Encoded add-ons at a discounted price?

Would you be more likely to purchase an add-on if there was a lower priced, but encoded, version?

  • Total voters
    36
Would you be more likely to purchase an add-on if there was a lower priced, but encoded, version?

Why would it be lower priced? To entice people to buy an addon that can't be reviewed?

Lowering the price for an encrypted product indicates that original price was set due to piracy.

It's like buying one of those "gift bags(?)" on the cheap, but you don't know what's in them.
 
Last edited:
Daniel Hood said:
It's honestly not that different. I run my entire business on my computer and handle a lot of it from my phone. Having something insecure or a keylogger or anything would be pretty catastrophic.
Click to expand...

Making a decision about software for a site used by thousands of people every day is different from making a decision about software I use personally, even if it could affect other people I know. It's not that I look at the code myself, but I know that other people do and that if there's a problem, it'll come to light sooner or later. There are developers I trust completely (like you or Slavik) but sometimes it's hard to tell. The situation with 'B' happened before I joined this site, but my understanding is that they were well respected previously.

Individual add-ons aren't expensive, the problem is that they add up to a lot of money. But it's not worth a risk just to save $20 here and there when we've spent thousands of dollars on our site. We have a lot to protect. If there is really no other way to get the add-on, then I'd have to weigh the pros and cons and consider the developer's reputation carefully. But if I have options, I would go with the ones that aren't encoded.

Maybe a better question would be, 'would you pay extra for a non-encoded add-on if an encoded version were available cheaply?'
 
MtoR said:
I think Liam intention here is to see if he can protects his products to avoid piracy of his products.
Click to expand...

The thing is even if it was encoded there are people out there that can and will decode it if they want to. Other than not making something there is no way to win against piracy. As bad as it is it is here to stay. Even developers that put callbacks in addons guess what those can be worked around to if you know what to do. Every time someone comes up with a new way to fight piracy someone else comes along and cracks it. It's a never ending losing battle.

Yes while most hosting companies even the cheap budget/free hosts will have the loaders installed it's not always a guarantee that they will.
 
I don't believe Liam is interested in switching to exclusively encrypted add-ons. I think he's trying to see if there's a $60 add-on, if people would choose a $30 encrypted version of the same add-on. Both would be available. Personally I see no reason to offer this but the concept is interesting and I like when developers consider new pricing models. I never considered it, and wouldn't use it, but this discussion led me to start thinking about why people even care about accessing the source code.
 
empire said:
would you pay extra for a non-encoded add-on if an encoded version were available cheaply?'
Click to expand...

That's what I originally intended. Everyone's interpretation was different than I expected.

I was mainly asking out of curiosity, it's interesting to see people's thoughts.
 
Honestly, the only reason the thought occurred to me is because I've been looking at WHMCS (making an integration to XF), and WHMCS is IonCube protected (as are many of it's add-ons I believe).

Liam
 
Liam W said:
Honestly, the only reason the thought occurred to me is because I've been looking at WHMCS (making an integration to XF), and WHMCS is IonCube protected (as are many of it's add-ons I believe).

Liam
Click to expand...

Funny thing is I have seen a cracked decoded copy of WHMCS out there on the net before. Granted it was very old at the time but the point is it was out there. I'm not saying yes or no on the subject as that is ultimately the developers choice and if it was a good enough addon and what I needed I would run it and not care either way.
 
Daniel Hood said:
I think he's trying to see if there's a $60 add-on, if people would choose a $30 encrypted version of the same add-on. Both would be available.
Click to expand...
Both would be available? Then why offer an encoded one? Wouldn't the pirates get the unencoded one, and be happy with it?

The only way, in my opinion, if a developer is interested in protecting their work, is to encode your product, and sell it at the same price. Offering an non-encoded version just wouldn't make any sense to me, and just make for a bigger hassle (not that encoding it wouldn't add enough hassle already).

Assuming you're using IonCube encoding, and I think Zend had some encoding a number of years ago that was easier to crack, you also have to deal with IonCube versions and which ones to support. Last time I used IonCube, I think it was when vBSEO was using it, and I needed to upgrade the version my server used because it wasn't compatible with the version that encoded vBSEO.
 
Last edited:
Daniel Hood said:
It's honestly not that different. I run my entire business on my computer and handle a lot of it from my phone. Having something insecure or a keylogger or anything would be pretty catastrophic.
Click to expand...

Exactly, so you are implying we should trust the dev implicitly that they haven't encoded something dodgy in there?
 
Slavik said:
Exactly, so you are implying we should trust the dev implicitly that they haven't encoded something dodgy in there?
Click to expand...
No I was just pointing out that there seems to be some sort of interesting double standard between php scripts and compiled apps for computers/phones.
 
Daniel Hood said:
No I was just pointing out that there seems to be some sort of interesting double standard between php scripts and compiled apps for computers/phones.
Click to expand...

Because I may or may want to change something in the mod to better suit my community. I don't need to change things in a app on my phone to show it off to my community.
 
Slavik said:
Exactly, so you are implying we should trust the dev implicitly that they haven't encoded something dodgy in there?
Click to expand...
Personally, I would have answered yes to this question simply because whether software is encoded or not does not mean something dodgy can't be in it.

If it's not encoded, people would have to check every line of code to know if it did or did not contain something it shouldn't. And I would have to say few, if any people have done that.

People trust encoded/compiled programs every day, at every level. Think about it, do you know what's in the compiled version of every program on your computer, server or phone? So, there's nothing that should stop them from trusting add-ons from developers.

ozzy47 said:
Because I may or may want to change something in the mod to better suit my community. I don't need to change things in a app on my phone to show it off to my community.
Click to expand...

As was pointed out as I was typing this, most changes would be in the template system, not in the main code.

The only possible advantage to the main code not being encoded would be for a quick fix to a bug for someone. Other than that, the fix would have to be issued in the encoded version.
 
ozzy47 said:
Because I may or may want to change something in the mod to better suit my community. I don't need to change things in a app on my phone to show it off to my community.
Click to expand...

Daniel Hood said:
there's people that should see the source and it makes sense for them to want to. Then there's the average forum owner that doesn't really know what they're looking for when auditing the add-on before uploading anyways so what's the point?
Click to expand...

Daniel Hood said:
I think he's trying to see if there's a $60 add-on, if people would choose a $30 encrypted version of the same add-on. Both would be available.
Click to expand...

You fall in the category that it makes sense for to pay the extra for the source..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom