I would like to develop an add-on, but I'm not a customer

[Ortheore]

Hi so I moderate on a forum that uses Xenforo, and I want to create a tool to streamline certain processes, however I don't actually own a license. Is there any way around this such that I could develop something without paying for a license? Obviously, I have no intention of hosting my own site using Xenforo, otherwise I'd just buy it.

If you're curious, I'm hoping to develop something for scheduling and activity verification in tournaments where players typically have a week to arrange and play a match in their own time. I'm not really concerned about stuff like creating the bracket or anything like that, more about facilitating players actually scheduling to get their matches done, as well as making things easier for the host to judge who should get an activity win if they fail to complete their matches

Anything I create would be freely distributed fwiw, but it'd probably take a while, since this is strictly a spare time thing. Also sorry if this is in the wrong place, I wasn't sure of the best way of going about this.

 

[Ozzy47]

The owner of the site you moderate could set up a development site for you to work with, as long as it is password protected.

 

[Ortheore]

Ahh right thanks for that. I did ask, but he didn't really know too much about it. I suppose I can try asking him again

 

[Ozzy47]

You could point the owner to the manual,

How to duplicate a live site to use as a test site

These instructions explain how to create a test installation which is an exact duplicate of your live installation. On Your Server Create a new test database with a different database name, user name and password to your live installation...

xenforo.com

 

[Brad Padgett]

Yes the license agreement states the owner can setup a test forum as long as it's password protected but on one condition and that's it's limited to him and his staff

So if your not staff then it wouldn't be possible. If you are this is something the owner can setup

 

[Ortheore]

I asked again, but it doesn't seem like it's a viable option, said it seemed like a fair bit of work, which is fair enough since I think it's a side project for him and I'm honestly unsure if it generates any income at all. Also it turns out the site I'm using runs on v1 rather than v2, which I wasn't actually aware of. In any case, I'm just a mod, I'm not actually employed by the site owner (no-one is, if there was anyone formally employed I probably would've been by now), so it sounds like that would violate the license agreement

Are there any other options? If not, all good, at this point I'm not exactly betting on being able to do this

 

[Cooking Ketogenic]

By "staff" you do not need to be employed by him. Most sites, Moderators, even Admins are volunteers. Also, the test site can be just a fresh install with a non-data populated database just used for testing purposes housed in a password protected directory on his current hosting account.

 

[Brad Padgett]

That's correct. You do not need to be employed by the owner just as long as the test forum is limited to the owner and his staff team. It needs to be private and password protected and limited to the owner and staff.