JIRA plugins pre-installed

[Sir Be]

Why wont JIRA automatically start (after download/purchase) with a bunch of plugins installed?
I'm not refering to those plugins of Atlassian, but those of the marketplace.

There are many plugins which are very good and almost everyone who uses it recommendates it.
So my question is: Why aren't those (extra) plugins not installed by default in JIRA?

Not everyone needs it, yes, but I think most people won't use it (or search for it), if it isn't pre-installed.
I think it will be for a lot of people handy when some plugins are already installed.
And some plugins are so obvious or necessary, I'm wondering why those aren't pre-installed after download? (Or even better, Atlassian makes the features themself, so the plugins are useless.)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Atlassian only includes their own plugins in their products, and I imagine there are some legal and/or support challenges involved in pulling in 3rd party plugins - you will find most of the marketplace plugins are not theirs, and so they won't be distributed.

There are some plugins Atlassian own that could go in, but I can't think of any that are widely used enough to justify the additional bloat (if only 1/10th of your user base uses plugin X, why inflict it on the other 9/10ths?)

Some plugins are absorbed by Atlassian though. If you want some examples, look at the history of Agile, Service Desk, the "labels" field and the audit functions added to 6.2+

This is exactly why there's a marketplace - so you can add third party plugins when you need them.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Well, I'm not going to say money isn't one of the reasons - third party plugin writers often charge, so if their plugins were added to the core, Atlassian would have to increase the charges to cover that

That's pretty much unacceptable for smaller users, and an unncessesary cost for everyone who doesn't ever use the functions.

The main reasons are legal, support and bloating of the installation (I'd actually like to see more of it cut out and distributed with fewer plugins, to lower the bloating). But money is a factor as well.

[Sven [Dione Technology]]

yes indeed !

[Sir Be]

Strange it doesn't suprise me :D

[Sir Be]

Isn't money always a factor? Even when it isn't, then it's specially one! :p

I'm working on JIRA 4.2.
So some stuff thats implemented or extended with plugins in the 6+ versions, aren't available in the 4.2, so we have to code it. :(

That was basically the reason why I asked this question.

Ty folks! :D

[Sven [Dione Technology]]

Is a blocker for you to upgrade ? why (pure curiousity)

Basically the source code is available, you can downgrade plugin (risky and unsupported) but new technology, database modification etc ... have been implemented since 4.2 ...

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Actually, in a lot of cases, I doubt it's the money at all. Some very popular plugins are free. They're still not distributed, even though they're free, so it's not the money in those cases.

I am curious too - as Sven asks - why don't you upgrade instead of trying to duplicate functionality at great expense?

[Sir Be]

Lol :D
(The (pure curiousity) suggest you are a woman, the name however not :p))

We currently work on the 4.2 version.
We are using a 6 version for testing atm.

Problem is also JIRA isn't the only system we have. We use synchronizers to keep our local, own system up to date with JIRA.

So those synchronizers are going to be updated to work for the 6 version.

Think we will stick to the official path and don't mess (read: screw) stuff up...

EDIT:
I now have read and found a lot of usefell stuff about JIRA 6+, I would certainly upgrade.
However we aren't a new company, - and I'm not the CEO (yet)- so we will have to stick for the moment with the 4.2 version.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I've never seen curiosity as a gender related trait.

I don't see why there's any need to spend lots of time and money wrting stuff you're going to throw away when you upgrade, and there's no sane business reason here to stay on 4.2. I'd talk to your manager and point out the differences between planning upgrading frst or last. Sticking with 4.2 is going to cost yo a lot more in the long run.

[Sir Be]

Thougth about it.
We shall discuss it.

[Sir Be]

So answer is money?