Proposal: The vBulletin.org Commercial Services and Addons Directory.

[Marv]

First of all

I understand that everyone tries to make a living and wants to get a piece of the cake. But with this support for paid hacks we all should be aware, that this deciscion is not a minor change of the vbulletin-community, the staff & coders and the outstanding efforts throughout the last years.

This is the edge.

Why do customers choose and register to Jelsoft and vBulletin ?

As I started to run my forums in the very early days (and for a couple of years) I used UBB. At a later time I had to recognize, that customizing this software was a pain in the ass and the dev-community lacking - beside the performance problems of UBB. What I was looking for was something that is reliable, fast, highly customizable and has a strong Developement-Community which - with tons of hardly coded apps, addons, code-hacks aso - makes the software vBulletin to that outstanding product, that it is today. We also should be clear that software like wbb or others are not that far behind when they are used out of the box - what really makes them unique and devides them are the hacks and mods. And as we speak - this website is the best example, who?s the tip of the spear.

My personal forecast..

What would happen if all hacks which will be released in the future are going to be commercial hacks ? At least for about 5 Dollars/Euros each?

I?m running about 25 to 30 hacks on my forums and I think about 10 to 15 are required to give your personal vBulletin-instance a glance of a customized community-board - that would mean I have to spent another grand to get the same results, for what was free until now.

Its obvious?that every little hack would go commercial - because we all are in need of some extra-money. I don?t understand why Jelsoft and vborg are supporting this. Didn?t they asked themselves the same questions:

• Do they think it?s an improvement for the coders ? Sure - they should receive some money for their hacks in return.

• Do they think it?s an improvement for the potential customer who was about to register to Jelsoft ? No. Hell no. If I would be at this point I would register to someone else where the Dev section is free. Vice-versa I?ld have to face the fact, that paying Jelsoft for vB is just the beginning and the overall costs with all the needed hacks easily double or triple the costs. In other words - have you ever seen a template based, sql driven php-forum that costs at least about 250 to 350 bugs ? Not me - and I would give them hell, who dares to offer something like that with this pricing-scheme..

• Do they really think it?s an improvement for their customers ? To be honest - I love this software. But this is the opposite of an improvement. Who would release his hack here to vborg for free if he is aware that someone else is taking parts of his idea and/or code to build a commercial hack upon ? Me or others who believe in OpenSource and support the GNU and the vBCommunity ? Be sure - definitly not ! I don?t care if someone is using hacks or sourcecode I?ve written somewhere until he offers his hack in return for free to the public - all others should be dragged to court.. :dead: But that means also - because of that ! - that you?ll find less and less free hacks for vB - and Jelsoft would be about to loose a - no: the - major reason, to register to their software. Regarding the title of this article: Is it smart to plant a timebomb in your own house ? (If someone wants to sell his code: promote it yourself and leave the rest of us alone. If we want your product, we will find you, so don?t call us - we call you. )

In other words - I would and will end the continuied use of vBulletin if this would become reality. On one hand I?m sad that this commercialization reached now also the range of the modifications and the abolishment of license-free and free modifications feed motion is carried out - on the other hand I?m about to get really upset, that Jelsoft and vborg are seriously thinking about this as an "option".

What can I say now - it?s just sad.
Really sad..

Edit 1:


* Marv votes:

hell.... NO !

Edit 2:
Wayne, I would love to see a public (!) poll added to this proposal..