[lazytown]

Here are some of my ramblings.

Originally I wondered why VB.org didn't list all the commercial hacks available. It would be nice to see them all in one place. I don't like having to scour the net to find them. HOWEVER, as I have come to use and love VB.org, I can say that I think it would detract from the quality and quantity of free mods for vbulletin. I own 3 licenses (soon to be 5) and I must say that if it wasn't for free mods here, I might be using some other product (free or commercial).

If there are to be commercial listings (which I think is very likely): I would say that the charge for inclusion should be on the high side. This would hopefully prevent the tiny mods/hacks from trying to go commercial. Also, you would be providing them with quite a good source of advertising and it shouldn't come cheap. The ones who are currently making good money in the addon business can surely afford it. That is the main purpose of this discussion - to include the commercial mods.. I don't think it should be to encourage existing free mods to go commercial.

My biggest worry is that developers of existing mods will change over to commercial once a new version of VB comes out and leave their existing users with the option of removing their mod or paying a fee to continue using it. Although I personally have funds to support this, I would be very upset if I saw this happen to a lot of mods. I've already seen it happen so some here. There should be some mechanism to prevent this from happening (or at least put some restrictions on it). Also, there needs to be a mechanism to prevent users from taking a buggy mod and charging for the then fixed mod (as I've also seen attempted).

Finally, I think it is ESSENTIAL that some part of the site be devoted to discussion of commercial mods. It doesn't have to be within the directory itself, but I think it's important that we be able to rate and comment on commercial mods just as we can the free ones. There should be no "free ride" for the commercial mods vs the free ones.

-vissa