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View Full Version : Question about copyrights and selling vBulletin hacks?

K33
03-20-2005, 04:54 PM
Hello
This question is directed more towards vBulletin developers, however if someone else knows about the matter I would be glad to hear that too.
We have developed a big hack for ourselves to use on our website, however since it turned out to be so good :ninja: we are considering to sell it.
Our only concern is that we used portions of vBulletin code throughout the script, for example to manage attachements and stuff like that. Modification of vBulletin search engine, editing of some vBulletin functions, you get the idea.
The question is, are we allowed to sell it? Most of the code is still ours and script requires vBulletin to run.

Thanks in advance.
Marco van Herwaarden
03-20-2005, 05:30 PM
You can never sell or distribute (parts) of vBulletin code.

You can however give/sell instructions how to modify.

Your code is yours to do like you please. But payed hacks can not be released here.
amykhar
03-20-2005, 05:34 PM
Actually, that not quite true, Marco. We are able to use small snippets of vbulletin code in our hacks. For example, my show spiders on the forumhome page snags code from online.php, moves it to index.php and then refines it. As long as we don't use huge amounts of code, we are allowed to redistrubute it.

I know cause I asked before I released mine :D

The one thing that throws a monkey wrench in the works is the selling the hack. Because it wouldn't be sold here where all users are guaranteed licensed, I am not sure how Jelsoft would feel.
Marco van Herwaarden
03-20-2005, 05:38 PM
True amykhar, snippets are allowed. Lol if that wasn't true we couldn't even give installation intructions :D
Zachery
03-20-2005, 05:40 PM
You can never sell or distribute (parts) of vBulletin code.

You can however give/sell instructions how to modify.

Your code is yours to do like you please. But payed hacks can not be released here.
I would guess Marco's first post holds the most truth.

You are BEST off contacting vBulletin directly support@vBulletin.com
K33
03-20-2005, 06:00 PM
Ok thanks everyone.
Its hard to tell what you define a "snipplet", so I better of contacting them.