Having installed the new v. 2.2 alongside v1.2, and found that there are only a handful of plug-ins available, making ASP2.2 only barely useable, I searched the forums to try to figure out which plugins will eventually be available. The Corel website doesn't even show which at compatible with v2.2 before you learn more and there's absolutely no information about which plugins will be available and which ones are officially dead.
From what afx writes, it seems like Nostalgia is being actively(!) discontinued.
But which other plugins are officially known to be completely and utterly dead?
Anything from Sean Pucket and sadman has to be considered dead.
The plugins from Thomas Baruchel are also no longer maintained, but the source is available (I have tar archive on my site).
I know some plugin authors are in negotiations to transfer their code to Corel and some are just too time starved to provide updates at the moment.
It would be nice if Corel provided some more information about the incompatability. What is the change which has created the problem ? Do the plugins need major rewrites, minor rewrites, or just recompilation ?
This lack of information is consistent with a company trying to keep competitors out, rather than support people who are providing a very useful service (generally at no cost), who should be encouraged !
Plugins can be both a blessing and a curse. They enable the basic program to be extended in ways that otherwise wouldn't be possible. But when the program is updated it's sometimes the case that the plugins also need to be updated. This current round of recompilation is not the first and it won't be the last. It's not the worst, as the move from the Bibble 5.0 to 5.1 SDK required a major rewrite of the code. This round doesn't require any code changes that I'm aware of, although the move to 64 bit has complicated the process of compiling the plugins considerably.
If the developer loses interest and doesn't update and recompile, then the plugin dies. In this respect Aftershot is no different to Firefox, Thunderbird, Wordpress and other software. The difference about ASP is that the developer base is smaller, and some of the plugins are really things that should be in the base product. Also, the long period of neglect by Corel shrank the developer base even more.
But that's mostly history. We are where we are. I think most plugins will become available, but it will take time. Some will not. That's life with plugins in any program. I agree that there are likely to be a few gaps that Corel will need to fill. The test of Corel will be how well they support the developers and whether they move to fill any gaps.