[split] The SUPER EPIC!! debate about paid MyBB modifications!

[Harry]

Thread split from here


One of the BIG negatives of MYBB is how that place is managed. Problem is too many staff connected to stuff outside the mybb forums that really conflicts with the opensource idea which IS what MYBB is supposed to be about. Said it before and i'll say it again. That IS what is holding MYBB back and why PHPBB will ALWAYS have a edge despite MYBB having a superior product. Some think it has to do with being cheap if people have issues with the paid plugins etc. Has zero to do with that ( in my case ) and more to do with how it is a contradiction to be promoting them on a forum that is supposed to be about free/opensource. Unfortunately many still don't get that. Ofcourse you don't see hardly any of the team pushing open source either and again i suspect that is because a number of them are tied into the paid plugins in some form or another. Sorry but that shouldn't be. Hate to break it to a few but PHPBB did not become as big as it has off the crappy software they put out. I wonder if someone can tell me how they did? Keep in mind IPB/SMF etc was all free alternatives back then. Only one who wasn't around was MYBB. So it is not because they are the oldest so try again.

Sorry but there WILL always be conflict on that forum as long as they have paid plugins there on that forum. That is because many of those who are into the opensource way and understand the meaning of it wont agree with them being there and ofcourse those who don't feel like paying period. Ofcourse the paid plugin authors will continue to assault people there ( calling them cheap etc etc etc )  who don't agree with them as well which will lead to conflict itself.

So it is my opinion that they need some major changes. If not i suspect MYBB will never get the popularity that those like phpbb has enjoyed despite mybb having a superior product. It is a shame too because i imagine this is what keeps MYBB from attracting sponsors and or those that can really donate to the project like phpbb has. Sorry but if MYBB thinks that the paid plugin sites can make up there difference then they are sadly mistaken. Again see phpbb. The paid stuff on the forums needs to go and more promotion needs to be done for opensource. That would be a good start. People should not be told they are cheap for asking for a free alternative to a paid plugin in the request forum. Someone SHOULD step in and help get them out and NOT be told by a staff member that one can pay 5-10 or whatever for it etc etc etc. That is NOT promoting opensource. I suspect if mybb actually promotes the opensource way then there will be those that come who will. This ofcourse as well will end all the constant bickering etc that goes on in the community forums. Those ofcourse who still wanna charge can do so but can advertise their site like everyone else via the showcase forum and that is it or in their sigs. Ofcourse they will have to o bide by the showcase forum rules as well like everyone else. DO THAT and MYBB gets 1,000x better and it's popularity explodes etc etc etc. Lastly MYBB staff should NEVER be sending people to offsites ( outside MYBB ) for help etc. I dont care if it is for plugins/help etc. They should be promoting MYBB and not someone elses site.

And sorry but it is never good to have hacksites as the main contributor to the software. YES i know they are helping but to the GENERAL PUBLIC  it does not look good. I am pretty sure it makes many admins very uncomfortable. And they should not be even posting about such places either on the community forums.

If that doesn't work then maybe MYBB needs to rethink itself with the license etc. However MYBB had that before and well we see how that worked out. Sorry but going halfway is not gonna cut it. Either need to go totally free or totally paid. Halfway will just continue the problems no matter what license the software has. JMHO

Wanted to add. Make no mistakes about it.. I love MYBB the product and do think the support is great. Sorry if my post offends anyone. It is more of suggestions on what MYBB should do to help with what i think are image problems for the software.

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

(05-11-2010 11:29 AM)Harry Wrote:  One of the BIG negatives of MYBB is how that place is managed. Problem is too many staff connected to stuff outside the mybb forums that really conflicts with the opensource idea which IS what MYBB is supposed to be about. Said it before and i'll say it again. That IS what is holding MYBB back and why PHPBB will ALWAYS have a edge despite MYBB having a superior product. Some think it has to do with being cheap if people have issues with the paid plugins etc. Has zero to do with that ( in my case ) and more to do with how it is a contradiction to be promoting them on a forum that is supposed to be about free/opensource.

