Well, this is not fair Xenforo Vs IB and we are in the middle.

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by nhawk

I code for both vB and XF. And I can give you two very good reasons why many coders don't code for vB anymore...

They do not have the ability to post/advertise their premium add-ons anywhere on the vB sites. And they are forced to release LITE versions to have the ability to TRY to sell the premium versions.

From my personal experience, my XF sales versus vB sales are running about 25:1.

So, what do you think most coders are going to do? Where do you think they are going to focus their attention?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Now, should I code a LITE add-on with 4000 lines of code AND a PREMIUM add-on with 6000 lines of code for vB? Or, do I just go straight to a single 6000 line premium add-on for the other software? Again, not hard to choose.

If you have a suggestion like this, why not raise it to VB.org staff for them to add a system like Xenforo with payment for plugins.

Xenforo just took advantage of a feature like this because they know many coders will love it. It is a smart move.

[nhawk]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

If you have a suggestion like this, why not raise it to VB.org staff for them to add a system like Xenforo with payment for plugins.

Xenforo just took advantage of a feature like this because they know many coders will love it. It is a smart move.

I do believe it's been discussed many times here on vB.org. But somehow, lite versions of products are always included in those discussions.

[Zachery]

No one forces anyone to release "lite" plugins.

[borbole]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

If you have a suggestion like this, why not raise it to VB.org staff for them to add a system like Xenforo with payment for plugins.

Xenforo just took advantage of a feature like this because they know many coders will love it. It is a smart move.

Couldn''t agree more with you on this one. It is indeed a very smart move. Unfortunately vb wants to eat everything itself, metaphorically speaking of course. They say something along the lines of we don''t want our customers to pay for mods. Because like that vb becomes more appealing to the current and potential customers.

And they are right. I have seen ex vb-ers when they convert to Ipb or xenforo complain and moan when they see paid add ons and say, why we have to pay for this add on when in vb was for free etc etc.

That is nice for vb but for me not so. I can''t speak for other coders, but why should I waste my time coding mods here so others can download them for free and sing praise to vb how good they are for having free mods etc etc. When I can sell my work elsewhere and make some very much needed money in these hard economic times?

Not to mention the other points put so well above by nhawk.

[nhawk]

Originally Posted by Zachery

No one forces anyone to release "lite" plugins.

Not in the literal sense, but if a coder wants to get some type of promotion/exposure of their premium products here on vB.org, they must release a lite version of that product to include a link to the premium product in the lite product's description.

[cellarius]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

I never said free in my thread, in fact the example i pointed out, the coder is selling his gallery for 40 USD on Xenforo. It is selfish when many of these coders do sell their plugin and code it only for Xenforo, they can do the same on VB and sell it and offer pro vs lite.

But then they are taking sides because of this whole drama Xenforo vs IB and we are in the middle.

They are being selfish because they have took a stance to support only Xenforo and have left, disregarded all the happy customers/ members from vb who made them popular and noticeable in the first place, through plugin votes, plugin of the month and so on.



Think about it ^ your signature.

It is very obvious that you never coded an addon for vB, that you never coded an addon for xenforo, and that you have no idea just in what abominable way IB gave a ++++ing damn about addon coders when vB4 was released. And did the same when vB5 was released. Same about style designers.

You make all this out to be some vB - xF battle. It is not. Many coders did not leave because they wanted to take sides, but because vB litteraly drove them away. Also, there are many who did not leave for xF, but for IPB.

Anyway, when you buy an addon you buy what you get, plus a maybe somewhat reasonable time of support. You don't buy llifetime support, nor do you buy a guarantee of further development. Some seem to think that all that can be had for a few bucks, but that's just naive. This is not about fair or unfair, but about real life. Coders who life off their work need to make a living, and it is quite obvious that vB has no future. That's why they leave.

Anyway, what's wrong with my signature? It states what is the case, and I think it's just honest to tell people what they can expect. I gave no promises to anyone, and I gave away my work for free. Because I loved the software, and I loved the community. Nothing of both is left, IB ruined it for pretty much everyone. As far as I know, my addons still work for vB4, and if you think there will be much future development of that branch by IB, you're even more naive than I thought. If you don't like that I decided not to do develop them further, for reasons that are none of your business, I just couldn't care less.

