hacks : free or not

[Palmer ofShinra]

I feel the same way Amy.

The two hacks I've released aren't big and complex... but they are nice and useful, and in the case of the Points system, appearently in high demand.

The only large hacks I've written are heavily slanted for my own forum exclusively and a lot of stuff is hardcoded into it that wouldn't port over.

I'd want a few bucks if someone wanted me to rewrite my Store for their forum... it would take days to do and I'm a poor stay-at-home father.

I've gotten several hacks off of here... and by writing a few and releasing them for free... I feel I'm paying the community back in a way.
As well, I'm not only having fun, I'm learning. Which is payment enough.

[Admin]

I know this will sound greedy, but if you're doing something you like and you can also get paid for doing it, you have to be the happiest person alive - you got a job you enjoy doing!

I didn't say every hack should be commercialized of course!
That'd suck.

[amykhar]

I agree totally Chen. I am not speaking out against charging for hacking services. If you are good enough to do it, I say more power to you.

The point of my post was to JUSTIFY charging for creating hacks. Supporting a hack is time consuming and utterly unfun. I can see why some of the hackers are moving to charging for their time and effort.

The way I see it, free hacks are a gift that we share with one another. Nobody has the right to demand that a programmer give his time for free.

Perhaps a good model for some major hacks would be to release the hack for free, but charge for support (other than bug fixes). I don't have the slightest clue how this could be implemented

Amy

[TuKo]

(sorry for my bad english)

I don't think paying hacks are good. I think it would be better if users can choose to pay or not, like apps like mIRC. I'm sure people will do it if they like some hacks.

[amykhar]

Ok. Here's a question for you.

Let's say somebody releases a hack that they charge for. Somebody sees the idea for the hack, but not the code, and then writes their own version and release it for free.

Does the original author have the right to get ticked off?

Amy