[ludachris]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Though I see what you are saying its like making a requirement for the users of free hacks to buy every third one.

Some work can not be made LITE and supporting and maintaining LITE and PRO versions can drive you salivatingly mad. People should not be forced to give up their time for nothing. If they can, then we should support them, if not we should support them. Either way we should support those that offer us tools we feel make vBulletin better.

Thanks

Well, it's just a thought. The idea is to help keep the free hacks from dying out as coders start becoming more interested in being paid. I think vB.org should allow commercial hacks to be posted here on the site, as it would be useful for all of us. And certainly some hacks should be payed for with the amount of development time involved. However, there needs to be some type of requirement in place that forces the commercial coders to keep creating free hacks if they want to be able to post their commercial hacks. Maybe making a LITE version of the payed hack isn't the answer, but the requirement could be something like - for every new commecial hack you post, you must also post one new free hack. You get the idea. There IS a way to make it work.

This site was built on free hacks. Ever since the payed request area opened, far fewer coders tend to give advice. It seems like they're all hanging out in the paid section now. Just look at how many hacks there were for vB2 compared to vB3. Hell, I'd venture to guess that half the 3.0 hacks will never be ported over to 3.5 because most people don't feel like volunteering while watching others get payed. If vb.org allowed commercial hacks without a way to keep the free hacks from dying, this site would lose its spirit completely. Why create a free hack when you can get payed? There needs to be a balance if commercial hacks are allowed here.

I'm all for supporting both the commercial and free hacks - but when money starts getting thrown around, greed takes over and the sharing/helping spirit fades - capitalism at its finest I suppose. Anyway, I hope there can be a compromise and a solution that will make us all happy AND keep the spirit of this site alive.

Originally Posted by MJM

Nobody HAS to start with vB. There's many free alternatives, and the only person that can justifiably complain about the cost of vB is someone living in a 3rd world country earning $1 a day. The fact is, when it comes to investing $$$ for interactive internet software, the cost of vB is a pittance compared to all the other expenses involved, especially if one takes into account the time and effort needed to develop a site.

~ Mark

Hey Mark, some of us built and launched our sites for less than half the cost of vBulletin (not considering my time - which didn't cost me a penny). This forum script was by far my largest expense when creating my first community site from scratch. Anyone can justifiably complain about the cost of vB and commercial hacks - it's not cheap, but it's the best out there. Not everyone can afford it or justify paying for it. Not everyone has been able to set their site up in a way to recoup the costs. And it's difficult to sit here and read posts by people making light of others' financial situations. To assume that an owned license ($160 or $80 per year) is a drop in the bucket for everyone here is a bit unfair. Just because they paid for a license doesn't mean they have money to burn. But this isn't the point that should be debated anyway.

It's not about whether or not people are able to pay for a hack - some can, some can't. It's not about a coder's choice to charge for a hack - that's their perogative. It's about whether or not paid hacks should be allowed to be promoted on a site that was originally launched to allow vB license owners to share hacks amongst eachother - for free. Let's debate the correct topic and stop making assumptions/judgements about one another.

I still think we could have a section where commercial hacks are posted (maybe not supported here, but linked to), as long as the coders agree to continue to make new free hacks available as well. If you're going to promote your commercial services here, you should continue to contribute in a way that fits in with the spirit of the site.