What to do when a developer isn't supporting a paid app

[Cal Hoff]

Hello

In our instance we use a number of paid apps, but one has not been kept up to date recently. Development seemed to be active until May this year. It's incompatible with Confluence 8.5+ and as we're a large enterprise we have minimal allowance for security and stability risk.

I contacted the support email of the manufacturer a couple of weeks ago but have had no response.

Atlassian marketplace lists the app as developer supported, but Confluence 8.5 has been out for six months so this doesn't seem to be accurate. We're paying rather a lot (several thousand dollars per year) for this app; is there some assurance we have, contractually or otherwise?

[Reese]

I would write a bad review and look to find an alternative app, or remove the unsupported app from your instance.

It's not good to be paying large amounts of money for an app that isn't maintained (laziness or otherwise) - and Atlassian should really poke developers where it hurts for not actually supporting paying users.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Hi Mike,

I completely agree with @Reese - if a vendor is not supporting you, then you should move away from them, and it would be good to share your experiences so that the rest of the Community is aware of the problem.

I would give the vendor as much opportunity to support you as you can, but it sounds like you have already done this.  

To me, the next steps would be (in no particular order)

• Stop paying for it
• Raise a support request with Atlassian (they have thousands of vendors, they do not always know when one has stopped support for something and not updated the marketplace entry.  A support request would push them to re-evaluate vendor if nothing else)
• Look for an alternative, either by going to a consultative partner, or just looking at other apps that might do something similar

On the contractual side, there's a bit of a grey area to most humans, but if you were to get a real lawyer to look, I understand the situation to be that your contract is with the vendor (and they are failing to fulfil their side of the contract).  Atlassian have no responsibility, but they really do want their marketplace to be accurate, and in this case, they would want to know that you're not getting support, so they can amend the entry to say so, or even archive it as "no longer supported"

[Robert Hean]

To add to @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- 's comment I would suggest checking your contract before stopping payment or letting the vendor know you're leaving.  Depending on what data or access they have tipping your hand could cause an adverse reaction (although highly unlikely).  Reviewing the contract will also put you in a better spot if/when they respond.

Depending on the criticality of having to leave them you may also want to consider a full cycle review of other options (e.g. vendor eval, demos etc.etc.).

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Very good point @Robert Hean - you should do everything you can to talk to the vendor before taking any action.