limits we must enforce. In particular, all PixInsight Forum users must know and understand the reasons why we cannot allow competing applications to be mentioned, discussed, or promoted on this forum. At the same time, knowing those reasons will help our users learn more about the PixInsight project and better understand our motivation and the precise conditions under which we carry out our professional work.
The reasons why we don't allow mentions of competing applications on PixInsight Forum
PixInsight is a professional research and development project. We are professional software developers and astrophotographers, not amateurs. We work hard and seriously to build and deliver the best software we can, putting the best of ourselves, the best of our dreams, and all of our experience and knowledge in it. Our lives, our families, and all of the infrastructure and resources necessary to keep this project alive depend on the licenses we manage to sell daily.
Our market is a small niche where we must compete with other applications and products, most of them distributed as freeware applications. Many competing applications work hard to replace us completely or in specific fields (often carefully chosen) where we can be particularly vulnerable, eliminating reasons to purchase our licenses and, in some significant cases, copying our work (or, more accurately, trying to copy it) systematically. Our resources are limited because nothing at all has ever helped us, neither economically nor in terms of facilitating our work in any way. Nothing has been easy for us, nor is it easy or friendly currently. We have invested everything in this project, and every resource we have now has been hardly won during more than 20 years of perseverance and endurance.
This forum is no exception. We need servers, hosting, networks, certificates, software, and the associated maintenance work to keep this forum operational. That costs money and time: our money, our time. As you should figure out at this point, we cannot tolerate any references or mentions of competing applications or products in this forum for fundamental survival reasons, including our need to be respected as professionals. After 20 years of maintaining this forum, we have plenty of experience and know very well what happens when references and discussions on other software products are allowed: our forum may quickly become a fantastic platform for promoting competing applications, to the point that one may find more references to other applications than references to PixInsight..., in PixInsight Forum. This happens basically because the astrophotography community and market are almost entirely composed of amateurs who, as a collective, tend to think that we are also amateurs doing this in our free time, so 'nothing important happens.' The actual situation is diametrically opposite, as we have described above.
Definition of competing application or product
What should be considered as a competing application or product? Here is an intent to provide an unambiguous definition:
With only a few very rare exceptions (see below), the answer is no.
If a script or module is part of the standard PixInsight distribution, that is, if it gets installed automatically with a new PixInsight installation, it obviously cannot be a competing product for PixInsight.
As for third-party scripts and modules currently available for PixInsight but not pertaining to our standard distribution, that is, scripts and modules distributed directly by their respective developers through our update system, they cannot be considered competing products, but software products that enrich the PixInsight platform by adding new functionality and versatility. However, there are two exceptions to this rule:
Yes, absolutely. When the script or module in question exists as a standalone application, it becomes a competitor because it eliminates reasons to purchase our licenses, especially if it can be executed as an external process from other applications. Even worse, its previous development using our platform's resources can confer important advantages that can damage us more efficiently.
PixInsight Forum: what it is and what it is not
PixInsight Forum is a place to:
PixInsight Forum is not:
For more precise information, see the Forum Rules and Guidelines announcement post.
Does PixInsight Forum represent the methodology and concept of astrophotography officially supported by the PixInsight development team?
Not in general, except for the contributions of PixInsight development team members (unofficially known as PTeam members) and members of our staff. The contributions of other users represent their respective opinions and visions exclusively, which are often contrary to ours and, in some cases, notoriously. We do not guarantee the accuracy and correctness of any content present in this forum.
________________________
Thank you for your attention,
The PixInsight Team at Pleiades Astrophoto
Above all, PixInsight Forum must be a tool for PixInsight users to help each other. As a small software development company, we lack the human resources to carry out the extensive support work necessary to cover the wide variety of practical problems that arise while performing the complex data analysis, data reduction, and image processing tasks for which PixInsight has been designed and is being developed. In other words, we need the help of our users to support our users. Fortunately, we are lucky to have many people here willing to contribute with their knowledge and experience.
However, PixInsight Forum, like any dynamic online community, needs a set of rules to be useful. Without the necessary regulations and their enforcement, an online community can quickly become degraded by excessive noise, off-topic content, and generally inappropriate content.
The required management and administration are particularly difficult and sensitive tasks for PixInsight Forum, an online service dedicated to supporting a large and rich commercial software platform. In this document, we want to answer some frequently arising questions, clarify some important concepts, and provide the necessary guidelines to help our users understand some delicate rules and limits we must enforce. In particular, all PixInsight Forum users must know and understand the reasons why we cannot allow competing applications to be mentioned, discussed, or promoted on this forum. At the same time, knowing those reasons will help our users learn more about the PixInsight project and better understand our motivation and the precise conditions under which we carry out our professional work.
The reasons why we don't allow mentions of competing applications on PixInsight Forum
PixInsight is a professional research and development project. We are professional software developers and astrophotographers, not amateurs. We work hard and seriously to build and deliver the best software we can, putting the best of ourselves, the best of our dreams, and all of our experience and knowledge in it. Our lives, our families, and all of the infrastructure and resources necessary to keep this project alive depend on the licenses we manage to sell daily.
Our market is a small niche where we must compete with other applications and products, most of them distributed as freeware applications. Many competing applications work hard to replace us completely or in specific fields (often carefully chosen) where we can be particularly vulnerable, eliminating reasons to purchase our licenses and, in some significant cases, copying our work (or, more accurately, trying to copy it) systematically. Our resources are limited because nothing at all has ever helped us, neither economically nor in terms of facilitating our work in any way. Nothing has been easy for us, nor is it easy or friendly currently. We have invested everything in this project, and every resource we have now has been hardly won during more than 20 years of perseverance and endurance.
