(2021-10-22, 05:03 AM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]There has been some discussion about adding support for commercial plugins/themes to the Extend part of the forums, but it was a little while back and hasn't resolved yet. A few objections/issues were raised. [Edit: also, check out the discussion on Issue Bounties & Funding, which has just been revived, and feel free to say your piece there.]
Also: there's not a lot of demand for paid plugins. I have one myself which I thought would be reasonably successful as it's a highly requested feature (conversation-style private messaging), but after over a year, I've made only a handful of sales. Talking with another paid plugin developer for MyBB, it sounds like this is typical. To make money from MyBB, it seems custom plugins are the way to go, but I'm not sure how much of a living you can make out of even that.
Maybe it's better for commercial themes. There might be more demand there, but I don't know.
People don't work so mybb has to find ways to earn some money in order to have people who constantly find its development.
Forums are no longer used so third-party plguins are always better not to use them.
If Mybb decides to sell his program at a not too high price, for example 50 euros a year he could work on the updates and I'm sure many people could be willing to give him 50 euros.
For example, now I have to transfer my big forum made with vbulletin ...
I like Mybb a lot but it is not reliable so I have to buy ipb which costs a lot.
It's been discussed numerous times - working on core would be the priority over official plugins like a gallery anyway, and selling a product would need to come with priority support, meaning there would need to be at least 2 full time people paid a full time salary, which would need a lot of sales at $50 for something that could just be forked and provided for free, especially for an ageing codebase compared to modern software which is going to be difficult to attract developers to. Whenever this discussion comes up it's easy to see who has and hasn't actually been involved with the development and support of paid software before.
(2021-10-22, 10:36 AM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]It's been discussed numerous times - working on core would be the priority over official plugins like a gallery anyway, and selling a product would need to come with priority support, meaning there would need to be at least 2 full time people paid a full time salary, which would need a lot of sales at $50 for something that could just be forked and provided for free, especially for an ageing codebase compared to modern software which is going to be difficult to attract developers to. Whenever this discussion comes up it's easy to see who has and hasn't actually been involved with the development and support of paid software before.
Today those who collaborate with mybb do it for free ...
$ 50 for 1000 licenses is $ 50,000 every year.
Think how well they could work and more knowing they will take a few dollars ...
They could add the gallery to $ 20 and that would be another $ 20,000 a year.
They could also make themes for $ 15 and that would be another $ 15,000 more a year.
Prices are obviously an example and I put them very low ...
People spend on up-to-date services.
InvisionCommunity costs $ 250 for the license and $ 40 for renewal every 6 months and has thousands and thousands of active licenses.
I myself was forced to buy a license from them because mybb is not updated since after more than a year, nothing is known about the release of 1.9.
For the gallery I paid another 150 dollars and 15 dollars for renewal every 6 months ...
The issue with charging for the core is, aside from the obvious upkeep associated with selling a commercial product (MyBB was originally a commercial product way back before any of us were here!), that you're removing a still decent free option from the market. There's immense value in keeping free options around, as despite the fact that MyBB seems to be the single most popular script on Earth for skid forums, it lowers the barrier to entry for a lot of people. Many of us likely wouldn't have even got to the point where we could invest in a paid solution (which I also did myself back in 2017) without that foothold in the arena that free, open-source solutions offer. As much as we who have experience lament it, free web hosting is still popular for exactly this reason as well--not everyone has the $250 to splash out for an IPS license, the $160 for a XenForo license and certainly not the $349 for a vBulletin 5 Connect license, since vBS charges a dumb lime premium for mobile support on an aging codebase.
So, despite our misgivings surrounding how the project is supported, there's still definite value in keeping it free.
People come to MyBB because it is free, if people wanted paid software they would go to xenForo, Vbulletin, IPB, etc.
With that being said there is still ways for MyBB to bring in some kind of income such as having a paid support option aside from the community support, having some paid official plugins, and they could do what phpBB does and allow users to opt into viglink which will also help support MyBB.
If MyBB became completely paid many would leave and go to options like phpBB which is actively developed.
(2021-10-26, 04:35 PM)Ricsca Wrote: [ -> ] (2021-10-22, 10:36 AM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]It's been discussed numerous times - working on core would be the priority over official plugins like a gallery anyway, and selling a product would need to come with priority support, meaning there would need to be at least 2 full time people paid a full time salary, which would need a lot of sales at $50 for something that could just be forked and provided for free, especially for an ageing codebase compared to modern software which is going to be difficult to attract developers to. Whenever this discussion comes up it's easy to see who has and hasn't actually been involved with the development and support of paid software before.
Today those who collaborate with mybb do it for free ...
$ 50 for 1000 licenses is $ 50,000 every year.
Think how well they could work and more knowing they will take a few dollars ...
They could add the gallery to $ 20 and that would be another $ 20,000 a year.
They could also make themes for $ 15 and that would be another $ 15,000 more a year.
Prices are obviously an example and I put them very low ...
People spend on up-to-date services.
InvisionCommunity costs $ 250 for the license and $ 40 for renewal every 6 months and has thousands and thousands of active licenses.
I myself was forced to buy a license from them because mybb is not updated since after more than a year, nothing is known about the release of 1.9.
For the gallery I paid another 150 dollars and 15 dollars for renewal every 6 months ...
