MyBB Community Forums

I have a question, what's the use of the MyBB credit in the templates of our MyBB copies? What will happen if one removes it? How will you know if they removed it or not?

(2010-11-15, 12:03 PM)E-Hero Kyle Wrote: [ -> ]How will you know if they removed it or not?

When we see it's not there??

It says this in the footer template:

MyBB is free software developed and maintained by a volunteer community. 
It would be much appreciated by the MyBB Group if you left the full copyright and "powered by" notice intact, to show your support for MyBB.  If you choose to remove or modify the copyright below, you may be refused support on the MyBB Community Forums.
					 
This is free software, support us and we'll support you.

You're legally free to remove the Powered By message that displays (I don't mean this quoted text, but the actual message that displays), but we won't support you here if you do.

According to some support staff, you'll deny support threads of forums without the Mybb footer code. How will you know that the copyright has been removed if there is no forum link present?

They can't but a lot of issues are hard to solve without one so people usually request them. And, it's right at the top of the support forum in bold that they should put it in their post.

Yeah support isn't going to get very far, in most cases we want to see the problem live, not by screenshot.

As per our support eligibility policy you will not receive support if you remove the copyright. We usually require a URL to your board while giving support so we will be able to see if you have removed it and then we have a system to track users who have been denied support.

That small link, although it is small, is also our biggest form of promotion and a good way to say thanks for the work we have put into MyBB so I strongly encourage you to keep it.

Well, thanks for the answers. I'm just curious since I tried before to remove it but I realized that it is just like ripping templates of psds

Personally speaking, when you use someone else's work, you credit the source. It's a morale and in some cases, legal, standpoint.

For MyBB, it's a moral thing. The creators of this forum provide it for free, what's a simple line of text as a way to say thank you really cost you?

Exactly. What people need to remember, and what a lot of people who edit/remove this text don't seem to realise, is this.

The developers have spent hundreds of hours developing the software.
The SQA team have spent hundreds of hours testing new features and bugs and making sure things work.
The support team have spent hundreds of hours supporting people using the software.
We do all of this in our free time and ask for nothing in return, if we didn't, we wouldn't be doing it.
Plus, when you ask for support, you're expecting us to take more time to help you with your problem.
If you expect us to do all of that for free, and you can't keep one small piece of text in the footer to give us credit for it, we shouldn't then be expected to give you any support, when you'd already still be getting updates. It's even worse when people edit the text to claim they wrote it, as what they're saying is that all of the thousands of man hours that have gone into this project, were actually done by them, and then they still expect us to support them with it, when apparently, they're the ones who wrote it.

I'm saying this as some people (very small minority), for some reason, don't understand why we do this, and think it's unfair.

You support us, we support you, as long as you also keep to the other rules for getting support.

Well, I do support you. Anyway, thanks for the info