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...