Should I release my plugins/hacks?

[Coder1]

Introduction

You've written a great plug-in. You're very excited about it, proud of it, and understandably wonder if you should share it with the vBulletin community. It has nothing to do with profit - there is tremendous satisfaction in sharing your work with peers who appreciate it and use it. Should you package and release your plug-in? I've been faced with this question, and have chosen not to release my plug-ins to the public. As you make your own decision, you might be interested to know why I decided not to release plug-ins.

Quality

Is your plug-in truly robust? If you're like me, then you wrote your plug-in to work on your site. You know your site, and once it works there, you're finished. Did you carefully track all of the decisions you made? For example, is your plug-in fully phrased? Would it work on a French-language forum? Did you hard-code styles or attribute values? Did you test your plug-in in conjunction with other popular plug-ins? Did you fully consider how your plug-in would work on a site that used different permissions? Categories? Private Forums?

There is a vast difference in writing a modification that works on your site, compared to developing a full-fledged plug-in that would work on any site. Turning your modification into a plug-in could easily multiply the time dedicated ten- or even a hundred-fold. Can you truly afford to spend all of that time?

Compensation

That brings us to the next consideration: compensation. If you do your job correctly, you have made a significant investment in time. It would be nice to at least recuperate your costs, and there's nothing wrong with making a profit, if possible.

There are legal ramifications once money is involved. Say someone installs your plug-in, and their entire site crashes. They blame you. Whether they are right or not, really the burden of proof, and the liability, rests with you. Are you prepared to face this situation?

Also, paying customers feel they are entitled to more than just the software itself. They've formed a business relationship with you, and feel that relationship entitles them to an ongoing dialogue with you: feature requests, bug fixes, technical support.

Technical Support

Are you truly prepared to support your plug-in? Regardless of whether you release it free of charge or not, there will be issues, and you will be called upon to resolve them!

Spend any time on a popular plug-in site, and you'll find thread after thread of upset users demanding attention for their problem. Can you answer every one of them? Even very high-quality plug-ins, such as vbAdvanced CMS, have these issues. People with every conceivable hack, configuration, and technical ability will install your plug-in. They'll blame your plug-in for problems they themselves caused by their latest custom query, template change, or PHP hack. You'll have to sort all of that out, and if you don't do it in what THEY consider a timely manner, the negative publicity and feedback will snowball. A wise man once said "No good deed goes unpunished" - meditate on that as you contemplate releasing a plug-in to the public.

Conclusion

One of the outstanding features of vBulletin is its highly configurable template and plug-in system. With such a wide user base, new ideas for plug-ins are constantly hatching, and the temptation to share your own plug-ins can be quite strong.

However, carefully consider all the factors - you may decide, as I did, that the risks far outweigh the benefits.

[Joeychgo]

I'm not a coder, but I have assisted in the creation of several vBulletin hacks. Here are my thoughts.

First, your always welcome to release hacks here. If we develop a need for more functionality in that arena, I am more then willing to provide it here.

vB.org, can be a minefield. What I mean by that is that there is something of an 'club' mentality there. Your either liked or disliked, and the controlling powers then to all like your or dislike you accordingly. This is actually throughout the vB community as I see it.

Now, this doesnt mean you cant release hacks there because of that. But I think it becomes difficult to participate in the growth of the site. Your opinions are almost immediately discounted it seems.

That said.

I think if your going to release a plugin, it should be complete. By complete I mean easily installed, understood and used by most people, as well as have the basic functionality. I see far too many hacks that should have admincp controlability, for example.

This doesnt mean you have to include all possible features. You can save a more featured version and sell it as well as sell custom modifications to the hack. I only recommend that the prices for these be low. $10-$20. You should be able to do ok with a little volume.

I think you should support your hacks, but alot of that can be simplified by a complete set of instructions. When writing them you have to think 'idiot proof' so as to avoid all the little questions. Make the hack as simple to install as possible, because many people dont understand coding.

