Fair play and Business

[Paul M]

What DBTech do is entirely up to them, not us, or anyone else.

It has nothing to do with our terms and conditions
We dont impose rules on such things, as its not our place to do so.

If you dont like it, you dont use the mods, its really that simple.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by kapii

• Don't use any of their mods. (Which will never happen, as their stuff is top notch, and the support is at the highest level)

Never said something bad for their products or services. Actually when I was in need to use a Quizz mod latelly, I bought it from them. I'm talking for the specific mod.

Originally Posted by kapii

With the customer base that DBTech has you could potentially alienate your self with alot of people, and loose customers yourself.

Its not more than 2 years that Adam (if I remember well his name) from ForumCoding.com wrote me the same as a way to advertise/release my mods on his site. Where is Adam now, where is forumcoding.com and where are his 15,000 Members?

"Customers of me": Have I wrote anywhere that I'm looking for customers? Only in the last week I reject 3 offers for custom work (PMs are available as proof), as I don't have free time anymore. If I had time and I wanted to have profit from my coding work why to give 100% for free all my mods to another coder? Didn't asked even a single cent for them (and I'm talking for almost 20 mods). $0 !!.
So let theory out. It's not about lost of money, is not about lost of customers. Is just because I felt (and still feeling like this), that someone pushes me .... Sorry but really don't have the vocabulary to explain my feelings....

Originally Posted by kapii

I for one would never install a mod that was explicitly coded to not work if another mod(s) was on my system.

This depends on what sections are most important for your in your site. Already have 3 sites in my mind which are using the Copyright Manager, but on the same time they're using My Classifieds, Auctions and Reviews. I'm curious to see what they'll decide to do.

[Simon Lloyd]

For what it's worth my view would be that the copyright chould only appear on pages that the mod actually works on, so if on your classifieds purchasing is done through vbcredits or vbcredits are earned when using classifieds then yes the copyright should show, if it has absolutely nothing to do with it (bear in mind some mods work stats out based on number of posts, time on site (which would include browsing classifieds)...etc) then it should not show.

As you've said, you are a coder, simply add conditions for the copyright not to show on your work if as i said above it does not interact with it at all.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

...so if on your classifieds purchasing is done through vbcredits or vbcredits are earned when using classifieds then yes the copyright should show

Nope. None of my mods inteacts or works in conjuction with any other mod. Are 100% standalone scripts. I'm not even using vB forum engine (thread style mods). So the only copyright that is acceptable in my pages are vBulletin as I'm using the enviropment, and the designer's copyright if the site is using any custom style.

[Simon Lloyd]

Well in that case i feel that the copyright for other products shouldn't be there, however there is one thing you need to consider, the mod is a "Copyright Manager" does it state that it only manages their copyright or all of the copyrights in the footer? if it doesn't state that it only manages it's own then i'm afraid they are within their rights to show the copyright on all pages for the copyright manager, even if you have your own copyright in the footer the mod will "manage" it and there for take credit for that.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

the mod is a "Copyright Manager" does it state that it only manages their copyright or all of the copyrights in the footer?.

The mod is manging only their copyrights. Nothing else. What makes it frustating is not so much the copyright message, but what the text it says. To be more clear. A text like "Powered from vBQuizz, vBCredits from DragonByte Tech", maybe will be acceptable as it states clearly the mod names. But saying "Site is powered by vBulletin AddOns and Modules from ....", for me is counting as unfair competition as many visitors can think that even the Classifieds mod is their work.

[kapii]

The mod states that it manages all their copyrights, and it will be shown on all pages.

Originally Posted by DragonByte Tech

What is Copyright Management?
Copyright Management from DragonByte Tech is a modification designed to merge all copyright footers from DragonByte Tech mods into a single line shown on all pages.

I can see your point Christos, but like I have said, it should be up to the users, if they want to install the Copyright Management mod, and any other mod released here. I do not feel it should be up to you to make your mods not work if it is installed. With that said, you are completely within your rights to do so, and if that is what you feel you must do then, by all means, do it.

If their mod did not say if shows the copyright on all pages, and it did, I would have a problem with it.

Again, I am not here to argue with you, I am just expressing my opinion. I for one would not like to see your mods not work if a product was installed on a site, you do some really good work, as does DBTech, it would be a shame to not be able to use both developers mods on a site. Also doing so may encourage other developers to do something similar with their mods, if the mod is from a developer they don't like. So in theory, you could have a developer say if any of DBT's, Paul's, Joe's or Christos' mods are on the site, don't run theirs. I know it probably would never happen, but the potential is there.

But in any case, if you feel you must, then go for it, I may not agree with your decision, but it is your mod, and you can do with it as you wish, but I would defend to death, your right to do so, even if I did not agree with it.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by kapii

Again, I am not here to argue with you..,.

In no way I'm arguing (if I wrote correct) with you, I'm also not upset with anybody here. Let's say that is a bit of combination of different culture and, even more, my stability to some rules. Life rules... Moral rules...

As I know "Fair play" is a saying founded in United Kingdom. Till now I knew that new generation in Greece have lost the meaning of some Greek words (eg what really means respection, what means humanity etc etc). Now I'm seeing that is not only something happens in Greece. Seems that when there is "Business" in the game, there is no fair play.

As for me:
1.- For sure I'll not follow them by adding a global copyright. Should be childish, and there are several decades ago that I stoped being a child.
2.- For sure any change in my code will not effect earlier versions of my mods. I mean that I'll never release a version which will only prevents the mod to works if that mod is installed.
3.- I had in mind to release mods similar to their mods for free. Actually mods which will has as features only the features that they count as PRO. For this reason I already coded a PM Utilities mod. Bad for me, I've some moral rules that prohibit me for doing something like this.

Pitty that I don't have a rich vocabulary in English to be able to express my feelings. Most readers have thought that I'm talking as a user and they said to avoid using it. Some others said that is not illegal, while I never said that it is.

So the only that left out to me is to use a simple example. I'm feeling like that I've a Bakery and someone came infront of my entrance (but looking at the street) keeping in hand a sign "The best bread on the Bakery on the next street". Is not illegal, but is it fair?

Anyway..... Business kills anything... Money matters....

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by kapii

.......I may not agree with your decision, but it is your mod, and you can do with it as you wish, but I would defend to death, your right to do so, even if I did not agree with it.

Quoting Voltaire?

[LLent]

Not sure where all this is headed now you are talking from a coder's perspective instead of a user's ... I may not like the way the copyright mod redirects but that is my choice not to put it in i have voiced my opinion to dragonbyte and they gave me an ans which is fine by me but at least i have a choice ...

Dragonbyte listened to there customers and gave them a option to the branding free which is quite expensive .. so for a free mod one of many for them which you as a coder should understand takes free time away from their normal lives i dont see how they are doing anything illegal as was said and again like i did i chose not to install it and you can too ...

i also have other choices here most coders here not all choose to mark their mods as un-supported but in reality they are as i have recently learned because they dont want end users asking them every five min or half hour ect if they can fix this or that due to there time management they want time to ans that i guess ... well its my choice not to install the mods that are marked as such

so when you get down to it your poll serves no purpose it is one sided at the end of the day you are going to go your way and dragonbye is going to go theirs cause as was said the coders that post including you can do as they want in there own thread ...imo i wouldnt think you would want other coders to enter your support thread and tell you what they thought of your mod and disrupt the supporting of the member base i for one want to thank all the coders for giving up their time and giving us free mods so we can better our forums...i might not agree on things that happen here but choices is what we all have thats what makes this community a great place to be apart of

i hope we can put this thread to bed and get on to what is important ...