A developer license is worth as much as an extended wiki for those who know what they're talking about.
And I rather have the community build a worthy wiki, than having people keep their knowledge to themselves, because they've paid for a dev license.
Only thing I say is that the wiki should be locally hosted at Xf's domain not a third party so the whole community is visiting the same place to deposit and withdraw info.
Indeed. I would think that having to pay for a dev. license, if you wanted "to be a serious mod developer", would hinder xF's growth. vBulletin.org is a huge and invaluable resource to vBulletin - I've seen many people make their decision on software based on it alone.
I believe that as well, all I can say to back Eric is point at apple's dev program and what they did to early dev's with their return procedure. It was the catalyst for jailbreaking Ithings.
If a developer comes up with his mod and it is so popular that it must be added to XF's release's or if people would like to see it backed officially by XF ltd then compensation would be in order. But for your average mod made by your average dev used by some and not known by the rest, I would think just getting your work out there for people to see would be enough. If you make something so sick that I can't figure out how your brain ticks, I may just offer to compensate you for a personal project of mine that I am more than likely not capable of doing myself. If a developer had to pay to design stuff for a particular software, how could an end-user not end up paying for the product; by making modding open to all, you lower the overhead costs. Also if I had to pay for something and say it was a work in progress and failed due to needed improvements, I would be more inclined to complain, whereas if in development stages I could try it for free, not only do i get to try to see if i like, but the developer is almost 100% going to get feedback/bug lists.
I think that maybe developers who put in the work to have a product that is worth paying for, should have an option to setup there own mod store at (example) xenforo.com/developers/Eric/ where once approved based on success / proper functionality of your mods you could show all your community products as well as your higher end products that you charge for simply because of the amount of time and work that went into them. This ensures quality products like jmurrayhead said,
We all know who the serious mod developers are after a while. It won't take long to figure that out after a mod section is setup for XenForo. Just like at vb.org, the best will establish a name for themselves.
If you apply this, people who make inferior products simply won't get distribution.. and to add to that thought when someone posts feedback about a mod it should be a REQUIREMENT to post a screenshot if it causes failure, including the error pages if any to be sure no one sabotages someones hard work. I see it all the time anywhere I go. People forget to be a community and knock someone over just to get that few inches by standing on their back. What i'm telling you is the only reason I bought the licenses I did for vB (rather than an open source solution) is because there is a community there that helps each other, without it I would be even more noobly than I already am. For Xf to be successful, the community needs to analyze the prefix commun which literally means to share (community = sharing+united). Just my opinion.
