Jelsoft sold ?! not me!
 

<a href="http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235378" target="_blank">http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235378</a>

as James may be in a April fools journey, i will wait for the pro-official echoes...

but if this is right, Jelsoft is now part of a bigger company, with guys who are paid more seriously and that means we are now all Volunteered within a mega-corporation...

i don't remember if Microsoft have volunteered persons in its charge, or if people are working for free in the Hilton hotels, but i think we will now have to face the facts... Jelsoft is not the place we were all welcome anymore...

i give support for free, i even coded for free for a long time... this have to end with this announcement.

vBulletin.org is not only a place for coders to share code, 25%+ of the actual system is based on our own work provided for free and taken without our consent to build this tool that was sold to a company with a lot of resources...

we all deserve to be paid for the result. and we will not be paid. being paid is not only important for the cash, it is important for the situation... if us coders would not have provided these hacks for years, who would tell if Jelsoft would've been sold in this situation... we're the ones who make the vBulletin software look better for each version... we're also are the guys who support this software because at vB.com they are not supporting it when it is modified... and i can tell it is rare to see unmodified forums these days...

anyway... James, this is not a joke to make if you are on an April Fools journey... and if this is the real facts, sorry but i quit... for good... that's enough being frustrated by the "way" we are not supported by Jelsoft, now we have to be unsupported by a bigger company that will never pay us a penny even if we're the ones to make it rich...

think of it coders, they are now able to pay the guys who support their software... if you do not receive a cent of what they will gain from your work, do the same... quit !!!... you can work by yourself on your own side... vb.org will now be a place for volunteers who have too much time to spend and are not interested to be paid... never!

I'd say this is not a joke. As to the rest of your post, you would have never been compensated by Jelsoft anyway so what difference does this make? Actually it's the work you and others have done for free that helped put Jelsoft in this position in the first place and just smart business on their part. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but something like this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone here given the success of vBulletin so I really don't see how anything has changed...just my 2 cents.

Unexpected....

you are exactly right smacklan... i do not tell the opposite... the thing is that for the situation, i would expect Jelsoft to at least support vb.org in a better way, like giving coders here more flexibility on releasing the hacks we do... providing a better SDK when they knew it would be great for their situation - they were negociating for a long time i know it - and now, they release one product after the others, surprising everybody around because Jelsoft always told they would not do other things than forum... not surprising now that they are sold...

anyway... this will surely bring a lot of debates, i'm the first one to comment on this because i was posted early.. lol

oh, and btw, the only thank given by James is for the clients... THANKS JAMES FOR THE SUPPORT!

hehe...I agree with everything you've said (for once lol). Now that Jelsoft is part of a conglomerate, it will be interesting to see what happens with this site...and all us third party vendors out there who have enjoyed success supporting vbulletin.

If I may steer the thread back in the direction of Planet Earth a little... we do not deserve to be paid. We are volunteers. We knew what the arrangement was when we signed up, we did everything we have done off our own backs, without obligation.

If you do not want to contribute, then do not contribute. If you want to be paid for coding, get a coding job. If you do not want to be a volunteer, do not volunteer. If you do not want to give away work or support for free, then do not work or give support for free. I think it is fair to say that the above is common sense and everyone should have understood it without creating their own expectations.

Yes, Jelsoft do very well out of the community here. Yes, they could support it a little better. That is all you can reasonably ask for. I honestly thought this was a joke at first, I don't understand how what you are saying can make sense.

you do not understand because you're not here from the begining... i'm here from day 2, i can say... (this account is my #3 since 2001...) and i can tell that if there is a way we'd be paid is not with cash but at least with credits and respect...

it is not about contributing to a big company that is a problem.. it is that now they will have paid coders to do the support we were doing, they will have paid guys to deliver the hacks we were doing, and we have no credits whatsoever nowhere...

i actually did not volunteered here to provide codes for fun and see other guys being paid for the hacks i've coded... i can tell it was frustrating for me to see that the latest enhancements of vbulletin were first coded by guys here, without having a single line of credit in the code nowhere... and most of the coders who were "stolen" that way are now out of the business, or at least have quit vb.org to code for commercial projects instead because they are not fools...

i'm one of them, even if i continued to chat here... i actually have more than 3500 lines of code in 3.6.7, and my name is nowhere... reason: they jut changed the code or simply renamed the variables so the hacks integrated are not "from" someone else...

actually, this is the exact same situation that IPB came with 4 years ago... small project with contributors, switched to a commercial kind of way, and tada... everybody have to pay twice the price for the next release, etc etc...

the situation is not about coders volunteering... you can always do it... this is a free world. the thing is that now, you will have to think that some other guys will be doing the same thing as you do, and your name will be nowhere... before, when Jelsoft was small, this was ok, they did not change the code of the software based on hacks released here that much, and they were happy to name the guys who contributed... not anymore.

and i'm not frustrated... i have quit the community long time ago, even if i released some gadgets not long ago... but that's about it... not sure nobody else will do it or not...

it's more a question of why you are here actually...