This forum is no exception. We need servers, hosting, networks, certificates, software, and the associated maintenance work to keep this forum operational. That costs money and time: our money, our time. As you should figure out at this point, we cannot tolerate any references or mentions of competing applications or products in this forum for fundamental survival reasons, including our need to be respected as professionals. After 20 years of maintaining this forum, we have plenty of experience and know very well what happens when references and discussions on other software products are allowed: our forum may quickly become a fantastic platform for promoting competing applications, to the point that one may find more references to other applications than references to PixInsight..., in PixInsight Forum. This happens basically because the astrophotography community and market are almost entirely composed of amateurs who, as a collective, tend to think that we are also amateurs doing this in our free time, so 'nothing important happens.' The actual situation is diametrically opposite, as we have described above.
Definition of competing application or product
What should be considered as a competing application or product? Here is an intent to provide an unambiguous definition:
- Any software application that performs any image or data processing or analysis task that PixInsight can perform (regardless of whether we perform it better or worse) is considered a direct competitor of PixInsight.
- All third-party applications with some degree of specialization in astronomy or astrophotography can be competitors of PixInsight, even if their fields of application differ from PixInsight's capabilities. The larger the intersection with PixInsight's capabilities, the more problematic they can be as competitors. For example, an application specialized in planetary image processing is not (yet) a problematic competitor. Mentions of these applications on PixInsight Forum can generally be tolerated. However, an application specialized in computing astrometric solutions is a direct and potentially dangerous competitor, and any mention of it is strictly forbidden.
With only a few very rare exceptions (see below), the answer is no.
If a script or module is part of the standard PixInsight distribution, that is, if it gets installed automatically with a new PixInsight installation, it obviously cannot be a competing product for PixInsight.
As for third-party scripts and modules currently available for PixInsight but not pertaining to our standard distribution, that is, scripts and modules distributed directly by their respective developers through our update system, they cannot be considered competing products, but software products that enrich the PixInsight platform by adding new functionality and versatility. However, there are two exceptions to this rule:
- PixInsight is a powerful and versatile software development platform. As such, it allows the development of third-party modules and scripts that can compete with our standard toolset in particularly critical fields. Some tasks must be tightly integrated with our image processing and data reduction procedures and pipelines since they are essential foundational components of the PixInsight platform. These components realize our image processing and software development philosophy and are crucial elements of PixInsight's architectural design. In these fundamental areas, new tools and scripts and their improvements must be developed directly with us, not as side or parallel projects. If the developers of a script or module specialized in one of these critical tasks opt for building a side project instead of collaborating with us, a severe disruption can be generated, giving rise to an internal competitor. In the cases where this has happened, we have been forced to fight against these third-party products through direct competition by excluding them from the standard PixInsight distribution and evolving our standard tools to surpass their functionality. If the third-party developers had collaborated with us instead of forcing this competition, the result would have been much more productive for everybody.
- Some PixInsight scripts execute competing applications as external processes without any practical integration with PixInsight. These scripts add no value to our image processing platform and compete with us from the inside, giving promotion and access to our user base to third-party competing applications.
Yes, absolutely. When the script or module in question exists as a standalone application, it becomes a competitor because it eliminates reasons to purchase our licenses, especially if it can be executed as an external process from other applications. Even worse, its previous development using our platform's resources can confer important advantages that can damage us more efficiently.
PixInsight Forum: what it is and what it is not
PixInsight Forum is a place to:
- Ask support questions exclusively related to PixInsight, including licensing questions and issues, installation issues, and basic application usage questions.
- Discuss and solve general image processing topics and image processing topics exclusively related to PixInsight, using exclusively PixInsight.
- Discuss software development topics exclusively related to PixInsight, using exclusively PixInsight.
- Report bugs and errors in the PixInsight application and all modules and scripts included in the standard PixInsight distribution.
- Read important announcements about new PixInsight versions and development topics and projects on the PixInsight platform.
- Read important technical information about PixInsight, development projects on the PixInsight platform, and their implementations.
- Help other PixInsight users.
PixInsight Forum is not:
- A general astronomy or astrophotography forum. This forum is exclusively dedicated to PixInsight, where only topics and questions related solely to PixInsight are acceptable. Any other content can be considered off-topic and edited or removed as appropriate.
- A general forum where the decisions of forum administrators, moderators, or the forum rules can be publicly discussed, questioned, or criticized. Any public judgment or discussion on administrative decisions or regulations is unacceptable and will be deleted.
- A general forum where competing applications or products can be mentioned, publicized, discussed, compared, or evaluated. Any mention of a third-party competing application or product is unacceptable and will lead to the appropriate moderation actions.
- A general forum where jokes and disrespectful attitudes or comments on other forum members, forum administrators, company members, or their work can be acceptable. Any disrespectful attitude or comment, be it toward forum members, our software, our work, decisions, opinions, or activities, is unacceptable and will trigger the appropriate moderation actions.
For more precise information, see the Forum Rules and Guidelines announcement post.
Does PixInsight Forum represent the methodology and concept of astrophotography officially supported by the PixInsight development team?
Not in general, except for the contributions of PixInsight development team members (unofficially known as PTeam members) and members of our staff. The contributions of other users represent their respective opinions and visions exclusively, which are often contrary to ours and, in some cases, notoriously. We do not guarantee the accuracy and correctness of any content present in this forum.
________________________
Thank you for your attention,
The PixInsight Team at Pleiades Astrophoto