[Nikidala]

This community is here for hacking vBulletin, and I would probably agree that the vast majority of the users of the forum probably do not know how to program. Nothing wrong with that... That is why it is such a blessing for the people that do know how to share their hard work, efforts, and ideas with everyone here...

And, I am also pretty sure that a fair amount of the users here, being in a "hacking" forum would like to learn a bit more about programming so that they can modify their own board to suit their needs and give back to the community that has given to them. Again nothing wrong with that...

You are also correct that a lot of people learn how to hack their boards and / or program from taking examples (in this case, hacks) and trying to modify them to suit their needs and / or add a bit more functionality that the person that was lacking. I cannot speak for all hackers here, but I can imagine that a fair amount of them would have no problems with you doing this for your OWN forum. I think that the major concern / problem is when the person makes modifications to the hack, then wants to "publish" the modified hack... One of the problems there being (besides obvious copyright issues) that the "new" hacker would be getting recognition from the WHOLE hack when the "new" hacker had only modified someone elses work.

Without the "original" hacker, the "new" hacker would not have had a hack to modify and get recognition off of in the first place. Without the "original" hacker, the "new" hacker would not have had an "example" to use to help him better his hacking skills. And on, and on... Pretty much it boils down to:

Without the "original" hacker, the "new" hacker would have nothing (so to speak)...

New people on the forum would not know that the "original" hacker spent 6 months writing the original hack (even with the "thanks" in the "new" hacker's release) and the "new" hacker only spent say 2 weeks and added 6 lines of code. Instead, new members that have not been around for a while, may just see the popularity of the "new" hackers hack and assume that the "new" hack did most of the work on the hack... Would that be fair to the "original" hack, who not only came up with the idea, researched how to best implement it, and spent the time coding the majority of the "new" hackers hack?

Now, some people can say that another hacker could come in and add even more work than the "original" hacker did to the hack AND added much needed functionality to said "original" hack... If this is the case, I could see how said "new" hacker would get upset that not only their time and efforts would go unnoticed, but the rest of the community would be "stuck" with a "lesser" hack (in their minds)... But, what if the "original" hacker had also been spending the past few months "upgrading" his hack (keeping it under raps in hopes of a big surprise for the community), and all of the "original" hackers work would go to waste since the "new" hacker released his prior to the "original" hacker finishing?

And there is the major dilema...


I don't know how this idea would fly, but maybe their could be a separate sub-forum for hacks of hacks? It would follow how the hacks of vb work, no original code released, just the new modifications to the scripts, what to look for, where to insert, etc... When a hacker releases a vb hack, they could have a choice (like the support choice) to allow other hackers to release hacks FOR the original hack. This way possibly both parties win... The new users would still have to install the original hack to install the new hack. The original hack still gets credit for each and every line of code they wrote, and the new hacker would get credit for each and every line of code they wrote... And it seems like this option would be as legal as the current method of hacking vBulletin, as none of the original code is republished, only new code...

Like I said, I don't know how that would fly with you guys, but can't say I didn't atleast suggest it... Seeing as I don't have any hacks, my two cents really aren't worth two cents, so...