You do have a point though, "No good deed goes unpunished". It does amaze me sometimes how someone can get something for free, and then complain about it. Half the time, its because they didnt take the time to read the instructions. I know when I install a hack and have problems, the first thing I do is reinstall it making sure to read the instructions even more clearly. Many people dont. This is where making it as simple as possible comes in and can be helpful.

Why share hacks and plugins? Simple. If nobody shared hacks, then vB would lose alot of its appeal because non coders wouldnt be able to customize it. Its a give and take thing. THe better hacks that are out there the more popular the software becomes. The more popular it becomes, the more its updated and revised. etc etc.

Again, as I said, your always welcome to release hacks here. If we develop a need for more functionality in that arena, I am more then willing to provide it here.

[Noppid]

Very good points made. I agree with alot of it and disagree with some of it.

I see .org as a place to go and post an idea. Some ideas come from expert coders and just work. Some ideas come from nobodies and the code stinks, but the idea is brilliant.

Expert coders with good ideas want to protect their good name and become very weary of others that release similar ideas. Immediatly in some cases causing friction with coders of the same type idea. Then the arguing starts and it distracts from the point of either effort.

I don't completely agree with the thought that an idea can be protected. I do however think a particular style of coding for that idea should be protected.

But, how much is too much copying? One line of code? A major function that is basically the mods main workhorse? A template layout?

One line of code, probably not even noticable. A major function that is the workhorse, that should be a no no. Templates, well just how many ways can you layout a table in the constraints of vB? Not many, so things may look very similar at times.

Anyway, back to the no names. I think they should be welcome too and embraced. They should also embrace more experienced coders that come behind them, post problems and suggested fixes. That's the true spirit of .org.

However, .org is now a club. The nobodies will be climbing over each other the get a status that is in no way shape or form properly earned nor deserved in some cases. It breeds contempt and arrogance. But most of all it squelches community participation and growth of modifications by the division of the people.

Poor quality code will start hitting the .org to increase status points with no assessment of the value of the code. But neither assessment has no place at .org anyway, experience or quality.

The point is supposed to be an idea and the community runs with it. There is too much ownership asserted anymore. It's either free or not. Some hacks do deserve at least a link back however, even if free, for what they offer.

What's my point?

My point is any and all ideas should be put forward if they are to be free and those that embrace them with the experience to improve them should be allowed an do so and do it openly. They should do so humbly and pass on the experience. They should maintain their egos and remember they too learned once because they had a great idea and got the experience to implement it from someone once too.

This would bring back the community spirit of the .org rather then the club atmosphere and mentality that the current method of seperationism is creating.

[Coder1]

I posted the original more as an article/contribution to the site, in general, about plug-in development. I don't want to discourage plug-in development, but rather, encourage a more thorough, thoughtful approach to it.

While it's true that I sought this community/site out in direct response to a negative overall experience at .org, my post wasn't meant to bash them or start a thread flaming them!

We all stand "on the shoulders of giants", meaning, all of our work on vBulletin modifications is based on prior work - vBulletin itself. That, in turn, was based upon concepts and features of other forum software, which evolved from BBS systems, and so on.

I have no problem whatsoever with people taking one of my concepts and customizing it, so long as it's not done for commercial purposes. I'd be more interested in community projects.

One concept that worked really well for me recently, was an approach I used for a client who approached me to rewrite a program they used. The client was in fact a very high-profile trade organization for the printing industry. I didn't have time, so what I did instead was turn the project over to the forum. Any member could volunteer time. Rather than charge the client a fee, I got them to agree to publicize the forum, distribute our URL with the new software, and host a page on their site featuring each of the volunteer coders.

I think a similar cooperative approach to plug-in development would be a much more productive model than the .org method.

[Joeychgo]

While it's true that I sought this community/site out in direct response to a negative overall experience at .org, my post wasn't meant to bash them or start a thread flaming them!



Agreed - and my post was not meant as a flame of .org. I think its a great site. I simply think that they need to be more guiding and encouraging, and a little less clique-ish.