That model is never going to work. It's unrealistic and naive. For starters, after corporate tax is paid on that $50,000, that doesn't even cover a single full time developer compared to what they'd get elsewhere. Then you'd have 1,000 paying customers who are going to expect a reasonable support SLA. Throw into it other plugins like a gallery, and theme development, and you'd have one developer supporting the whole software development, plugin development, theme development, and priority support, on their own, for thousands less than they could get at a regular job. It doesn't make sense. Launching commercial software from scratch needs either an injection of capital or someone with loads of money already who doesn't need an income.
The problem is that nobody is actually going to pay $50 for MyBB as it is now, certainly not 1000 people. You can't take software that's been free for 15+ years, start charing for it, and then expect 1000 people to pay for it. It's a chicken and egg situation, you need money to get the software to a point that makes it viable to charge the money for it that you need to maintain it.
If you think this model would work, you're welcome to fork MyBB, develop the features and plugins and themes, and charge $50 a licence, and see how you get on, it's all allowed under the licence. If it's as sustainable as it's made out to be, there should be no problem getting started with it.
Yeah, even though we plan to fork MyBB at 1.9's codebase eventually in order to go in a different direction, I'll say it -- we have no interest in charging premiums for things. That model is not gonna work, especially to compete with giants, even if they sell garbage like Xen.
At most, we may get a patreon and subscribestar going. Money isn't the biggest issue, really, it's that in general kids these days use angular or node or python or other BS -- they don't actually wanna do anything with the actual stuff people use. Like it or not, PHP, MariaDB and postgres are the bread and butter of the internet.
(2021-10-26, 07:37 PM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]That model is never going to work. It's unrealistic and naive. For starters, after corporate tax is paid on that $50,000, that doesn't even cover a single full time developer compared to what they'd get elsewhere. Then you'd have 1,000 paying customers who are going to expect a reasonable support SLA. Throw into it other plugins like a gallery, and theme development, and you'd have one developer supporting the whole software development, plugin development, theme development, and priority support, on their own, for thousands less than they could get at a regular job. It doesn't make sense. Launching commercial software from scratch needs either an injection of capital or someone with loads of money already who doesn't need an income.
The problem is that nobody is actually going to pay $50 for MyBB as it is now, certainly not 1000 people. You can't take software that's been free for 15+ years, start charing for it, and then expect 1000 people to pay for it. It's a chicken and egg situation, you need money to get the software to a point that makes it viable to charge the money for it that you need to maintain it.
If you think this model would work, you're welcome to fork MyBB, develop the features and plugins and themes, and charge $50 a licence, and see how you get on, it's all allowed under the licence. If it's as sustainable as it's made out to be, there should be no problem getting started with it.
I don't understand how one can deny the evidence!
mybb is about 10 years behind!
those few forums that have users migrate to invisioncommunity paying a lot of dollars and you are here writing that for the development of mybb you don't need money!
I spent $ 350 for ipb + gallery. If mybb were updated and asked me for example 150 I would have paid and like me many users.
mybb is dying so keep standing still while the world goes on ...
My 2 cents: If I were unhappy with the state of my forum software, I would look elsewhere. If my forum generated enough revenue, I would be willing to pay for licensed software. I don't understand how one can deny the evidence that MyBB fits a niche market successfully.
You are apparently happy with ipb + gallery.
I'm happy for you.
(2021-10-28, 12:34 PM)Ricsca Wrote: [ -> ] (2021-10-26, 07:37 PM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]That model is never going to work. It's unrealistic and naive. For starters, after corporate tax is paid on that $50,000, that doesn't even cover a single full time developer compared to what they'd get elsewhere. Then you'd have 1,000 paying customers who are going to expect a reasonable support SLA. Throw into it other plugins like a gallery, and theme development, and you'd have one developer supporting the whole software development, plugin development, theme development, and priority support, on their own, for thousands less than they could get at a regular job. It doesn't make sense. Launching commercial software from scratch needs either an injection of capital or someone with loads of money already who doesn't need an income.
The problem is that nobody is actually going to pay $50 for MyBB as it is now, certainly not 1000 people. You can't take software that's been free for 15+ years, start charing for it, and then expect 1000 people to pay for it. It's a chicken and egg situation, you need money to get the software to a point that makes it viable to charge the money for it that you need to maintain it.
If you think this model would work, you're welcome to fork MyBB, develop the features and plugins and themes, and charge $50 a licence, and see how you get on, it's all allowed under the licence. If it's as sustainable as it's made out to be, there should be no problem getting started with it.
I don't understand how one can deny the evidence!
mybb is about 10 years behind!
those few forums that have users migrate to invisioncommunity paying a lot of dollars and you are here writing that for the development of mybb you don't need money!
I spent $ 350 for ipb + gallery. If mybb were updated and asked me for example 150 I would have paid and like me many users.
mybb is dying so keep standing still while the world goes on ...
Okay, going to be honest: these posts have consistently read like you're trying to justify something. Don't, there's no need for it. You're happy with your purchase, as am I with my XenForo license.
If we WANT to find the project in such a way as to hire full-time developers, Godot is a good example to follow, being almost entirely funded via sponsorships and Patreon,
but we need a product first for that to be viable.