Custom hacks; is it possible to prevent replication from others
 

Basically, I'm going to look into having some coders design a forum hack(s) to help make my board's strong point stand out from others in the genre.

Problem is, I don't know anything about coding and it's potential. There's going to be a lot to the "hack" in general that I'm looking to have customized, or at least that's the plan. But what's the odds of me being able to keep it from being replicated by other forums over time? Or is the game of VB hacks something that anyone with the talent, can see an end result and duplicate with no problem?

Any help is always appreciated.

The first most important thing to do is make sure you get exclusive rights to the product your coder develops, so he/she can not just redistribute the modification to other parties.

In regards to another board 'reverse-engineering' your custom modification, it is always a possibility. A forum owner can simply go to a coder and hand a specification list of what he/she wants based on your custom modification, and if the coder has the capabilities, it could easily be replicated.