A Honest to Good Aggravated Criticism of Paid Modifications for vBulletin (Essay)

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

The point still stands. You don't need 'expertise' to criticise anything. It's a very similar argument to saying 'only a scientist can criticise scientific knowledge' or what not. Saying 'I'd like to see you do better' and expecting that because someone cannot do better at whatever means they're wrong is a fallacy. You don't need to know how to make movies to say how a movie sucks, or know economics to say that there are unfair business decisions or various other stuff. Sometimes I really wish vBulletin would have a 'no use of code in paid deriative works' addition to their terms of service to stop much of this.

To criticise anything they must have a minimum of knowledge of the argument.

If for example somebody tries to stitch a brand on a tire, they may criticise the needle to be too weak or the rubber be too strong. But unless they don't know that tires are not for stitching, their criticism is worthless.

I usually support all the software I've ever made, in order to understand what people really need. When I get criticised, I try to fix the problem or explain the reasons of the missing feature, in that order. And sometime I admit I can't fix it.

No program or addon is perfect, but it may become still reasonably interesting to many people if there is the good will to make the best of it. And in this sense I agree with you.

Originally Posted by Netunt

The only reason people make "lite" editions of their product is to advertise the full version.

If Netunt, a complete newbie on the site is able to figure this out by himself, i don't know why someone so used to the site can't understand that statement...

anyway, this was an essay, in french "essayer" mean "try"... so you try to figure out things if i see it right?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Lizard King

As i stated before i will really like to know your age because i dont want to discuss things with a 12 year old teenage.

The choice of vocabulary, and the ability to express the same concept in different ways in order to make himself understood, let me believe I am talking to somebody about the fourties. He may cheat but if he does, he does it darn well

[SEOvB]

Originally Posted by nexialys

If Netunt, a complete newbie on the site is able to figure this out by himself, i don't know why someone so used to the site can't understand that statement...

post count != smarts
(made apparent by this thread)

or something like that

[Gio~Logist]

Um, am I missing something here? Is our marketing approach to the way we market our products not the same as everywhere else?

You want a light/trial/limited version, you can find it for free. You want something with a bit more features and possibly support as well, you pay for it.

"Try to buy"
"Free demo"
"We're so convinced you'll like it, we'll let you try it for free"
"Here's the light version, now just imagine what the premium can do"

This type of thing exists everywhere. Do you call Adobe and flame them for offering 60 day trials for free when they can just offer their product entirely for free?

A thread with 5 pages, arguing what, whether or not we should charge for modifications? lol. Is that even a question, seriously? Why not demand that designs, custom scripts, and everything in addition be free as well? Sorry, it won't happen. Some people build cars and get thousands, we build products/websites and get paid for that. You yourself said you have no reason to purchase any of the products you've seen around here, so why the complaint?

When you find someone who is so well-off that they just feel like writing thousands of lines of codes, getting headaches along the way, offering a lending hand to webmaster using the product, etc. for free... By all means, bow to them. I will do the same. Till then, there are a variety of experienced and professional programmers and devs all accross this website as well as others doing their jobs and developing products catering towards the needs of extending vbulletin's software.

Why do you think vbulletin's so popular? Not only is it a kick-ass product, but it's a kick-ass product with... Well, kick ass products Sorry if you feel like kicking our ass for that

[smacklan]

Originally Posted by Gio~Logist

Why do you think vbulletin's so popular? Not only is it a kick-ass product, but it's a kick-ass product with... Well, kick ass products

You really hit the nail on the head with this. In it's infancy vbulletin was working hard to grow a product and following and fostering a "community" of mod'ers made smart business sense. Along the way those who contributed to the success and popularity of vbulletin wised up and realized they could (and should) make some income on their hard work as well. Today you have a product in vbulletin that, although very good on it's own merits, would not be half what it is without the cottage industries that have sprung up around it and make it all that more appealing to the masses. The biggest problem I see today is vb.com should merge vb.org into it's parent site and start officially supporting that arm of it's business. To claim vb.org is not part of the corporate entity that is vb.com and try and "sell" it as something it no longer is and hasn't been in a long time is very misleading. The time has long passed for this site to become a full-fledged arm of the business, staffed by paid employees and finding an official way to promote the cottage industries that are so integral to their continued success. To continue to "advertise" this place up as some "enthusiasts and hobbyists" playground leads to this very discussion we are having...among a myriad of other problems and issues.

[Gio~Logist]

Originally Posted by smacklan

You really hit the nail on the head with this. In it's infancy vbulletin was working hard to grow a product and following and fostering a "community" of mod'ers made smart business sense. Along the way those who contributed to the success and popularity of vbulletin wised up and realized they could (and should) make some income on their hard work as well. Today you have a product in vulletin that, although very good on it's own merits, would not be half what it is without the cottage industries that have sprung up around it and make it all that more appealing to the masses. The biggest problem I see today is vb.com should merge vb.org into it's parent site and start officially supporting that arm of it's business. To claim vb.org is not part of the corporate entity that is vb.com and try and "sell" it as something it no longer is and hasn't been in a long time is very misleading. The time has long passed for this site to become a full-fledged arm of the business, staffed by paid employees and finding an official way to support the cottage industries that are so integral to their continued success. To continue to "advertise" this place up as some "enthusiast's and hobbyists" playground is stupid...and blatently obvious to so many.

Glad to see we share the same views Great website btw, you guys seem to be doing well :up:

[Dean C]

I actually cannot believe the level of ignorance you are showing OP, and I have to say it: lack of maturity.

By your logic anyone can disagree with anything without knowing anything about it.

[Shelley_c]

You know how to tee yourself up for the storm that was to come OP.

What other people failed to mention in this thread was that as well as making a living from their hard work... why should they contribute and support their products to a bunch of whinning, whinging (the majority of the memberbase)? complaining people constantly asking "why have you not included this feature" or "why haven't you made me breakfast in bed". People are human and get sick and tired of this.

Now I was a keen advocate in supporting and contributing free products but sooner or later (as well as people needing to make a living) they just can't be bothered to contribute to the whinging majority.

ps I'm back after my weeks vacation so you can jump back down from the plates that you kindly kept warm.

[PixelFx]

*blinks* that was a lot of reading, and why include vbcommerce in the post, its free when its released, sures it's encrypted but still free for 1 shop, *cringes* but the core is free, and its not a lite script, all our core mods are free and 1000's of hours building them so end users here and on our site can benifit and I think between dark and I we've done a hella job supporting both on this site and other.

Our general argument as far as pro addons go is if others can make money from our work we should earn a little bit. I think thats fair. People can earn a hell of a lot form our free mods as well which makes up 90% of our work. go figour..

Sure we have a few pro addons but they are nothing to compared to the level of quality of our free mods and fully supported no contracts there.

As developers for example, dark and I both gotta eat, most of our pro mods don't even support our pop and chip habbit to crank out top quality free mods for vbulletin.

Like anyone here I like and use free mods, but we understand the amount of work that goes into coding this and for that reason if there is a pro mod for vbulletin that I like I'll buy it and not question its cost.

I've bought ever month that The Geek as made simply cause his work is awesome, and the products are solid. I have no problems paying for mods, and appeciate the developers that make both free and commercial products. It all takes time and is hard work.