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

[SupermanInNY]

I'm not happy with this notion.
I think vb.org has grown to be a great place to learn about new features and mods that were ought to have been thought of and implemented by vb.com in the first place.
I would rather donate to developers who developed code rather than pay a subscription or a fee to be able to access mods that may or may not be used by me.
I'm trying to understand the motive to ask us as members for the money.

If vb.com wants money from this, it is totally absurd.
This is the work of developers outside of vb.com and vb.com already got its license fees.
So, I'm not sure of who gets the money,. and/or how is it expected to be spent/divided?

Also, all the previous arguments about who is in charge of upgrades.. if this is a paid product, will this be upgraded and supported always?
The example provided by "if I find a word doc in google and it causes damage, will I hold google responsible". HUGE difference. Google doesn't charge. You do ask us to pay!

So my reasoning to object this are:

1. if vb.com wants a stake at this, they should implement these hecks as part of the built-in system and support it directly.
2. if vb.com charges money for the product, they should support it in future releases.
3. who gets the money and how do the great developers here get their share of this?

My vote is: NO,. I'm strongly against this!

-Alon.

[PolyMarauder]

As said before?

.org = free
.com = commercial

Make another site, don’t tarnish this one. I thought this community was all about helping each other out not for profit.

[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..

[Kesomir]

I am against this proposal.

I have always seen vb.org as a "by coders for coders" sharing community and this was a big factor in my decision to choose vbulletin over the competition.

It would be very sad to see this sharing community change into a for profit one. There are other places for that.

I have no problem finding and purchasing various paid hacks for vb if I feel that their service or quality earns that fee, but I can do that now with the existing system without the need to taint the community here at .org

/votes NO.

[libertate]

.org = free
.com = commercial

[mikaelweb]

.org = free
.com = commercial

[3dsoft]

All free plugins & extensions will vanish very soon, which is bad for vbulletin! Coders would think twice before releasing free hacks.

I don't like the idea!

[tehste]

point one: extra addons make vbulletin.
point one: by charging a fee for a listing system that is not guaranteed to make money for the coder the addon maker must take a financial gamble.
point one: without the free addons there wouldn't be a vb.org for the commercial addon listings to be put on (for a fee).
point one: there should be no fee.
point two: why not focus on the way free addons are added and sorted. The present system is horrible to browse, especially for newbs. Maybe then commercial hacks could sit with free hacks but with a big gold dollar to show its commercial maybe with a filter to hide commercial addons for certain users who find it acceptable to pay jelsoft for a forum code and not some individual with a unique idea to increase functionality a fraction of that amount for alot more hard work.

simply: hack releasers make vb.org what it is and vb so popular. There is no reason to charge coders for a listing...

[MidnightPyro]

I can't really see the motiviation behind this or this being a good thing at all. vBulletin.org was designed and has been a source for free and publically available open source modifications for as long as I've owned my vBulletin license. I admire the hack authors that take the time to code, debug, and test their hacks and release them for no cost. Think about it though. It allows commercial hack authors to submit their hacks to a considerably sized audience of vBulletin owners and gain exposure (and consequently...sales). They pay Jelsoft for the right to advertise their hacks. If the commercial hacks start making enough money to justify the fee, more and more hack authors will jump on the band wagon, moving over to commercial options instead of the free open source option. These hack authors will make a profit, Jelsoft will make a profit, and the end user will be forced to pay for hacks that were originally free. Whose winning here?

[Yorixz]

And to share MidnightPyro's opinion I also think this would greatly reduce the popularity of vBulletin/vB.org, I myself wouldn't have bought a license if there were this many free hacks/mods available, I'd have rather used phpBB then - huge hackdatabase but not the same quality as offered here now. I personally prefer donationware, if a hack is really good and very usable I'd rather donate afterwards than pay before seeing anything.