I released all my work - for MyBB and other platforms such as phpBB3 and just general web design layouts - under open source licenses such as the GPL and give it away free.
I still make money from them though - through donations, licensing, customised work and charging for support.
That being said, I have no problem with people charing to get access to plugins or themes - I too do sell other products "on the side"
I think some people do seem to think however that you can't make money by giving something away for free - totally wrong!
Quote:I know but more people will download it if it's free and outstanding. Which means that there will be bunch of people ready to donate huge amounts of money.
I don't believe that's true at all. I am sure you can ask Mybb about how great donations are. Maybe some people don't care about quantity of downloads. One of the benefits of a paid plugin is less downloads and that translates into better support because fewer people waste my time. You can dig up an old post where I say something similar as one of the reasons why I switched.
When I was offering everything for free...people expected my support time for free too. It made me want to just stop releasing. I personally thought it better to seek compensation and continue my work. Had I not gone paid...I wouldn't be here.
Quote:The best gift for plugin author is popularity
lol...that's the best? Popularity might work for Paris Hilton but no matter how popular I am as a programmer money doesn't come your way. Ask Ryan how often people give him a gift or donation. And yes...I had given him a gift last Christmas to show my appreciation.
Ryan Gordon Wrote:Nonetheless, taking your posts without indignation or animosity, I think the MyBB Group can stimulate the participation of this community. We are working to have a more "Open" development process. Everyone will probably be seeing some changes within the next few months.
We had about 11 pages of mostly civil discussion on the topic till Harry decided to enter the mix. Makes ya wonder how much this guy is really into the discussion and how much he is into stirring up trouble. It's a fine topic when tempered but it's ugly when people decide it's their way or everything sucks.
Well it's sad but it seems the guy is right.
MyBB- payed plugins-reality
MyBB- free plugins-dream
And labrocca yes you're right about the people bugging and requesting support. But shouldn't you have some moderators to do the job instead of you? To provide support to the users?
Anyway when i saw that MyBB developer is making payed plugin.... i don't have any comment.
When Steve Ballmer said:,, Linux/open source is like cancer" he was wrong. Commercial extensions programs and anything which extends programs feature and it's payed is a cancer to the open source community.
Doing support should be payed. Think of it. You're giving your time to support and that gives you option to charge for it.
To make the point clear to all: Neither will Labrocca release all his plugins for free, neither will MyBB plugins (most of them) be free.
And Bey Brad because of plugins you're paying for MyBB in some way. As i said in previous post, no matter how much modification does to the original program. Mybb should use Common Public License Version 1.0 (CPL)
For my site to function, I need a plugin that absolutely does not exist. I'm paying over $100 to have that plugin developed and I will probably not allow it to be released because I don't want people to get for free what I paid so much to have as a feature on my site.
I guess I am a cancer, then.
I don't think cancer is the word that should be used here, but think about how much you'd've had to pay if you had someone develop a whole forum software from scratch for you; instead you got it for free because it's Open Source. If you got a good plugin made, releasing it as Open Source so that the whole community benefits from it, would be a very nice donation.
I wish more people would embrace the idea of Open Source, but alas, it's not happening here.
I don't use restrictive / paid plugins, nor will I pay for themes that anyone can buy. However I don't mind paying for a design that was specifically made for me, and thus is unique to my site (which is what paid designs should be really).
People just expect everything for nothing now and I don't know why.
Honestly if MyBB decided to pull an IPB and have 2.0 become commercial(I wouldn't imagine this happening in anyway shape or form) I would buy it in a heart beat.
Now I wouldn't buy some of those already paid scripts because they offer nothing. Sure they are paid and may offer better support but their script is orange.
I in no way mind paying any body if I get quality. But, most of the sites popping up aren't quality and that's why I hope no one would pay for anything from them.
(2009-07-22, 09:01 AM)frostschutz Wrote: [ -> ]I don't use restrictive / paid plugins, nor will I pay for themes that anyone can buy. However I don't mind paying for a design that was specifically made for me, and thus is unique to my site (which is what paid designs should be really).
Would you release the theme you paid for as GPL so anyone could use it?
As i said in other post, i would only pay the theme if it looks good and if it was made just for my website. Modifications should be free. Hard working themes shouldn't. I don't think it would be the problem for MyBB team to have free plugins. It would only hurt plugin authors. For example: I won't buy Labrocca's Ficons no matter how good they are. I will just use the tutorial posted in tutorial section how to add Icon to each forum, which requires manual editing. And having modification just for one site is a selfish thing to do. Having theme isn't but having modification it is. Unless it's modification of payed product. The thing im now gonna tell isn't suggestion nor idea. If MyBB released all payed( i mean all plugins that are on payed sites) for free, the popularity of the script would grow so much that it would go to second place on google, plus it would give MyBB community a large portion of people and users interested to contribute. Think of it. It would be a reasonable marketing trick to do, thus putting you as the better product then SMF or PHPBB. The point is it would hurt plugin authors pocket but it would help MyBB( and no don't start about people donating to MyBB from payed plugins money) by getting more users who would contribute to project. It's on MyBB to choose the path. Both paths will be hard but only one will bring MyBB as the best Open Source Bulletin Board Script.
I just want to say this. SMF or PHPBB3 are very complex bulletin board scripts which have lot's of security issues while MyBB has zero. And it's usually patched very quickly. The reason because these boards are popular now are Modifications which are all free.
It's sad when you see mod or someone from the staff pointing to payed plugin and even more sadder if someone of them follows payed plugins route.
How can you say you'll pay for a theme but not a plugin? That's just crazy. Tons of work can go into making a plugin. Now I'll admit most deserve to need to be paid for but really. Plus, when you buy something from labrocca $5 for all of them not just one
.
Because theme is something that is unique to each site. And no i won't pay labrocca 5$ even if he provided 1000 MyBB plugins.