This does not add up to me.... The buyer is a Web site operator not a software developer. While I always thought Jelsoft would get bought, I was hoping it would be to someone who could help professionalize their processes.... So I don't get it.

I work for one of those real companies and saw how "loosey-goosey" Jelsoft did things compared to the discipline required for real commercial software. Figured it was just a matter of getting to the point where "adult supervision" was going to be required. Nothing bad about that, just the consequence of success.

Instead they sell out to a media company whose president looks like Willem DeFoe. Apparently the bidding never got very hot.

Not feeling good about this.... will watch this closely. There's another shoe to drop IMHO.

I have to agree with Dutch ^. The buyer is a surprise. Here's their website -
http://www.internetbrands.com/ib/

??????? Makes no sense to me. But not alot of what they do, does :)

I'm betting that there will be a pricetag increase, probably sooner rather than later. When you take into account that the price for a vB licence hasn't increased for a long time, you can just about count on it.

Perhaps they should give a few people credit, be it in the actual code or at some page on their website, for contributing with ideas or code snippets. I wouldn't expect anything more in addition to that, really.

the pricetag will increase with 4.0 for sure, as they provide new extensions, and that was the goal of the market price of vB...

vBulletin's credits list everyone who has code or image contributions in the system already.

IB has been acquiring renowned internet companies for some time now:
http://www.internetbrands.com/ib/news/press-releases
This can go both ways. Yes, it becomes bigger and maybe more commercial. That poses some risk in regard to company policy. But more investment, means more development of vbulletin. Which is something that we all benefit of.

by the way the credits are given, and the way the codes were created, there is no credit for the inspiration... (and perspiration though)...

i did not read a single credit for bugfixes inside vb code... and actually, most of the bugfixes i've seen are made by global effort, not always by a single person's work... a good way to credit people is to write something like "line 134, this fix was provided by Alfa1"... :)

nobody ever credit the inspiration, so for sure the credits lines of vbulletin are not that long... but by not thanking the vBulletin.org coders in their announcement is a large lack of respect for all the work done here...

I agree coders should receive some sort of credit for the contributions however it would take alot of work to have credits line for line.

Distance

My first guess - a price increase of some sort will happen. It might be a simple price change or a change in their pricing structure. Thought could mean the end of leased licenses, or the introduction of a lifetime license (where you dont have to pay annual fees). It could also mean the end of owned licenses since they dont generate as much cash long term as leased licenses. Something will likely happen to produce a large influx of cash quickly.

Why do I say this? Many companies do this upon aquisition to pay for the cost of the aquisition. Its very common.

I would also predict that we will see more official vB add ons. A photo gallery for example, or a homepage portal. This would be another way to raise money quickly.

Pretty cool that people have a crystal ball to look in.

I'm gonna reserve judgment for now. vB has been very good to me and I hope it remains the leader in forum software for years to come.

This is a discussion thread, nobody ever said it was a fact that the prices will go up, people are just expressing there opinions.

Business must grow. This is why they are in business in the 1st place. To profit and to succeed.

If it benefited them, its the right thing to do for business.

If the price of VB goes up, so be it. That is part of economy.

If you still enjoy the VB product, and care to demonstrate your excellent coding abilities as a volunteer, then keep up the good work.

If not? Seems like you have a situation at hand.

Doesn't look like any _immediate_ changes will occur.

Why should it change right now? You don't buy a successful company to change it. You only change unsuccessful companies.

To me, it looks like a logical move for ib so Ill reserve judgement for now :)

we won't even feel the change... it's like the VAT went up in germany this year. In 2006 everyone complained, now (2007) nobody complains or even knows about it....

