isn't the core business of a community the message boards? so buying the maker can only bring enhancements to a core function of their businesses.

I want to wait before making any decisions but as a customer if they decide to increase vBulletin price i'll not buy any other license then i currently have because if they do increase the price it will look exactly compansating the money they spend for the agreement. The company looks like an money investor , buying internet sites to a price then sell them with good profit in couple years. That's the only thing that bugs me.

In some cases yes... for example Google's hiring of Vint Cerf, purchasing Dark Fiber, and building out a data center were directly related to reducing the cost of their operations.

In other cases no.... for example lets use animationtalk.com - the core of your business are the users NOT the software running the site behind the scenes. Expenses aside, it wouldn't make any sense for you to buy Jelsoft. If you did, you would be forced to focus on the development of the software package as a whole when it would be easier to develop the aspects your site may specifically need. You have the extra burden of supporting the software when you really want to be talking about animation because thats what your users are interested in and its whats driving your revenue stream.

sometimes i am asking myself "how Reeve is making it".... damn, you are intelligent and have the right words for everything you explain... ;)

Exactly what I think. :)

This is what we call "growing pains". It happens to virtually all successful businesses. I'm guessing this is going to get a lot more heated before the thread closes but imo it's going to be a good thing.

It wouldn't make sense to increase prices dramatically. This would drive away a large percentage of vb's end users and "part time" developers. Of which most would migrate to an open source alternative (SMF) or commercial competitor (IPB). In turn that would lead to an eventual scenario where VB would lose it's coveted "best community software" crown. That would definitely be bad for the company.

My guess is that VB will stay practically untouched for quite awhile to come. I'm expecting a few more commercial scripts from them though. Possibly in the CMS, Social Networking and Ecommerce genres. Again guessing but they will probably be based heavily on the VB code base and just rebranded as additional products. This would allow them to get a quick surge in profits while minimizing time and investment.

I say the price increases 10% within a year and that there will be two or three additional products available for sale. This is the only thing that makes sense when you consider what the company needs to do to continue it's growth.

My half cent.

Is the sky falling?

Is it better to address an issue before it happens or after?

Both.. Preemptive strikes can help repel or defeat a perceived imminent offense and gain a strategic advantage. :D

Define "issue" for me please.

As far as I can tell, it has taken place already and even it hadn't, I don't see difference us posting in here can make? Businesses normally make business decisions based on facts and figures, not emotionally charged posts!

Don't you think it would more prudent find out IF there any "issues" rather than dreaming them up and reacting?

I was speaking in a general sense as your initial statement was pretty much open to various interpretations and wasn't specific in its intent.

You are of course correct in that this action has already been taken... whats left is for the users to decide if we are comfortable with this and if we wish to continue running our communities on this platform or if we wish to take our business elsewhere. The nature of this conversation is to determine the facts and figures that will help us make this decision.

As for the "issues" there are a few dozen between this thread and the one on vbulletin.com. The concerns are being voiced, its up the company to address.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Many people have invested money, time, and more into this software and now they have concerns. It's better to sort through the problem or to see the situation "issue" more clearly.

• Look at the problem in a new or different way.
• Gain new insight into the situation.
• Find out that you are not alone. You may find that many other people share concerns.
• Identify options or solutions you hadn't thought of before.

I reckon IB's going to keep Jelsoft for a year or so, and when it's at a high value, sell it off.

Let me tell 'ya...

I hope NOT seeing unwanted Ads in any vB page or product...

I too would like it better if Jelsoft was bought by a software company. If Google bought Jelsoft that would have been good :)

But it's not all that bad, IB is a .com investor, or it looks like it to me. Investment alone could help Jelsoft grow and create more products for us to use. I'm not terribly impressed with Project Tools, but the Blogs have a chance.

As for being a volunteer at vB.org, last I heard this site is for forum administrators and hobbyists to share modifications of their boards, that should be the reward in itself. Not related, but mod users that expect professional support of free mods amuse me.

I don't think everyone should release everything here for free, and I have no problems with coders looking for paid jobs, but it's really annoying to see "lite" versions of paid mods on a forum whose intent is for sharing work.

I know I have strayed from the topic, but I think a new forum should be created, called Paid Mods, where coders would be allowed to create a topic for each paid mod advertising it. I'm going to create a topic about his on the Feedback forum right now, drop by if you like the idea.

Google isn't a software company. They are an Advertising Company who uses vertical market search engines to sell such advertising.

I'm gonna quote you saying Google isn't a software company...

Wayne is 100% correct here ... they are not a software company, they are an advertising company. They do a lot of software and product development for the simple reason that it helps drives advertising revenue. This is an excellent example of what I meant earlier about acquisitions supporting a company's core focus and the importance of having a single vision for each department and entity to work towards.

Oh well, you two are probably right. No Jelsoft for Google then.

Perhaps you are here for the wrong reasons. This community was established to give users a place to share their modifications and work together.

I really see no reason for Jelsoft to pay coders. We're the one that decided to give free support. Some coders does this for hobbies or because they're generous. Why don't you get an IPB and see what kind of mods you'll end up on your forum.

If you want to make money from coding, simply make a portfolio and hopefully someone is willing to buy it.

We have 2 section to make in-come money.

Concerns based on what though? All I'm reading here is guess-work based on fear. Motivation by fear rarely yields fruitful results.

In regards to Google, they are are Search Engine company 1st and foremost who make most profit from contextual advertising. Google have never lost focus on the fact that without highly relevant fast organic search results they would loose billions in advertising.

To say Google is an advertising company is putting the cart before the horse.

Does anybody know of any other companies that IB has acquired and how they fared?

the funny thing is: why do you provide a Paid service request forum if everybody is SOOOOOO happy to work for free ?!...

you do not answer the question because you answer these requests yourself sometimes and make money from your own work on vb.org...

if the goal of the vb.org guys is to make this site look like the best place for volunteers, you can stop it... this would make the best of the ideas for IB to close this site and provide only one support forum, and centralize the efforts on a single site, with paid coders to give support and none of these good ideals would serve...

or maybe that's already done, because if Jelsoft never announced that they were negociating for a transaction that means that everything was darken to hide everything... they were "Aquired", not financed, not supported... aquired... that means Jelsoft no more... is vb.org was inside the transaction, and in what level ?!

if not most of the time, we can say "always", when aquirements come that fast, the whole system is transformed quickly after the transaction... so, as nobody officially announced the place of vb.org in the business, i suppose there is none... and as most of the guys from vB.org are already inside Jelsoft because they also are moderators of vb.com, they will be transformed into the New Jelsoft employees...

speculations are fun.. we can say anything, the future will give reason for one of these ideas....

People often forget that the developers of software are running a business - and acquisitions are a normal part of doing business, as is taking on investors or selling out. Motivations are different for everyone, but we all seek to cash out at some time when we build a company - I myself have sold a few and it's part of making a living.

Change of any kind scares people; but it's how you look at it that defines you. Are you an optimist or a pessimist? As an optimist I think that the influx of capitol and resources will help vBulletin - although I doubt cash was a problem to begin with.

At the end of the day the only people entitled to any kind of payment are the shareholders; the rest of us are just along for the ride.

you are absolutely right MPDev...

the question is not if the transaction was good or not for Jelsoft... there is no problem with that, it is a good thing for them...

but most of the projects with volunteers are managed by volunteers and "usually" are kept volunteered... projects managed by companies are usually a single bunch inside a company and the whole is sold in a single piece...

but here, we have the great vb.com project, by Jelsoft, and vb.org, by Jelsoft... for vb.com, no problem, it will be business as usual.... but for vb.org, where people are not inside the transaction... what will come of all the work done here "for the pleasure of it" ???

if this site would have been in the transaction, we'd be able to read it in the announcement... but even none of the coder, none of the volunteers have been thanked... just the clients... so get of the dream guys.

oh, and btw, Zachery... i'm here for the sake of providing support for my clients... because i have a lot of them on this site, and i support them here, because it is easy to reach the resources... i was not in the transaction regarding IB and Jelsoft, so i'm not employee of IB... what is my place then ?!... none... like the whole bunch of guys who do it for the fun of it.

While this community was established for coders to work together on projects and share coding styles/skills/etc its also a good base of coders who may need to look for work. There are also people who'd like to pay someone for their time and efforts to do work for them. This does not subtract any value from the community as a whole.

Here is my opinion. Take it or leave it... Just wait and see what happens. If VB starts going downhill, most of us will take it as a slap in the face and find another software company. I would think that phpbb would be a great place for all of you coders to start. Phpbb needs some serious help although its great for free software. Since your all doing these mods for free, why not move to a free forum?

I would agree that they should have sold to a software company. That would have been the most obvious thing to do. I think if you own a great car company and then sell it to a company dealing in lawn mowers, you may have a lot of customers raising a red flag. As for all of you coders who have put a lot of sweat and carpal tunnel into VB, your work isnt going by un-noticed.

Lets just wait and see what happens. Not that its much of a choice...

Jelsoft was a company, too; and from the outside it would seem one that was doing very well for itself. Did you expect to be paid from the beginning when you started coding hacks? No. Why should that change with ownership of the company?

You own your "hacks"; if someone came along and bought them from you would those who posted in your hack thread deserve a piece of the action? No.

I wouldn't hold you breath expecting any form of compensation - if you thought the time you were spending was vesting yourself in the company you should have asked for something in return up front.

It has to be said that if a Member is happy with the Mod/Hack presented, then he/she can make a voluntary contribution by clicking the Donation link in the authors thread!:)

All said and done, I don't know what's hardest to do in recognition of a great mod taken from a Member; post a 'Thank you' or make a financial contribution?:)

I do feel that a Mod/Hack/Style contribution should give the Coder/Designer extra benefits on this site though, as none is given!:(

Br.

Let me tell 'ya...

I hope NOT seeing unwanted Ads in any vB page or product...

Plus, the paid services forum was created before the IB acquisition and not because of it. The vBorg resource community is a resource site for customers who wish to enhance vBulletin (and perhaps don't know how) and for people who wish to share ready-created solutions for them to make that easier. I don't see this change. This is a volunteer community. And those who wish to gain revenue from helping new customers by charging for help can offer these services on their own company web site, or use the services request forum and see if there's someone who could use a bit of help. I still prefer to share resources for free, or help for free where I can. I am not on vBulletin.org as a customer to make money. This is the wrong web site to make a living from.

I don't want to stray too far off-topic here, but Floris, I find your statement a bit hypocritical... you drive people to your vbulletin fans network where you have paid advertising banners... is this really that much different than the coders here whom choose to derive income through vbulletin-specific modifications?

Cheers,

~Regs.

He's not suggesting that you can't make money ... just don't expect vbulletin.org (Jelsoft) to give YOU money.

The best way to promote your business, products, and / or services is to promote yourself.

There are many people here who are making a living by being active on vbulletin.org. How much you earn is all up to you.

• If you are always negative ..
• If you are always ... gimme gimme gimme..

That's exactly how people will perceive you and your business.

My point is - You can make money. It's all up to you.

There is all this mention of them having most of their websites run with vBulletin
, if this is the case i really can't see this being a bad problem.

Looking through some of their sites they are pretty big forums that have been going on for a long time, so more than likely they have a vast amount of experience with vBulletin from its early stages so they know the system as well as most of you claim to do.

So it's not really some stranger company coming in hearing that vBulletin is the leader with Bulletin Boards. And trying to force their ideas upon vBulletin not really knowing what vBulletin is about.

