Releasing your hacks outside of vb.org
 

Any thoughts on this ?
Just been contacted by someone, but thought I'd like to check first :)

Its up to you really, but doing so you allow anyone who has access to the files to distrubte them on other sites.

Now there are sites with systems in place, but not every site.

Yup, that's is my no.1 concern really.
Currently which sites have systems in place to match up licensed vbulletin users beside vb.org?

Offically,

vBulletin.com
vBulletin-Germany.com
vBulletin-Templates.com

Unofficaly (usualy though some password system)
GeekyDesigns.com
vBadvanced.com

At least the ones I know of.

Ic, thanks Zach :)

any idea about http://forum.vbulletin-fr.org ?

That's not an official site.

My advice is to stick to official Jelsoft sites that has access to the licensed member database so that hacks don't fall into the hands of software pirates.

what about
[link removed]

they offer a 3.0.6.21 !

They are behind, I got 3.0.6.22 ;)

edit: nvm

Just release your hacks here and/or on your own website. All english speaking VB users come here to download their hacks. The other sites are just for pirates.

Not always, but they have no way to determin if someone is one or nto.

I notice Cinq asked about forum.vbulletin-fr.org - I'm guessing this is for the same reason as me - I received a PM tonight asking for permission to translate & release my hacks on their site.

Does anyone know anything about this site - are they a pirate site, or trustworthy ? Does anyone know how they verify licence holders.

i see their is a vb germany but how come their isnt any other vb countries?. I would think having a whole lot of countries under one forum for vb would be more organized such as vbulletin-europe. where anyone that doesnt speak english goes their for vb license and if anyone needs translation for any hacks released here we can help them without worrying about non network sites or even thinking if the site is pirated or not.

vbulletin-fr.org seems like a courteous site to me. I dunno if they verify the license but at least they ask permission before translating hacks and they always give credit to the author.

Yep Paul, that's the case for me.
I like that they are polite to ask for permission first, but I wanted to check if their site ( as well as others ) verify licenses first before reverting.

Apparently, they do not check licenses.

I would suggest saying that they are allowed to translate it, but they can not redistrubute it outside of vBulletin.org, as in they translate, you add it to the downloads.

Hello all,

I'm one of vbulletin-fr moderators

We help French community of vBulletin, yes not-official, but as you, we try to offer support for french speaking users.

We always ask permission for the hacks we'd like to translate. In addition, in our hack storage system the link to the original hack is always given.

We thank the authors for their authorizations, which make it possible to increase the family of community the vBulletin.

We also set up, with the agreement of Xenon, a licence checking system for the french translation of vBulletin, we think of making it the same way for hacks, but waiting for more feedbacks about this system.

If you have any question, don't hesitate

ps: sorry for my little english ;)

Well, to be more precise, I asked some months ago the permission of Xenon to use vBulletin.org to verify licence of the users.

The system I made isn't 100% safe (I think so but safe against web noobs). On our site, when someone tries to download our french translation of the language file, we ask the member to go to this page : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=68736 and click on the link which is in the code area (needs to have a valid licence to see it). Then the member is redirected to a script I made which controls the HTTP_REFERER (so, the exact url of the post) and update an option in the user table.

I was reluctant to ask for new permissions, as we had some problemes before.

Since the old admin moved away and we (coadmins and me) are in charge of the forum, we try to be respectful of the copyrights.

Feel free to give or deny your permission. If you want your hacks to be protected by the system we made, tell us.

Well, it was a good idea, but in france (I think it's the same in other countries) there are some licenced members who give hacks, translations, illegal version of vBulletin on illegal sites. They can also give vbadvanced password aso ...

We tried to close those sites, but it's impossible.

I though the system I made, even if it's not 100% safe, is better than password. As a password would be given two-three hours after I changed it on vbulletin.org.