The whole paid plugin debacle is perhaps a reason why I don't like contributing to the community.  Furthermore, the large majority of paid plugins there are crappy bits of code which probably take at most 30 minutes to write up - many I could probably do in about 5-10 minutes.  There are more complicated plugins there, but these are clearly outnumbered (arguably, you could say most of my plugins here are small and simple, which makes sense since larger modules take longer to write), and many of these small bits of code are what sway people over.
Furthermore, often performance and security is overlooked with these paid plugins, and also, this form of restriction affects the amount of criticism that can be made to a crappy piece of code.  To give an example, when I was developing MyPlaza, I did bother to scan over labrocca's MYPS plugin, which he was avidly promoting.  Within 3 minutes of scanning over the code, I found 2 SQL injection exploits (and I wasn't really looking for any).  The plugin used to run queries in loops, which is horrible for performance (I believe this was changed, but I have not examined current versions).  Furthermore, the code was horribly indented, there's a lot of duplication of functionality (redundancy is usually a bad thing!) and various things were implemented in absurdly unusual ways.  Considering how long it existed before I took a look at the code clearly shows the community's general lack of ability to really understand quality code as opposed to 5 minute crap.
To see others earning from this crap, which is probably being marketed more than it's actually developed, is quite a strong disincentive to really contribute.

Ultimately, I don't care what people do with their own products, but as you said, the fact that it is promoted on the forums, as well as on the MyBB download page is a disincentive to bother contributing.  I can understand the staff wanting to try to promote 3rd party development regardless of it being paid or free, but I think they are really not seeing the big picture and the more subtle implications this is causing.

(05-11-2010 11:29 AM)Harry Wrote:  If that doesn't work then maybe MYBB needs to rethink itself with the license etc. However MYBB had that before and well we see how that worked out. Sorry but going halfway is not gonna cut it. Either need to go totally free or totally paid. Halfway will just continue the problems no matter what license the software has. JMHO

That's a bit of a thing to - the general thought process still seems to be in line with the old license.  Open source is about being open, but the staff don't seem to be strongly that way.

(05-11-2010 11:29 AM)Harry Wrote:  Wanted to add. Make no mistakes about it.. I love MYBB the product and do think the support is great. Sorry if my post offends anyone. It is more of suggestions on what MYBB should do to help with what i think are image problems for the software.

Haha, feel free to say what you want here
I don't really care, as hardly anyone visits and I personally believe in freedom of speech etc (as long as it's reasonable).
Feel free to flame random people if you want

[Harry]

Thanks. And that is NOT what i wanted to see BUT it does not surprise me considering the attitude problems which i know all to well. Called over confidence.. What happens when you get people who are only in it for the money and or looking to make a quick buck off a opensource project rather then go out and get a real job. Sorry but i have a low opinion of those who take advantages of others by doing such crap. And yes they are taking advantage because of the lack of plugin authors and because MYBB aids them as well by doing such crap as having all the paid plugins sites on that page and allowing them to post their crap on the main forums and then sending people to those sites. As you said a number of them are small and silly and certainly not deserving of a price tag NO MATTER how many come with the subscription. That gets on my nerves too. The oh you are getting a bargain because we have alot of plugins and you are only paying one small price for them all. Give me a damn break. As said they should not even be listed on a pay site period but they are and it is because they know nobody is around to put out a free version. One guy has a stupid Meta Tags plugin on his paid site. Just WOW! What a loser to be trying to get money for something like that. Tell's me as well the person is not too bright ( charging for something so stupid )  and thus does not instill confidence in his work. If it is not that then he is very arrogant to be charging for such a thing and thus again someone i would rather not do business with. No different then a terrible used car salesmen trying to sell you crap. Why i will NEVER subscribe to any of those sites. I wish others would follow along and avoid them too. They actually EVER contribute some code to the community and stop charging for BS and i will rethink it. Till then they can suck it. I would rather pay for IPB and get the feature already built in and better coded/supported then pay one of them a nickle.