It is a company with a vast amount of experience in this field. So at the end of the day when vBulletin was going to be bought out (was pretty inevitable really) then this must have been one of the best companies you could have asked for to buy out vBulletin. Like i say they must have a vast amount of experience with vBulletin since most of their sites use it instead of IPB.

What i'm trying to say really is this is better than some money grabbing company coming in with no idea of what vBulletin is, how it works and what it is used for. This is a company who must have masses of experience with the product looking at the age of some of their sites with vBulletin on.

This is one of the best comments so far in this thread. (Understanding that the original comment is around making money off vBulletin or remuneration for work contributed, so I'm the one who's off-topic.)

It's certainly positive that someone who actually understands the product is buying it; if this were, for example, a leveraged buyout firm (e.g., "money grubbing company") then it would be about squeezing the cash out of the carcass of vB until it's worthless. But I have to suspect vB wasn't attractive to such entities because they typically look for "synergies" (read: job cuts) for most of the profits, and clearly Jelsoft doesn't have dozens of redundant people to jettison.

My concern -- ok call it a sinking feeling -- is that what Jelsoft really needs is a professional development discipline to get it from "cool php hack" to "competitive commercial offering," and I was holding out hope that some real software shop would snag them for the brand recognition and market-leading installed base.

If I'm Internet Brands, I have two real options. The first is to pump a lot of investment into vB and add value, thereby creating more revenue from new/upgrading customers, per my hope above. (Note that pricing isn't a big concern, as I don't think vB has a lot of additional room here based on the existence of competitors including the free phbBB project.) The second option is for IB to optimize vBulletin for their own needs and not bother with the other customers... who will be asking for enhancements that don't benefit IB in any meaningful way. Logically this would be masked by statements to the contrary so that revenue would diminish slower, but eventually it would be clear to everyone.

And since IB is a WEB SITE AGGREGATOR, not a software developer.... well golly I don't think it's paranoia to worry that option 2 is in the cards.

Note that I'm not blaming IB or vB for doing this as each benefits. Jelsoft executes the classic software exit strategy, while IB gets complete control over one of its core software programs -- presumably at a very good price and leveraging future vB earnings. Me, I'm just doing the old chess thing and looking a move or two ahead. That's not "Chicken Little," that's just paying attention.

Dutch

Thank you =)

My ONLY concern is that since IB have 100's if vBulletin license's according to Wayne that they totally take vBulletin off the market giving them a massive edge over all competition by maing vBulletin only available to them, making existing customer's remove vBulletin from their sites.

I doubt this will happen but everything is a possibility at this early stage.

I understand what you are saying Princeton, however Floris prefaced what I quoted with talk about promoting on their own site and that this site is pretty much only about giving freely.

I suppose it is all about interpretation, maybe it is a language barrier - I don't know. I was just commenting on how I interpretted the post.

Cheers,

~Regs.

you are actually fully greatly right.. ;)

the first statement of this thread of mine was not directly to say i wanted to be paid from IB for my implication here... i actually don't care...

if someone think i posted this because i wanted to be paid, you really have a problem of language and interpretation... sorry if my level of language is too high for you then.

the goal of my discussion was brought some times in some posts, and it is regarding the actual situation of vb.ORG...

do you know a lot of real commercial companies like this IB who keep a fan-devoted website for support ?!... name some: Microsoft, Kodak, Toyota, Esso, Michelin .... how many of them have supported fan-sites where people get support for the original service ?!... none... for one reason: they want the service and support to be located in a single place, managed by their own professionals, dealing with their own internal protocols...

so if IB continue in their own path as a real project agregator, they will not keep an eye on the volunteered guys here, so one way or the other, the support here will change, and our role as coders will change...

the best thing would be that everything released as a good product comes to be bought by the company, so they can continue to support it, or they can even hire the coders with good potential... because i think this is their goal after all... financing the evolution of vB means also to have the best coders around, not only the original team...

He is actually right about my comment or his comment? :D