Does XenForo Take Action Against Shady Forum Owners?

XenGenTR uses ioncube for encryption. Very effectively. But they also redistribute add ons they didn’t create on their forums.
 
XenForo should be more supportive of developers and have the "open-source" added to their backend, but serve the IonCube encoded portion of the add on that'd break it if installed on a website it's not intended for. That way, they could verify it follows standards, all the while giving developers protection. That is, if it's not an MIT release, or something. (They already kind of do something similar with XF [I don't know which files has the license verification, nor would ever look into it], because it knows it's installed on the wrong domain)

Piracy will end up being the killing factor for XenForo development. Who would want to continue to develop even a $5 add on to only sell 1 copy because 10 people passed it around? Now change it to $50 and 50 users having it - that's a month's salary for some, gone, because of piracy.
 
frm said:
I believe that's to list it in the Resources on XenForo. There's nothing that says you can't independently run your own add on commerce site and sell through there.

If you're well known enough (like you), there really is no need to put it in the Resources section here. Just add it to your signature or take private inquiries only (I have your branding free package, but your footer links can also help drive awareness).
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That does not stop it at all, it still happens.
 
Ozzy47 said:
I didn't know you were referring to IonCube, but IIRC there was ways around it years ago.
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Yeah, I was referring to IonCube encoded add ons not allowed to be listed here, so developers list them on their on their own sites.

What's the worst that can happen? You invest $199 in the Encoder and see if sales decrease or increase (because they can't get new features without buying a legitimate add on)?
 
frm said:
XenForo should be more supportive of developers and have the "open-source" added to their backend, but serve the IonCube encoded portion of the add on that'd break it if installed on a website it's not intended for. That way, they could verify it follows standards, all the while giving developers protection. That is, if it's not an MIT release, or something. (They already kind of do something similar with XF [I don't know which files has the license verification, nor would ever look into it], because it knows it's installed on the wrong domain)

Piracy will end up being the killing factor for XenForo development. Who would want to continue to develop even a $5 add on to only sell 1 copy because 10 people passed it around? Now change it to $50 and 50 users having it - that's a month's salary for some, gone, because of piracy.
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Years ago devs started to encode add ons to protect against privacy. This was at IPB. IPB themselves encoded their SSO add on.

The Ioncube loader was a pain to install and it was always many releases behind the php version so upgrading broke the loader and any addons. Some devs stood fast that they would never release an unencoded version even if it meant they lost money. Others went back to unencoded.

Then someone, there is always someone that can break or hack things, found a way to get around the loader. I am not sure how they cracked it. They did. That ended the days of encoding add ons.

My take on encoding. I would never run any software that is encoded. I like to be able to see what functions are being run on my servers. There are devs, a few even released stuff here, that are unscrupulous and would put something malicious in the code.

In any case I don't run many addons and the ones I do are from respected devs like Ozzy and Sirupo.
 
CedricV said:
Internet piracy is an ongoing war you cannot win. Best to ignore it.
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Can you stay morally consistent if your car is ever stolen by keeping silent instead of calling the police?

After all, all crime is an ongoing war you cannot win. Best to ignore it.
 
MySiteGuy said:
Can you stay morally consistent if your car is ever stolen by keeping silent instead of calling the police?

After all, all crime is an ongoing war you cannot win. Best to ignore it.
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I don't like it either, but it's the harsh truth. I want to expose these guys, but get called out for evading their privacy. 🤔 Is it my right to do that? Probably not; but it's even less their right to distribute.

Mind you, the Chris pretty much said the same thing as you're quoting my statement and calling me out:

1740415619318.webp


Chris D

Post in thread 'Activate key/license XF Core/Addon validation against piracy'

The best advice I can give is to try not to care so much.

Of course nothing excuses piracy but, frankly, being "heart broken" about it is not sustainable. It's going to happen. It literally doesn't matter what protections are in place, your code is essentially "visible source" and therefore it can be very easily be copied or reproduced.

On the merit of the specific suggestion, I'm sorry, but it won't do any good. As I alluded to above, an activation / license key serves no purpose to prevent piracy.

It would take an amateur developer a matter of minutes to bypass license key /...
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I get that this is all a very sensitive subject. But I think we all want to be on the same team here.
 
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