from what I have witnessed here, there is a actually a very loud voice for those that would find benefit for a way to become more informed about commercial systems.
There's a difference between a loud voice and a majority voice. Usually the majority feels safe and thus they are quiet because they always expect someone else will participate for them, so their voice is represented by a small fraction of the actual group. But just like everything else in life the squeeky wheel gets the grease.
And unless the poll becomes something that every member has to vote on before they can continue at the site then I don't see it ever providing a good estimation of what all members of the community really feel.
I also think if you want to get more support you're going to have to spell things out a little more specifically so its not just this vague concept of commercial hacks.
What do you want .org to do? How should they moderate commercial hacks? should any hack be allowed to be released commercially here? Is there some way to set pricing standards? Should the sales be done here on this site? Should .org get a piece of the pie? Should coders be allowed to charge for sale of the code and support? What do you do if a hack has vulnerabilities and bugs? What do you do if the coder won't address the vulnerabilities/bugs? If .org handles the money, should they keep it for a specified amount of time to ensure support/fixes? How do you handle unsatisfied customers, customers that didn't get from the hack what they expected? are there refunds? What if one hack is incompatible with another hack? People paying for hacks are going to expect more in return, both in support and in performance/quality, which will increase the amount of time coders must put into the hack, will this be reflected in the pricing? Are coders ready to put that much more time into it (especially when they already have other 'well-paying' jobs)? How will allowing commercial hacks here affect the sales/image of vbulletin overall? Would code which is based on/uses licensed vbulletin code be allowed to be sold? Should there be a separate part of the site for the paid hacks or should they be integrated with the free ones? Should members that want premium hacks pay a monthly or yearly fee and the coders get some of that money based on the installs of their hacks (so long as usage is limited to those paying members)? Should there be a quota to the number of free hacks which a member can download/install before being required to donate something to the 'coders' pot'?
I'm sure there's many other issues to consider, but its really not as simple as should they allow commercial hacks or not. I think the best way to handle this would be to rally the coders together and make your own site. If it seems to be handled well then maybe .org can consider integrating some of the ideas.
11-13-2005, 05:44 PM
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