That's of course no comparisson, but I don't think anything external will change, unlike internally ;)

i can tell i have a crystal ball ... i'm in the market with high end buyers for so long that i know how the things ALWAYS goes in that part of the virtual...

sur the prices will change in the future... a company does not sell his market only to sell it... Jelsoft sold the stock to be richier, not poorer... and they surely not sold their part only because someone wanted to support them... they do not need a supporter, they need a higher market and the only way to go to it is buy giving more power to their company.

and i hope nobody will announce the price of this deal...

several of their websites use vBulletin products. Why not buy the software maker of your site?

several... i have more websites running vbulletin than them... does that mean i have to buy the company ?!

my marketshare is 1.3 M$... that does not mean i have to invest all my profits to buy the software...

interesting move..

Last time i checked we (the users of vBulletin.org) were all here (vBulletin.org) to have fun and share our work with others to bring a smile to their face. This has never changed since day one, some peoples views of how the site works has.

Who cares, I own my license already and so wont have to pay any more for another :)

Companies are actually going in the other direction. Less companies are doing everything in house and they are now trying to focus thier attention and thier resources on thier core businesses by outsourcing as much as they can to third parties. Outsourcing gets a black mark in the media but if your main business is making widgets, it makes sense to let another company run and optimize your website and your network.

Internet Brands is just a holding company of profitable internet businesses - there is no synergy or even core market or core focus. Thats what scares me.

you can see it the way you want Zachery... so then you ALWAYS do the jobs here for free ?!.. .always volunteers to answer paid requests for free ?!...

please drop the idealistic visualisation, we're not in the StarTrek period yet...

most of the coders i know here are interested to make a living of their coding. most of them also have their efforts in other projects where they are paid to build vBulletin hacks and products... they are not here for smiles...

if you look at Google though they have been acquiring most of their new technologies. I was really just pointing an interesting fact that they manage several large communities that run vBulletin.

Yes but in Googles case - those aquisitions are directly related to the enhancement or expansion of thier core business and product lines.

My thoughts exactly. Vbulletin is a completely different market and concept of what they currently deal with. Maybe Internet Brands is thinking of turning Vbulletin into a "large ticket" forum package. Usually with moves like this 2 things happen: the price increases and support goes by the wayside. I'm sure you will have every Jelsoft employee tell you differently, but the history of such "acquisitions" tells the whole story.

The thing that concerns me the most is that many sites using vB are actually competitors of IB's own sites!

Will they start 'crushing' that competition by holding back features? Will they just kill vB full stop and all future releases will be priced so high that only 'they' and a limited few can really use it? How much does $1,500 sound? I know lessor pieces of software selling for that much!!

There's just so much uncertainty - but I hope all our fears are unfounded and actually, it's the best thing to happen to vB.

I also hope they reach out to the community themselves (and soon) with an announcement from their own chairman/md.

the only thing positive in such situation is the wallet of Jelsoft's guys... do you seriously think it would benefit anyother ?!... this is a transaction from owner to owner, not a deal with the clients...

I think some of the responses in this thread are pretty unbelievable. We've been told things will continue just as they have been. Whether this is true or not is yet to be seen. This is like preemptive outrage which is just silly.

I especially resent the idea that vB modders should be paid, as if it's a matter of principle. As another member already pointed out, if you don't want to volunteer then get outta here.

At this point all we know for sure is that Jelsoft was acquired. The best scenario is things improve, worst scenario is things get worse. Given how Jelsoft has always been true in the past, I am confident they wouldn't have made a deal that would be detrimental to the community.

Invision Power guys were all the same before... they always told they would not higher the price of their free forum... now it is one of the high-priced software on the market...

same for Postnuke that i'm the founder of... i quit the project when the guys decided to go commercial, in case they start selling stuff over it... they have done, and now the project is in stasis...

a lot of projects like this one are promissing and going in the right pathh until someone buy them for the marketshare...

My point is that Jelsoft didn't go to a software shop. That's where I see the risk. vBulletin needs the systems and tools of a real software shop to get to the next level (see: 3.67 PL1 and all the thrashing around new "products"). I was kinda holding out hope that Jelsoft would do a 4.0 version with a real Web 2.0 interface, end user "drag and drop" customization, and especially fixing that half-done calendar system.

Not slagging the existing product or the people who created it, but the rusty vB user interface needs some serious updating... and I don't see IB making that investment -- or at least sharing it with the existing base. If I'm wrong I'll admit that, but I've been in the software industry a l-o-o-o-ng time and this simply does not compute for me in any way that looks positive. Hope that's wrong.

:erm: Reading this thread is like reading the Chicken Little story all over again...