Why for free?

[Gabby]

I've always been curious why coders release mods for free. It often takes a ton of work and hours to do these things yet most of them are for free? And of course there are the many additional requests for mod upgrades and support questions. It must get awful tiring.

Of course it's crazy generous but at the same time, we all have to make a living and pay bills.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Onimua]

There was a thread about this recently.

 

[Fred Sherman]

I haven't done any for XF and none for years, but when I did, it was mostly things I did for myself and just released them so others could benefit too. Always GNU license, so anyone could do anything they wanted with them and don't bother me for support if it works fine on my site.

I think it has to come down to how unique is the mod, how popular is the mod and how much time do you spend working on it for other people instead of yourself. If it starts to become a burden, people should be compensated for their effort.

 

[Gabby]

Oh sorry. I just came across a mod we would have gladly paid for and surprised it was free considering it can generate significant revenue for the forum owner. It's a little unconfortable for me to tell you the truth, knowing how much work goes into this. In my business I make a high salary but very long hours for free and that means having no life. People took me for granted because I worked 24/7 up until a month or so again. So at some point you have to cut it off so that you can pay your own bills and have a smidgen of a life. That was kind of why I was wondering about mod developers.

 

[Slavik]

Oh sorry. I just came across a mod we would have gladly paid for.

Well you can pay me if you want

 

[Gabby]

LOL That mod should really be a paid one considering the basis for it generates revenue. Maybe you can release an advanced or upgraded one for a price?

 

[Slavik]

LOL That mod should really be a paid one considering the basis for it generates revenue. Maybe you can release an advanced or upgraded one for a price?

Well, I just put my custom made mods up for free (or let Robbo release them under his company if they have real commercial value such as the edit history) on the hope that people feel kind enough to donate.

Putting it up for free has 2 benefits

1) No requirement to help with support or bug fixes, if the mod works on my site fine then I consider it bug free.

2) Encourages growth of the platform, more mods means more users, more users meeds more mod developers meaning more mods and so on....

Also, given how prolific piracy is now days, even if I charged for it id guess it would be available for free somewhere within a week anyway, so why bother with the aggro.

 

[Adam Howard]

I'm a big believe in free open source.

From my experience a lot of good comes from releasing things openly. Development actually happens at a faster pace and other new products are birthed from them as well. Products grow into other products and sometimes even merge.

Support when given via the community can be a lot more productive and even bring up things you, yourself were not aware of. This also adds to the pace of development and stability.

I also support free open source because there are some things I just don't believe people should need to pay for.

• Converters (any kind)
• template edits (not saying complete skins, but rather xml or manual file edits or patches)
• foolishness (say for example, charging a fee to add support per media.. ie... Youtube)
• overpriced (beyond fair value or the affability of the average person)
• excessive copyright (for example, adding to many links and even ads)

These things will and have prompt me to start working toward developing or hiring someone to develop a free open source alternative.

You'd be surprised on how many people are willing to help you complete such goals (knowing they too will enjoy it freely).

Now with this said... There are many good developers who do make outstanding paid products and who I feel they should be supported. And I personally, have no desire in developing an alternative toward them.

 

[Adam Howard]

This is maybe the biggest free and open source project I'm working on at the moment

ckeditor for XenForo.

It's a lot harder than I thought it would be ..... A LOT harder. I'm kind of really hoping XenForo will add this (on their own) and I can discontinue the plan (don't expect a quick release)

 

[Slavik]

This is maybe the biggest free and open source project I'm working on at the moment

ckeditor for XenForo.

It's a lot harder than I thought it would be ..... A LOT harder. I'm kind of really hoping XenForo will add this and I can discotinue the plan (don't expect a quick release)

Considering how deeply integrated the editor is with XenForo your effectively going to be doing a core re-write...

 

[Adam Howard]

Considering how deeply integrated the editor is with XenForo your effectively going to be doing a core re-write...

I'm actually working on 2 version in order to make 1 release. The 1st version as you state is the re-write, but the 2nd version (seen in screen shot) is the goal (which suppresses the editor in place of ckeditor). It goes without saying that the 1st version is actually going along a little quicker than version 2.

The 1st version is requiring a lot of re-writting code. But this is giving me an understanding of exactly where & how the editor words in XenForo. This is what is allowing me to develop a modification (add-on) to "bypass" the core and "hide" the core editor (think of it as a proxy inside XenForo).

I don't want to release version 1 as I don't think anyone would want to edit or replace their core files. The idea is not to do that.

Don't expect a release any time soon. It is turning up to be A LOT more work than I wanted it to be. Far too much actually, but I'm going keep on trying until I either get it right or until XenForo decides to surprise us all with it in another version (would actually prefer they release it)

edit: I've written and re-written this post... I'm poor explainer of code. Sorry... Hope you get the gist of it.

 

[Slavik]

or until XenForo decides to surprise us all with it in another version (would actually prefer they release it)

I recall it being stated somewhere that the only time they would consider such a drastic change would be when moving up to xenforo 2.x.x

Don't quote me on it though.

 

[Adam Howard]

I recall it being stated somewhere that the only time they would consider such a drastic change would be when moving up to xenforo 2.x.x

Don't quote me on it though.

I'd "guess" XenForo 2.x would be sometime in 2013 ..... At the rate of my coding, they may actually get there before me. LOL

 

[DRE]

I like the product enough that it's worth sharing stuff.

 

[craigiri]

Many moons ago I was a Filemaker Developer - which involved writing scripts (macros) to make the database perform all kinds of functions.

At the time, the internet was not yet popular - but AOL had a number of major communities including a Filemaker Section. Myself and others posted (gave away) our scripts - all free! The reason was probably similar to what drives some people today - it was extremely gratifying to see "X" number of people downloading and using your work!

Different people have different talents. While some may share business experience, life experience or how to fix a car, others have the knack for programming and designing. But no matter what the skill, most people like sharing.

Even paid add-ons and programming is often still sharing...as very few developers actually make the amount of money it would take to call it "money for services".

Whatever the reason, I and many others thank y'all.

 

[Sadik B]

I try to release anything I make for my use for free (unless it's something I don't want to release to avoid competition). The reasons are that I have already made it for myself so I might as well share... I cannot find the time to make something for others and release it for free, even though often I would like to.

 

[whynot]

I'd "guess" XenForo 2.x would be sometime in 2013 ..... At the rate of my coding, they may actually get there before me. LOL

At the rate of their current coding I would put my money on you.

 

[JVCode]

At the rate of their current coding I would put my money on you.

Low blow!

 

[whynot]

Low blow!

No,I'm not a boxer,rather a gambler.

 

[Jake Bunce]

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