When vBulletin becomes fully commercialized

[antialiasis]

Personally, I created all my hacks for my own forums, and I may have a lot of time on my hands, but I actually enjoy posting them here for free, giving support for them, getting comments and upgrading them with more features. I'm very much of a beginner at this thing, so I need the practice and criticism, anyway.

Why are you worrying about vB.org becoming fully commercialized? I think there will always be plenty of codes who just do it for their own purposes and think they might as well post it here. Not everybody would charge for their work if they did it primarily for themselves.

[Dr.Viggy]

Originally Posted by Ntfu2

I think my comment may have been taken the wrong way. As it stands now (free) i think there should be 0 responsibility for coders to support their hacks if they do not want to or dont have time to, releasing them is gratitude enough IMO

Once there are paid hacks though, for them to be on vB.org i beleive they should have to support them 100% of the time for each and every user that requires it. This is also when it becomes more then a hobby.

i can only say that i agree with half of this. i think that even a free hack should be at least partially supported. if a coder releases something i think in good faith they should lend a hand to help some of us newbies that are still learning get it implemented. releasing a product that has bugs brings a certain responsibility of the author.

however, once it goes beyond that and into a legitimate support issue or for a major modification i see no reason why the author can't make money off of it, but as amy and others said, if they're gonna make money and treat it like a business then they should be treated the same way and that brings in the fee. you can't post here for free and then make money. pay to put your "business" on display. you're making money and you're supporting your mods. everyone winds up happen. the author gets the cash, the user gets the support and vb.org gets the money for allowing it all to happen (which i agree some should go to jelsoft).

ok so i'm long winded. i know this. i just think there's been alot of extremes said here and only a few see the gray area or the proverbial middle ground. i think partial commercialization can work and work well if done correctly.

[Adrian Schneider]

One of the gray areas is definitely support... Here are my views if a hack becomes popular and the author can no longer handle the workload:

If the hack IS supported

The author should do one of the following:

1. Quit his job and support it to keep everyone happy.
   
2. Start charging money to give quality support to the people who need it.
   
3. Try to recruit some helpers to help support it.
4. Abandon the hack. It is too much work.

All of those are decent solutions, depending on your position. Hopefully you picked up on the sarcasm on 1.

However, under no circumstances, should a free hack become a paid hack. Support is one issue, but if the entire script becomes commercialized, it is betrayal.

I would hope that in the case of the author being overwhelmed, and peoples' boards are down due to bugs, the author would allow others to help, or the staff put some kind of warning up saying there are many known bugs and it isn't safe at this point.

Also, (hopefully a staff member can fill me in on this), if a hack is abandoned, do you go in and untick the supported field?

If the hack is NOT supported

The user downloaded it knowing (his own fault if he didn't see the supported box unticked) that it is unsupported. It is not the authors resonsibility.

[Logikos]

I'm sure this has already be said, but most hacks here are not big enough to be considered a commerical hack. That all depends on the demand of support and code really. If you have a huge hack that 1000's of users will use, then you could consider having a commerical site for that hack because the demand in support is to much for a simple thread to handle.

I've always seen alot of users going commerical to make a few quick bucks, but really if you ever want to go commerical with your hack. You should ask yourself a few questions....

1. Will 1000's of users use this hack?
2. How far can I really extend this hack?
3. Will the support for this hack really be to overwhelming for a thread to handle
4. Does my hack really have enough code to be marked as a commerical product

This is mainly why I've never opened a commerical site for my hacks. I havn't really created anything I would really consider to be a commerical product. I simply enjoy coding, it's fun and a great learning experiance.

I could understand why one would open such a site because of the demand of individual support that is required. TheGeek is a perfect example, he doesn't charge users for the code and the features the product comes with. He charges a small fee for greate individual support.

Anyway, thats just my $0.02.

[Revan]

Originally Posted by SirAdrian

However, under no circumstances, should a free hack become a paid hack. Support is one issue, but if the entire script becomes commercialized, it is betrayal.

So lemme get this straight; you would rather see a hack be abandoned due to [insert reason] than to see it go from free to paid?

[Adrian Schneider]

Originally Posted by Revan

So lemme get this straight; you would rather see a hack be abandoned due to [insert reason] than to see it go from free to paid?

If users end up having to remove or pay for the hack when they originally downloaded it for free, yes. If he is unable to support it though, charging for premium support is okay with me.

[Revan]

Originally Posted by SirAdrian

If users end up having to remove or pay for the hack when they originally downloaded it for free, yes. If he is unable to support it though, charging for premium support is okay with me.

Well I would assume users would be free to use the current version they are running and make modifications for their own site for free.
I don't see how anyone could remove their hack and make hacks paid retroactively either

[Adrian Schneider]

Talent, I suppose... lol