The moderators have been discussing the issues brought up here for some time. I imagine in due time a resolution will be brought forward. For now, keep on discussing, interesting thoughts here.

but i think that discussions are done, now, because most visions were drawn, and it may be time for the administration to bring a result now...

the internet is a thing that go fast forward... if everybody wait for a result, it may come to an end with no result because time would have passed... it's not a thing that we can say "ok, today i will take my 2 minutes per week to debate the question" ... we need something done, seriously, because we loose opportunities to bring new stuff to the community, and i don't think that a silent debate in private would bring anything...

last week, i received about 25 or 26 demands via PM or on my official site, asking to release the tools i build... example, my banner/sponsor system, that is requested by many commercial vBulletin boards... i can't even tell it's existing, due to the rules here...

give us a place to advertise if you don't want us to have a specific forum, at least, but damn, do something...

There are advantages and disadvantages of making a rule change about this. I see and agree with your reasoning regarding the advantages but we must also consider about the disadvantages which are mentioned by people who think otherwise. Some examples:
a) Vb.org has always been a free hack resource and many members are against having commercial scripts here as they think all hackers start asking money for all the hacks when such a chance is given.
b) Jelsoft owns this place and they may not like some people advertise their business here by using their resources for free.
c) When commercial hacks are welcomed here, there will be many issues and clashes between sellers and buyers of these hacks and this wouldn't be something we would like to get involved. (Eg. User A advertise his commercial hack here, user B buys it, it fails to work ok in his board but user A refuses to return payment. etc.)

You may agree or disagree with these reservations but there are some members (and staff) who strongly thinks so. So it is not a rush, nor easy decision to make. I personally think it would be best if directly Jelsoft decides about it either. But as Velocd mentioned this discussion is really useful and inspiring for all parties so I welcome all thoughts here.

Thats all well and good discussing, but i've read posts and threads about this situation for months and still no final descion has been made... Will this say ever come?

Logician...

I understand your reservation when it comes to "hacks for sale" and tend to agree that VB.org needs to tread carefully in that area but with regards to the free hacks designed to integrate other commercial scripts... THAT'S what needs to be opened up right away. As it stands now, PhotoPost has a complete monopoly on outside commercial script integration at the exclusion of other excellent companies... many of which are already in use by current vB owners with others finding "grey areas"or loop holes (ie: Sigmachat).

I don't think there is no final decision on this at the moment because we already have a rule. The discussion is about whether or not the rule should change so unless it is changed, you can take it as it stands (= decision). :)

We are discussing it here to see if we have grounds and member tendency to change it or not.

Yes I understand your point very well. But the reservation at the point is that when you allow free integration hacks to commercial scripts, some people tend to use it as a promotional tool to advertise their commercial script via the thread which is cloaked as a free integration hack.

But I personally agree that it does not sound fair to give an exemption only to photopost in this regard. My personal opinion on this would be all free vbulletin-third party commercial script integrations should be allowed here but these commercial scripts should be stand alone software (ie NOT vb hacks) so that some vb hackers won't use this rule to promote their commercial vb hacks.

I'm not stating this opinion as an "administrator", nor as a rule change but it is just my personal opinion.

then i will suggest something:

ASK Jelsoft... this is not a user level to let or not let others build external softwares for vBulletin, it's the owners that decide this in their license...

i don't see why you discuss this here if you have no right to decide... if Jelsoft have things to decide, why don't they ?!... i think the debate here have to be moved to vBulletin.com for a real debate with the clients, if they have a power to decide.

anyway, i don't see any restriction for advertising services here... there may be a little scent of paranoia about coders with bad manners...

i've read many times that even the clients asking for the Service Requests had bad experiences with coders that stealed their cash or trashed their boards... we can find them even with a restricted forum... because stupidity is everywhere...

problem here is that you want to protect the clients when these same clients are able to do it themselves... per example, add the "Trader Rating", so users can comment on the job done by any coder... users will have their own way to rate the coders, instead of letting you decide what and what not to give access to here.

instead of closing the doors, why not give the users some tools to protect themselves ?!

We can't be kidding ourselves here, there's little we can do as a site to protect people from rogue traders. It's the user's responsibility to make sure the person they are employing is legitimate. That entails getting all their personal details and exchanging contracts.

I didn't say we have no right to decide. I said I personally like them to decide on it. Vb.org administration can decide on this until (and if) Jelsoft wants to override. As a matter of fact we already decided on this before since we have an existing rule about it already. But if you like to discuss this over vb.com, please feel free to do so.

My intention to encourage the discussion here is to see members tendancy and see if we have grounds to change the rule or keep it as it is. The rule is IMO directly related to the characteristic of vbulletin hacking community so we are not inclined to play with it in a rush manner. This does not mean the rule will stay, nor means it will change. We are giving our members a chance to express their opinions about the rule which helps us about the decision about it.

i think that the only members that will be interested to interact in this specific question will be the one that are selling things, and their clients... but as it's not an official debate, only the one reading the thread will interact, the one that already stated what they think, because there is not much to say...

what i would think is best is a seperate website that deal with these commercial releases, sites that have no link with Jelsoft, and where rules are more tending to be commercial-like, like for freelancers sites, or reverse-auctions for contracts and jobs... there is actually nothing that force vB.org to have that kind of service, and i think that there is a lot of these websites already...