Ofcourse now they will get even more protection ( attitudes will get worse ) from the MYBB staff because the money they are sending in for that domain donation drive. Thus i suspect it will get even worse overall and certainly don't expect to see any changes in the near future. Good thing i don't need alot of stuff/plugins  because if i did my forum software would have changed. Again if you are gonna charge for something make sure it is decent and not crap. What that means is something that is DIFFERENT and alot of care was put into it's development. Sorry but most plugins for forum software do not fall into that. What does fall into that is stuff that is done on a per site thing and thus personalized for that site. That is what i would and DO pay for. This is why people always have charged for decent themes even on systems like phpbb. Most of them are personalized for the sites/people that buy them. Again a number of the themes on MYBB being charged for shouldn't be either. Again people are taking advantage of the situation and it is bs. Wanna know what a good theme is see Skin by Dragonfly.. They do REAL professional skins for IPB. That is what i would pay for and that is what should be charged for. Plus I have seen a far better selection of free themes that would be more worthy then the paid ones some are charging for. Again a few trying to make a quick buck.. Oh looky i added a drop down menu and so i can charge 5-10-25 or whatever for the theme. NOT! That is NOT what makes a theme. They should not even be listed on the forum. Again only stuff that contributes to the project  ( thus shared in the downloads section ) should be posted on the forums. If they have a site they wanna do support at fine but the plugin release thread will have that plugin available on mybb. No exceptions.

I probably notice it more and have a different opinion/attitude because i have been around long before there was a MYBB and have seen a number of opensource projects grow from nothing and remember well what it was and still is ( in most cases ) all about. Again phpbb/FF etc got where they are thanks to their dedication to opensource development which is about exchanging and sharing ideas to help better the project and or script. Not about trying to milk people for every little dime they have as a growing number of these plugin authors are now doing. And yeah it pisses me off because as said i think MYBB is a great script and has tons of potential but instead stupidity is ruling the day because of friendships with the plugin authors and a load of other personal crap and thus the attitudes. I also think lack of maturity has a bit to do with this and thus the attitudes and lack of understanding on such issues. I'll leave it at that.


And yeah look at that 3rd party list. Sad to say the least. Again i don't think they realize how ridiculous it looks to have them there on such a project. Where in the hell are the sites who are opensource minded? Not a single  one.

And sorry man but i really wish you would not let them win. Your quitting is basically giving them what they want and thus less competition and what is worse is you atleast know what you are doing. I really do hope you rethink this. Atleast maybe keep this site going and adding stuff to it. I admit i can understand your lack of desire for the MYBB forum but atleast here you can avoid that drama.

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

Eh, I guess that's your opinion.  Personally, people don't have any obligation to release anything.  What you say may be easy to say if you don't actually develop anything, but from people who do, it does take time and effort.  I understand not everyone is as fluent a coder as I am, and they may take more effort to achieve something.

Surely, having it available and charging for it is better than no-one releasing it at all, right?
I understand people trying to justify the time they spend, that's fine.  I personally don't think that the amount charged can justifiably cover the time spent on development, but people have different tastes and needs.  I would earn a lot more from my job than I probably would if I tried selling my plugins.

Again, I don't care whether or not people decide to sell their stuff.  They don't have any obligation to contribute back at all, and they are free to do whatever they want with their work - it's purely their decision.
I was just talking about the general environment being negative to people who don't want to charge anything.

But anyway, your issue arises due to lack of competition.  I don't think promoting paid plugins is a particularly bad thing in their situation, but promoting them to the level they do now is too much IMO.


Also, sorry to say this, but I don't make plugins to be in some sort of hypothetical battle with "evil" paid plugin developers.  If I want a "battle", I'd go play an online game.  I do this out of enjoyment's sake, and ultimately don't care about "giving them what they want".  The environment is actually only one factor why I'm losing interest in this.  Other reasons include the fact that PHP is a piss easy language and doesn't really present many challenges, and thus, isn't particularly intellectually stimulating.
As stated earlier, I pretty much only develop for my own website, and I don't mind providing some support, especially to exceptionally helpful members such as RateU

[Harry]

As usual my post came across wrong. :sigh:

And sorry but the attitude of oh they put this time and effort into it does not wash with these plugins. It is WHY MYBB has gotten like it has. Again where was this attitude a few years back? It was not there. Now everyone is trying to make a quick buck and nothing more. Has zero to do with the amount of work going into them. Most of them back then were happy with donations to their sites or perhaps even landing a job in this field via someone discovering their talent.Most however did it to help further the project. Now they wanna take it a step further and on open source projects to boot and i will never ever agree with it.

And mark my words too.. As long as this keep spiraling out of control forums will be on the decline as places like facebook take over. Can already see it happening. Sorry but to charge for such a stupid thing is gonna push most of the hobbyist sites out of the market. Even those which do take in income have limits as well. Everything is gonna be commercialized and thus back to where we were at before the internet.

Anyways..  I appreciate what you have done and hope you continue doing what you have in some form. If i can help in some way let me know.

Thanks..

[Pirata Nervo]

(05-11-2010 04:32 PM)Harry Wrote:  Thanks. And that is NOT what i wanted to see BUT it does not surprise me considering the attitude problems which i know all to well. Called over confidence.. What happens when you get people who are only in it for the money and or looking to make a quick buck off a opensource project rather then go out and get a real job. Sorry but i have a low opinion of those who take advantages of others by doing such crap. And yes they are taking advantage because of the lack of plugin authors and because MYBB aids them as well by doing such crap as having all the paid plugins sites on that page and allowing them to post their crap on the main forums and then sending people to those sites. As you said a number of them are small and silly and certainly not deserving of a price tag NO MATTER how many come with the subscription. That gets on my nerves too. The oh you are getting a bargain because we have alot of plugins and you are only paying one small price for them all. Give me a damn break. As said they should not even be listed on a pay site period but they are and it is because they know nobody is around to put out a free version. One guy has a stupid Meta Tags plugin on his paid site. Just WOW! What a loser to be trying to get money for something like that. Tell's me as well the person is not too bright ( charging for something so stupid )  and thus does not instill confidence in his work. If it is not that then he is very arrogant to be charging for such a thing and thus again someone i would rather not do business with. No different then a terrible used car salesmen trying to sell you crap. Why i will NEVER subscribe to any of those sites. I wish others would follow along and avoid them too. They actually EVER contribute some code to the community and stop charging for BS and i will rethink it. Till then they can suck it. I would rather pay for IPB and get the feature already built in and better coded/supported then pay one of them a nickle.

Ofcourse now they will get even more protection ( attitudes will get worse ) from the MYBB staff because the money they are sending in for that domain donation drive. Thus i suspect it will get even worse overall and certainly don't expect to see any changes in the near future. Good thing i don't need alot of stuff/plugins  because if i did my forum software would have changed. Again if you are gonna charge for something make sure it is decent and not crap. What that means is something that is DIFFERENT and alot of care was put into it's development. Sorry but most plugins for forum software do not fall into that. What does fall into that is stuff that is done on a per site thing and thus personalized for that site. That is what i would and DO pay for. This is why people always have charged for decent themes even on systems like phpbb. Most of them are personalized for the sites/people that buy them. Again a number of the themes on MYBB being charged for shouldn't be either. Again people are taking advantage of the situation and it is bs. Wanna know what a good theme is see Skin by Dragonfly.. They do REAL professional skins for IPB. That is what i would pay for and that is what should be charged for. Plus I have seen a far better selection of free themes that would be more worthy then the paid ones some are charging for. Again a few trying to make a quick buck.. Oh looky i added a drop down menu and so i can charge 5-10-25 or whatever for the theme. NOT! That is NOT what makes a theme. They should not even be listed on the forum. Again only stuff that contributes to the project  ( thus shared in the downloads section ) should be posted on the forums. If they have a site they wanna do support at fine but the plugin release thread will have that plugin available on mybb. No exceptions.

I probably notice it more and have a different opinion/attitude because i have been around long before there was a MYBB and have seen a number of opensource projects grow from nothing and remember well what it was and still is ( in most cases ) all about. Again phpbb/FF etc got where they are thanks to their dedication to opensource development which is about exchanging and sharing ideas to help better the project and or script. Not about trying to milk people for every little dime they have as a growing number of these plugin authors are now doing. And yeah it pisses me off because as said i think MYBB is a great script and has tons of potential but instead stupidity is ruling the day because of friendships with the plugin authors and a load of other personal crap and thus the attitudes. I also think lack of maturity has a bit to do with this and thus the attitudes and lack of understanding on such issues. I'll leave it at that.


