Some thoughts ...
It's a different scenerio if you have a not for profit .org and then create a paid venue to raise funds

vB.com is a commercial enterprise that provides .org as a free service.
This provides ...
- a place to direct non support requests that vB are not willing = nor obliged to provide.
- a place where a volunteer community infuses new ideas and applications into vB software.

vB.com benefits greatly from it's community of free mod/hack/plugin providers, which expands the versatility and consumer base of it's product.

If vb had hired a team to do this work it would have cost big bucks, which could have either
- spread their resources out too thin and could have been detrimental to the development of the core software
or
- put themselves into a favorable position of having a product with many additional new features/plugins, and added income income from specialized plugins...

Of note ... vB.com has not yet provided any plugins, free or paid.
But we know they are going to ... to what extent, we don't know.

If vB.com is to keep on top of the competitive edge it will need to periodically offer free new plugins, formerly also known as ... new features.
If plugins cost more and more, the consumer will shop around for an application that includes the plugins that they need.

vB may offer more advanced paid plugins, tailored to a specific consumer audience or need, but there will always be competition from other free and paid products.

vB needs to find a way to further reward and provide incentive to it's community of mod/plugin providers.

I would have hoped that tried and trustworthy mods/plugins would have made it into a vB support arena, ... ie, vB provides paid staff to assist with free/stable plugin support.

~ Mark

Nor does it need to be addressed. To be blunt, that concern belongs to Jelsoft and no one else. If they choose to be part of the solution, then I'm sure no one will have any complaint to a download area open to licensed users only.

But if they choose not to be part of the solution, then they can't reasonably expect any developer to make Jelsof's concerns theirs.

It would be interesting that after you money seekers have made your wad and Jelsoft pulls all of the licences and goes out of business.

vBulletinservices.com will not be selling hacks...

Chris

Yeah, I don't think the commercial product companies would sell the forum one product and then they sell it...that dosen't make sense.
Just a place that has information and links to commercial products would be the way to go, hell even free ones, whatever floats your boat.

Maybe I just notice it more when I pay money for something and it sucks or support for it sucks and if I get something for free and it sucks and/or support sucks it doesn't make much of a difference to me.

And my point wasn't that money makes no difference, only that sometimes it doesn't matter if someone is getting paid to work, if they're not good at their job or they have poor work ethic then its likely their product will reflect that.
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Looks like vbulletinservices.com will just be another place for people to advertise their hacks. I must say as a consumer I'm more interested in a .org type site with paid hacks.

I think that would stop coders from using one site to advertise something then having copy hacks from other coders at their personal site. If its all taken care of on one site you can use the professional type courtesy you see here between a lot of coders by not reproducing many hacks, giving credit to shared/inspired work, etc.

Maybe livewire can incorporate something like this into his vbhackers.com site?
Make some paypal mod that in order to download the hack you have to pay first or something. Maybe a royalty share where the site gets a small % of each sale, or a 1 time fee for releasing hacks there (or per hack?)

I also think it'd be good to have the site be run/owned by non vb staff. Or maybe have some on the staff but make the head be someone independent. (I don't really know why I think it'd be good actually, but maybe to avoid any conflict of interests or accusations)

anyways, that's my 2 cents.

I don't use the vB reputation system, so don't know whether it could be used to rate coders who have provided free hacks.

There must be a way to rate, and give more commercial exposure to contributors. I for one would be more willing to seek the (edit: paid) services or products of free plugin providers that I use

We have installed our first plugin and anticipate installing more, and it would be very helpful to have somewhere to view profiles of free hack/mod/plugin providers based on certain criteria of quality and integrity of their contributions to vB.org.

Easier said then done?

*side note:

interesting to note how mods have removed links to my site and labelling it as spam, even though they are not posted by me, nor instigated by me.
hmm.
i wonder what this means.

the links in this thread or elsewhere?
and what site.. ** Link clearly only posted to spam **?

Ok, I was going to stay out of this but now it has gone too far. ;)

15 posts and now you're an expert on whether this site would survive or not? LOL

This site is not going to die or dwindle no matter how successful or not a paid hacks site would be. This place has survived a heck of a lot more than this and is still flourishing. Over 100,000 members strong and the few that have replied in this thread are going to bring it down? Wake up guys and gals! ;)

@ jmw - If you don't like free hacks, don't use them, but please don't try to belittle the authors that do them. A hack doesn't have to be paid or big to be good if it does what you want, free or not.

Good luck guys, I hope you do at least well enough to survive, but I have a feeling that egos will abound and we will see you all back here soon. This has happened before, where authors have gone out and set up sites to sell addons, and some have done very well, but the majority end up back here sooner or later. ;)