[vbresults]

This topic is symptomatic of the entitlement mentality here. Coders don't owe you anything. Most downloaders don't go around rating plugins they don't use. If you leave a review or rating on a plugin, it's because you already took or benefited from their work first, not the other way around.

At the very least, Mike & Kier make things as developer-friendly as they can like allowing commercial add-ons, coming down on people that harass developers over pricing when they've actually contributed nothing to the developer after taking their work, and providing a clean, fun platform to code on.

A lot of the XF resource users have the same entitlement mentality but Mike & Kier aren't giving developers the finger, unlike IB and by extension vB.org, so I don't blame a lot of coders for moving over and not dealing with vB anymore.

You aren't a customer until you actually buy the commercial plugin from the developer. People parade around like they've already bought every plugin they make demands for and complain about on vB.org.

In reality, barring /maybe/ DBTech, <1% of downloaders actually do. Where do I get these numbers? Experience & ask any developer here. Funnier, many who donate will rather donate what's convenient as an alibi instead of getting commercial plugins.

"Take your pennies, peasant"

In an almost surreal way, about half will get angry the moment you mention a commercial plugin, or even, god forbid, a copyright link, like you're their slave laborer and the master says you don't work for pay *whiplash*.

These same people complain about the 100 copyright links in the footer, and yeah I get that. Look at how bad it makes your footer look and take note of each link -- it's a lot, isn't it?

Now, excluding DBTech, recount how you actually didn't pay for any of those plugins. Someone spent hours of their time to make each one for you -- countless hours together. Now, think about all the tired faces of your slave laborers who work without pay.

That said, we have two conflicting viewpoints -- let's be objective. IB isn't going to suddenly change, and XF developers certainly aren't going to start coming back to vB. Time tells no lies.

[katie hunter]

Well, i see many have been saying Vbulletin died with vb 5.x. I really don't know what sort of illusion is this and what is your aim trying to portray this, seeing that vb 4.x is great and way better than Xenforo.

Others are jumping off the boat, because of this entire Xenforo vs IB saga, but honestly, you forget one thing, it is us customers who buy your addon. I've seen many of the coders who have moved to Xenforo, kept encouraging their vb customers to migrate to Xenforo in order to sell their addon there.

You might not like the subject because it is touching your $$ but it is true that you've decided to abandon vb customers and those who gave you fame in the first place.

Many don't like the way IB runs thing and how VB do not listen to many of the requested features, but that doesn't mean the product is bad because vb 4.x is great, vb 5.x needs at least 2 years of development, it is currently in beta stage, never gold yet in my own eyes.

If i am going to compare vb 4.x with Xenforo, definitely vb 4.x wins in term of features and stability.

If i am going to compare vb 5.x with Xenforo, XF wins over because it is much more faster, Seo friendly and easy to use but not feature rich. Xenforo doesn't even have basic profile gallery, let alone they are using an Editor http://imperavi.com/redactor/, that isn't as nice as the CKeditor http://ckeditor.com/demo#standard

[New Joe]

How much of the 'features' are 'really' the necessary with VB though?
I find myself as an admin and owner I do think they are necessary, but as for the members, the ones who make a Forum actually work then maybe not so much.

There are still a lot of free resources for Xenforo, and a lot of the paid ones aren't that expensive.
When a huge Forum like digitalpoint moved over to Xenforo this was the time I started looking more into it, yes he's actually a coder but there's not a huge make over of modifications on his site for Xenforo

I will move over to it one day, it's not the lack of features which are stopping me, more so the actual import from vB to Xenforo and the messing around with things like VBSEO i have installed.

[cellarius]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

If i am going to compare vb 4.x with Xenforo, definitely vb 4.x wins in term of features and stability.

Well - vB4 has a lot of features some may call bloat - it comes with a decade of history. And now, after 3 years of bugfixing and discontinuity (exactly what's driving coders mad), it is in a usable state (shining espacially since, of course, it wins every comparision to vB5 - which really says not much about vB4, but all about vB5).

But calling vB4 more stable than xF just made me laugh real hard. It is really obvious that you have no idea about stability or code quality. That's not a problem, mind you - but then you should be a tad more cautious about such judgements.