Paid for mods from a non-coders POV

[RacerX]

Originally Posted by filburt1

To take it to the extreme, if the hacks were allowed here but an insertion fee or a commision of each sale (PayPal could be a processor and automatically deposit a cut to Jelsoft and direct the rest towards the modification author), Jelsoft would not only see an increase in license sales but a higher net profit per sale.

Finally, after paying $160 or even $85 for a product, many do not hesitate to pay less than $50 to add a major new feature to it such as a photo album, webmail, arcade, personal web hosting, whatever. I just don't see the logic in Jelsoft so steadfastly determined to block official channels of extending their product when it directly benefits them.

I think charging an insertion fee or even brokering the sale would be more than fair. I know some won't like the brokering idea but I also feel that jelsoft as well as everyone would benefit.

To deny these people in my mind is only going to slow vbulletin down. Heck, how many hacks have been incorportated later into vBulletin? No offense to the guru's designing vBulletin but a lot of benefit has come from coders creating hacks.. Wouldn't it just give them a better selection to work with in the future, or would this limit them? Not sure but thinking out loud.. Either way, I think having it available is better than not having it at all.

[Natch]

Nothing is preventing people from releasing paid for hacks - they just can't RELEASE them here - they can release a lite version which has basic features and then release somewhere else a paid for version with fuller features - this is fine ...

[RacerX]

Yes, but how do we know what they are offering and who they are? Knowing that is one of the barriers I would like to see overcome.

[MindTrix]

i guess i was right in my reply, i did miss understand the post. But blah maybe there should be a forum just for payed hacks, but we all know what will happen. There will be thousands of posts saying "What? I have to pay for this?" then there will be huge arguments etc.

You mention people paying for something to be added to make their forum unique, thats true, however im paying alot of money for someone to help me make a wanted hack, and i plan on releasing it for free here

[13th_Disciple]

I have done Java programming, Visual Basic, some C++ and little PL/SQL.. I have never made 50 dollars an hour.. That kind of arguement won't work.. While customized work is generally more expensive, try not to price yourself right out of most people's price range right from the get go..

and free often does work.. FreeBSD has worked for me relentlessly.. Nowhere near the same scale and it's comparing apples to oranges, but it is free.. There is a ton of opensource apps/projects that are as good as or better than their paid counterparts.. Does that mean they are bad? No, it means someone devotes time, energy, effort and their personal commitment to a project for the benefit of others.. I agree that sometimes there are things worth paying for, but sometimes, there aren't..

also, the arguement about "you paid for the forum script" is basically crap too.. A ton of the license holders are people with little to no money to spend on customized pieces of software.. Buying the script itself is a big deal.. I don't like spending the bread on it, personally.. But I was used to it, so I did..

I don't mind paid for hacks/mods/projects.. But I am just as open, if not more so, to open projects.. I prefer collaboration vs proprietary.. I realize that is not what a greater majority think, but at the same time, I have never run with the greater majority, either.. IMO, add your paid hacks to your sig, promote them on your site, and allow a bit of leeway on discussing the paid hacks here.. But don't release them here.

As I said, this is just my opinion, and it is like the proverbial a$$hole.. we all have one and most stink..

[Natch]

Well said 13th_D - bravo!

[Brad]

We used to allow people to post their services on vBt, only a few of the actual posting members ever made a thread in that forum, more often then not it was someone who never contributed to the community attempting to promote their service.

These people, imho take away to much from the contributing community, we are talking bandwidth and resources here. I agree with most everyone else, promote them on your site, link them in your sig, disscuss them all you want. Just don't take it as far as releasing modifications here cleints must pay for, if you are charging for a script I would asume you would'nt need to use vBulletin.org to support your users.

I forget whom brought up the point but, if you would release more hacks if you could promote your services why aren't you doing it now? IMHO the more code you release here for free, the more respected you become within this community, and asuming your code is clean im sure you could snag a few clients because of it.

Honestly if it where you would you approch someone you did'nt know or someone that has coded a few hacks you have tried yourself?

[RacerX]

I by NO means want to see free hack work end... We have what we have in vB now because of the work done by free coders yesterday... I definitely am against the idea of everyone charging or it going completely in that direction, and I can also understand the possible fear that everyone might want to end up charging for every little thing and that will be that...