If someone has a better idea, I'll take a look at it :).

don't agree with that. It's stupid to think everybody speaks english. For instance, some users we have on vbulletin-fr.org hesitate to buy vbulletin as they DO NOT understand english (it's true). We are not a pirated site, but respectful of authors copyrights and french laws.

That system is definitely not foolproof, and this does not mean vBulletin-Fr.com an official Jelsoft site, but it's better than nothing. :)

I used to think that the whole thing was BS because I was just an admin for someone else paying the bills and not interested one bit in vbulletin.com or dealing with support. So for a long time I didn't get it. Once I had my own licenses, it became apparent why things are done the way they are and the vaule of the code we share despite it being free mods.

I agree with that, we are not an official site. It's something we have to repeat regularly to our new members.

Maybe not, but at least they make an effort.

This is yet another reason why I wouldn't release code to the VB community via an 'official site'. Why on earth should Jelsoft decide who can see my code? It's also marketing for Jelsoft - 'buy a licence and get access to all these hacks' - that other people wrote

meh

The hack I'm currently working on (vBMA) will be released on both vb.org and my own forums aswell.
I will just add a link to my forums, saying you can download it form there aswell.
It's better than some other site pirating my hacks, without my permition ;)

Personally I would proud if my code was being reused by others - it would be nice if they retained the copyright as defined by the GPL but no biggie unless they were making commercial gain from it.

:rolleyes:

They don't decide who can get to see your code.
Ultimate decision still lies with you, whether you want to release it only here or elsewhere too.

Then why require licence information at all?

Because they don't want to offer support to software pirates ?

The fact you allow users to download your hack on your site, doesn't prevent people from posting it somewhere else. ;)

That is true, but it does stop it a little.

I would personally agree with any site that would like to distribute my software, aslong as they keep the copyright intact :).

Me too :)

I Distrbute my hacks here and at GeekyDesigns.com

Now if anyone wants to translate them I would be more than happy to provide them with the zip or in the install thread :)

But thats me.

I make A forums for vb support in my board also for ipb and phpbb as well .. well my board is very active and have big number of user.. but the problem is when i open this 3 forums member start asking how to get vb and where to get.. and other come post link for download and so on .. so i have deleted This forums .. well i dont need to have any problems ..:)

Releasing your hacks outside of vb.org is good is you want to provide international support for your hacks : German, French, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, ...

Good people are willing to translate them if your hacks deserve it.

Now about making vb.org an international help site, that would be difficult. People often prefer to have contacts in there native language. vb.org is not designed to support multi-language hacks and downloads:
- is there a forum for each language?
- is there a search feature for hacks language-based?

That's why we need those foreign websites.

And vbulletin-fr.org is the most trustworthy French website for vBulletin software. The vbulletin-fr.org team tries its best:
- to respect the authors wishes and credits
- to prevent piracy (using custom licence validator)
- to cooperate with Jelsoft philosophy for a solution about an official system

Basically to prevent unlicensed people access to the hacks. You're right, it's a "marketing" or a commercial decision. What's wrong with that? :) Jelsoft IS a company - otherwise, why not release vB for free. :)

at the risk of being shot down here ...

I would perfer to release ALL my hacks here but due to vb.org policies i have to host my commercial hacks on my own site, there is only 2 of them but.. i still dont know if the hack buyers have a valid vB licence. i spose i could ask, but how am i to know that they are telling me the truth.

I wiuld prefer to loose a sale of a hack if i knew that they didnt have a licence

Well i think u can do the same idea for vb.org and Geekdesign or vba they should enter their customer IDs or password i think :) .. :laugh:

I wouldn't be happy that jelsoft are making money off my code. Releasing code to the community doesn't sit well with access to said code being controlled by the jelsoft licenceing model.

Sun is a company, MYSQL-AB is a company, Redhat is a company . . . .

Hmmm, you guys just gave me an idea for my new vBMA hack! vB license validation !

Thanks guys :D

No one is forcing you to release your hacks here dave

many others try, and have done so, only later to get discouraged with the ammount of pirates they help...