Suggestions for commercial scripts
 

As per Marcos suggestion in a previous thread, I am starting this thread as an open discussion regarding suggestiong on the possability of vbulletin.org offering customers a way to be aware of commerical vB enhancements while keeping the integral free script side of the community where its at (healthy and strong).

Although (I think) Marco hinted that they already have a good idea how and if they will proceed with something... I thought I would start things off with my suggestion on the previous thread: A directory.

What I would like to see is something like a directory of commercial scripts where users can rate and comment on the price, quality, support, etc...

Great idea! I don't think that would conflict with the commercial side of vbulletin - it would enhance their market appeal: "We have the best BB software in the world, and all of these available addons prove it!" If they were smart Jelsoft would offer a commercial (IE: PAID) listing of additional hacks.

Look at Pinnacle systems (another UK-based company) as a model, and you will see that they do allow 3rd party commercial products that are addons to their "Studio" software to be sold, in fact they even have a way to do it through the software! These addons have helped push "Studio" to become one of the best/most used video editing software packages in the world.

Don't charge much- just a small percentage of the sales- like a tax for the seller- and have them link through vbulletin.com to keep track of those sales. They could even have a link in the ACP that takes you to the commercial addon page at jelsoft.

I like the feedback/rating idea.

a simple weblinks of all the possible ressources would be the only solution, because the more you add, the more support have to be given... a weblink (let's say vbAdvanced one!) is a good solution, because we have a description of the product, and the link - even the rating from the clients can be added.

more would mean control and abstraction of clients - not all clients are happy with the products and may cause trouble in ratings, classifications and deals with coders.

we already had a lot of discussions about commercial scripts, and it all turns into flames regarding support or external services...

I think vBa links (or something similar) would be pretty much ideal.

Well- it would be one solution but not the only one. More "control" also means more $ for Jelsoft. I think that a paid commercial listing and a free one could possibly co-exist. I am sure that the revenue produced by adding a paid commercial listing would justify hiring someone part-time to deal with it. But- I am not going to take this thread off into another tangent: the discussion is about a lisitng or no listing- not a paid listing. Just adding my .03

Commercial hacks are not going to go away - as more coders here get better at coding and start offering new and innovative hacks they are going to want to be rewarded with more than a HOTM icon or the occasional paypal donation. I am surprised that ZT (and others here) didn't go "commercial" long ago- but I am sure it is on the horizon. We all know that these hacks are born out of many hours of coding and testing, and personally I do not mind paying for hacks that I will use. Naturally, some hacks would never fall into the commercial category, since I would never pay for a simple template edit hack, etc.. Of course as more hacks go commercial they will have to realize that warez and torrent sites are going to pass around their hacks- it is a given, and that is something the author will have to deal with.

I think this change could have a ripple affect on the site, in which more hacks would be released commercially(for pay) instead of being released free. vBulletin is known for it’s hacks and it’s also why people buy vBulletin because of vBulletin.org. I think if vBulletin.org would allow this, it could ruin the forum.

But that is just my perspective.

I'd never considered that option before, you do have a valid point - but I guess I'm still for a directory.

The fact is it is already happening. If Jelsoft ignores it and acts like it isn't happening, or to attempts to stifle that aspect of what is already happening THAT could ruin the board, IMO. When someone like Brian or Cinq or The Geek takes their codes off of vb.org and posts them solely on their sites what affect does THAT have on this site? If instead they work with the authors, and allow them the ability to advertise their sites as well as work within the community by offering beta versions to people here that will increase the quality of the hacks, and people will have an input on their development (and will also learn a thing or three about coding).

As already said in the other Thread:
I don't like the idea of having any commercial stuff here, be it a directory or whatever.
If this is going to happen, it might be a hard decision if I am going to stay.
But that is just my personal opinion as a User.

This is one of the sides to this story that we are taking into consideration. Releasing Hacks commercially is requires more then just put them on your homepage and say that people must pay for them, you will have to take care about the logistics, advertising and things like that. For a lot of coders the possible revenue (unless they go ask high prices for a single hack, which will cause them other problems like nobody buying, piracy, others creating a similar hack for free, etc..) the trouble of this just ooutweights the revenue.

Now what would happen if any coder can easily release their work as a paid hack, and can also easily take care of things like advertising by posting here at vb.org? Would they still release their 'small' (no disrespect intended, i made a lot of small things myself) hacks for free? Or would they think, hey i can ask $5 for this one, hmm this is bigger, well what the heck, let's ask 25 for this? Would we still have a community that mostly has free hacks?

I know some coders would always be relesing most of their work for free, but what percentage would that be?

Just some things to think about. :D