And yeah look at that 3rd party list. Sad to say the least. Again i don't think they realize how ridiculous it looks to have them there on such a project. Where in the hell are the sites who are opensource minded? Not a single  one.

And sorry man but i really wish you would not let them win. Your quitting is basically giving them what they want and thus less competition and what is worse is you atleast know what you are doing. I really do hope you rethink this. Atleast maybe keep this site going and adding stuff to it. I admit i can understand your lack of desire for the MYBB forum but atleast here you can avoid that drama.

I didn't read the whole post, you should use the Enter key more often, it's hard to read your posts right now, it's getting late here

Just wanted to say that apart from My Achievements, I do not "make paid plugins"  to be rich like you're saying.
I did it for two reasons:
* Pay the host and domain - I make plugins, host them on my site, give free support to lots of users and I gain nothing? I'd rather not release anything and use them on my sites only than doing everything for free and losing money.
* I can't be bored to give support to stupid people. Sorry but it's true, a lot of MyBB users are too young and can't understand basic things and I usually had to answer about 5 stupid questions (which were answered in the documentation but people didn't bother to read it) every day when I supported MyPlaza Turbo. Plus if I had released all plugins I made for free it would be something like 20~30 stupid questions per day. I have better things to do than answering questions all day. So that was a plus for paid plugins, people were older and had more experience (theoretically) and even if they asked stupid questions, they paid for support so I had to answer them.

I also believe in freedom of speech and I'm not in agreement with the MyBB staff right now.

[Harry]

That is a good point about the kinds of people using MYBB. It is a question of why? This ofcourse is open to debate but i think the quick get rich scheme attraction of the software is a part of it. NOT SAYING you are one of them. Not many of those with a serious site ( large ) use mybb and again i believe this is a big part of the reason. Why should they have to deal with so many 3rd party sites etc to get what they already have? Plus most of the larger ones have been around a long time such as i have and thus see my point about it being stupid to charge for some of the stupid stuff people are charging for. Why again despite having a crappy product phpbb continues to thrive especially with the larger sites. Sorry but again i say this quick get rich crap is a big part of this problem you speak of. Most of those who know better ( older wiser users ) would never even think of charging for alot of the crap people are now charging for on mybb. Why again this is not a issue at phpbb and other large opensource projects. JMHO

[Harry]

Post copied from here

Sorry but some cannot handle control and a very strong case has been made for this for a long time before this happened with yumi. It is a well known FACT about certain peoples attitudes over there. One of the other big reasons people have avoided mybb. Look at all the development sites/forums such as Taz etc. Sorry but some people are better off BEHIND the scenes and not in the public eye and or in a position of power. There is those who just cannot handle it. Not saying they are stupid or anything of the such. Just they are not mature enough to be in such situations. Nothing more. Again the close ties to the owner etc of MYBB is not helping the situation. Friendships can blind people till the bitter end. I learned long ago that in business you have to keep your personal friendships with co-workers to a certain distance and cannot let them avoid the rules. If you do productivity etc goes down and everything becomes a mess because everyone decides hey they don't have to follow the rules and so why should i? Yes call me a prick as i have fired friends and i would do it again. Even though the software is free it is still a product on the market that is trying to attract a share of the market and thus is a business and needs to be treated as such.

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

(05-12-2010 06:33 AM)Harry Wrote:  And sorry but the attitude of oh they put this time and effort into it does not wash with these plugins.

I'd have to disagree partially.  They do put in effort (example, why don't you release free code/themes?) and I can understand needs to be compensated, as, for example, I may rather spend my efforts/time on playing games or going out.

(05-12-2010 06:33 AM)Harry Wrote:  It is WHY MYBB has gotten like it has. Again where was this attitude a few years back? It was not there. Now everyone is trying to make a quick buck and nothing more. Has zero to do with the amount of work going into them. Most of them back then were happy with donations to their sites or perhaps even landing a job in this field via someone discovering their talent.Most however did it to help further the project.

