[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Should vBulletin.org have a section for paid add-ons?
Yes. It should. Many customers want a one-stop location for all modifications to the software and most of them would rather pay then have to learn PHP programming. Going along with that it should have resources to find designers, programmers, webmasters, and forum administrators for hire. And not just an ineffectual and vestigial "Services Requested" forum.

Should add-on authors be able to promote their commercial add-ons free of charge?
No... They will have to give to the community. This can be the release of "lite" versions of their commercial hacks, purchasing advertising space (to cover additional resources and help staff). It could even have a requirement of giving XX amount of free add-ons to the community.

Will allowing commercial add-ons eliminate people from releasing free add-ons?
No, I do not believe so. These commercial add-ons are already being created and the number of freebies continues to rise. Some people release all their add-ons for free on this site and they are going to stop? Even some of the people saying this will happen release add-ons as free? Are they suddenly going to turncoat and only release commercial add-ons? Doubtful. Fee or Free software is more of a philosophy and not really a market decision.. Fee based commercial software is not the end of the world and doesn't preclude Free software from existing. If that was the case then products like MySQL, PHP, Mozilla Firefox, Linux, Apache, and tens of thousands or other projects would not continue to exist and prosper even in the face of commercial endeavors.

The mere thought that people will change their philosophy on Software because a forum or a links directory is setup on this site is preposterous. People don't change philosophies lightly.

Finally, should vBulletin.org shoulder the bill of distributing and supporting Commerical Add-ons?
No. This is never what was proposed. It seeems many people who oppose this see a shopping cart and prices assigned to various addons. This is never what was proposed. What has been proposed is a forum where commercial developers can purchase advertising space (in the form of a thread) and advertise their commercial software. They would pay a monthly fee that would enable the site to have more resources and be able to provide more articles, free add-ons, styles, graphics and help the staff with their time here. Alternatively, a links directory where commercial providers would purchase links to have their products listed. At no time would this site be involved in distributing commercial add-ons or would support be provided on this site, at least not without substantial fees involved. If add-on authors want a free ride, they have to offer it to their users for the same price they expect to pay.

No one would be making money off this site without an investment into the site. It is that simple. Any commercial listing would have costs associated with it. There may be ways to mitigate paying actual money but it would require concrete and repeated contributions to the free community.

Finally...
I am not sure I really understand the animosity towards commercial hacks and add-ons myself. vBulletin customers will overwhelmingly purchase commercial styles, often times paying huge amounts for them, and yet complain about paying for a few lines of PHP code? Can't have it both ways. A designer's time is no more valuable than a PHP programmers. In fact, it could be considered less valuable because there are more Graphic Designers in this world than there are Programmers. Supply and Demand.

good post.