Again, what I am talking about is either a directory or forum where paid coders can talk about things, advertise or whatnot. Just one small area, and I do think it is totally fair that if they are selling their work via vB.org or any other official vb site they should have to pay to advertise.

Once more, I ask you all this... Would you rather not have a hack at all or have the option of paying for one? That is the real question here for some of you. Because the bottom line is some of these hacks are never going to be created unless someone is paying for it.. I for one can't afford to pay $50.00/hr for 20 hours worth of coding very often.

Originally Posted by Brad.loo

I forget whom brought up the point but, if you would release more hacks if you could promote your services why aren't you doing it now? IMHO the more code you release here for free, the more respected you become within this community, and asuming your code is clean im sure you could snag a few clients because of it.

Brad,
Most people don't have the time to invest into designing the higher end hacks I am talking about. If you are a kid and have hours after school to burn, no rent or other bills, you got the time. If you are out on your own, you have limited time to spend on this type of thing. I know the guy that I contract has made a lot of free hacks around here... He is very well respected... It is also not reasonable to think that he can spend 20 hours on my project for free.

Again, don't take this as a move on free hacks... That's not it at all... BUT how many hacks have been created per request for no charge since vb3 has been released?? Not NEARLY as many and my friends have been asking for simple stuff like someone to port existing hacks... Heck, everyone wants a nice stats program like Bane's but has he even updated / ported it yet? How long have we been waiting? I bet if I wagged $50.00 in his face he or someone else would then do it. So, then we have the hack so many of us have been waiting for. BECAUSE I was willing to motivate someone to do it. Lets take it a bit further. Would that hack be worth $5.00 to you all rather than not having it at all? This would also be motivation to some that are otherwise NOT inclined to work any more..

So... one last time... Would you rather not have it at all or have the option to pay? Do you not see my point?

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by RacerX

Heck, everyone wants a nice stats program like Bane's but has he even updated / ported it yet? How long have we been waiting? I bet if I wagged $50.00 in his face he or someone else would then do it.

I ported vBStats to vB3 in last october. I asked Bane for permission to release it but he said "No, I will do this on my own".
As this is his hack I have to accept the decision and cannot release it

[Emmy2]

Interesting discussion....I'm not a coder either but I've installed many free hacks that have been released here as well as contracted out to have hacks made for a fee. It seems to me the release of free hacks is trickling down to less and less...and responses to requests for free modifications are pretty much non-existant. I have never had a reply to a request for a free modifiction, even what I think are relatively simple ones. Sometimes, you have to adjust to the changing market, not try and stem the tide or paddle against the current. What might have worked in the early days of vbulletin (lots of people contributing free hacks for prestige etc.) just doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

If there seems to be such an internal conflict about releasing paid hacks here what about a new site to sell hacks? vbulletinforhire.com or something like that (unless there's something like that already that I don't know about). In order to be allowed to 'advertise' your paid hacks you'd have to have first contributed some free hacks to the vbulletin.org community. There could be a rating system (like ebay) where coders could accumulate positive or negative reputations based on the quality of their work and timely delivery so that people looking for coders aren't blindly selecting people either and hoping for the best. Separating the two sites would also work for the vbulletin owner...if they go to vbulletin.org they know they can find free hacks...if they go to vbulletinforhire.com they know they will be paying for hacks, so no surprises. In a way it would just be pooling all the paid hacks into one place, instead of making users visit the individual websites of coders etc. Even cooler if it could be set up so that the hacks are posted just like here....here you have to have a vbulletin license to 'open' an attachment, on the paid hacks site you would have to make a payment before you could 'open' the hack attachment over there...this way you wouldn't have to go to the coder's site or have them send you the code...you can download it right from the paid hack site by 'paying' to open the attachment......okay, more ideas....all payments could actually go to the paid hack site which would divvy up the monies based on number of downloads per hack.....or here's another idea....what about a fee to join the site (annual membership) which gives you access to all the hacks on the site....then coders are paid based on the number of times their hacks are downloaded.

I dunno, just thinking out loud.