There's a few factors at play here - one is initial motivation, and being "initial", they don't last.
When you start developing something, it can be exciting, but after a while, you can lose interest.  This happens to me a lot.

The problem is primarily lack of competition.  If every paid plugin had a free alternative, I don't see paid sites lasting too long (there will be those that do support it, but this won't be a major issue).
The fact that this isn't the case means that some people have a comparative advantage in the "bargaining process".  I think management could possibly try encouraging competition by attracting more 3rd party theme and plugin developers, but they seem to be more preoccupied with "obtaining professionalism" or "promoting the MyBB brand" to care much about 3rd party development.
Perhaps I have things wrong and they have some hidden agenda on this - there certainly is a number of possibilities, but I'm just saying this from my point of view.

(05-12-2010 09:29 AM)Harry Wrote:  Again the close ties to the owner etc of MYBB is not helping the situation. Friendships can blind people till the bitter end. I learned long ago that in business you have to keep your personal friendships with co-workers to a certain distance and cannot let them avoid the rules. If you do productivity etc goes down and everything becomes a mess because everyone decides hey they don't have to follow the rules and so why should i? Yes call me a prick as i have fired friends and i would do it again. Even though the software is free it is still a product on the market that is trying to attract a share of the market and thus is a business and needs to be treated as such.

Another thing is that I'm not sure whether they are aiming for a business like structure or a community structure.
From what I've seen, they're trying to be more business-like, which I ultimately don't find appealing.  I get plenty of business environment at work and I don't need any more of it outside work.
I personally believe in more laid-back, community driven environments for open source projects where the developers are working for free.  I'm not being paid to do anything, so I much prefer an environment which appeals to me, has less rules etc.
If you want "professionalism" or a business environment, I expect to get paid for that.

[Harry]

The business structure? I agree with what you are saying and what i too would prefer. The issue is what you/i want is lacking and i believe it has to do with how it is ran. Not sure i am getting my point across well? Sorry. Point blank.. Thing is they need to lose a couple of people. That would help the project and or business or whatever you wanna call it. Nothing wrong with promoting the brand but another thing when someone or some try taking it in another direction that does not fit what the project is supposed to be about which in MYBB case is open source.. Am i making sense? basically they need to lose those who are not for opensource development and that sort of thing. Again i say those paid plugin authors is NOT what will drive people ( or the type they want ) to use MYBB and instead will chase more off as has happened to you.

Look at it this way. What does paid plugins really encourage? It encourages more to do the same. Oh look i can make a fast buck so hell why not just charge for these plugins. Now what does that do for encouraging people to SHARE and expand ideas on how to make the project bigger better from the INSIDE? It doesn't because those paid plugin developers are only concerned about one thing and one thing only.. Their pockets. Sure they may make suggestions to help better the software in *some* areas but most who do will do so to benifit them and not nobody else. In the end you end up with this and not such a fun place to be. Go to ANY opensource project and anyone can see who has the worst attitudes and that being MYBB and i am 100% certain it has to do with the competitive nature of the paid plugin authors and thus the paid plugins. Anyone care to prove me wrong then please do so. They are a thorn in the side of mybb and i can careless how much any of them helped MYBB to get the mybb.com name. Most did it for themselves anyways in hopes of drawing more people to use the software ( will be alot easier to find now ) so they can buy their stupid plugins and nothing more. Not a soul can convince me of otherwise. Getting that domain will not change a thing except open the door for more to see the issues that surround the project because of the paid plugin authors and the general attitudes on the community forums. Only way that changes is if MYBB opens their eyes and starts promoting the opensource way and getting rid of the paid stuff off the whole site. We can review this topic in a year or two as any other that i said to review over the past few years. Yeah it has been almost two years since this crap invaded MYBB and i said then what i say now about how they would hurt mybb and i believe the stuff mentioned in this thread proves that without a doubt. Only thing that has changed is the attitudes which have gotten worse over there. Can thank that to the developers/staff of MYBB who is encouraging the paid way and protecting them guy from all negative feedback and letting them slam whoever they want on the forum there.