Hello,
Sorry for my use of English, my knowledge of your native language is not very good.
As most of you probably know I am one of the original three people who founded and developed phpBB. Those being James Atkinson, Nathan Codding and myself. After the release of version 1.0 and somewhere around the time that version 2.0 was being developed modification of the original version (1.x) was starting to occur. We
(the phpBB Group) found it in our best interest to have someone oversee the public development of "MODifications" and make sure they conformed to certain standards and security levels. As Nathan Codding had since left the phpBB Group James Atkinson and myself were the last two 'guys in charge' so I started up the 'MODification Team', which quickly became the most active 'team' within phpBB.
During the development of phpBB 2.x I was given the opportunity to help develop it, however, I choose not to in order to stay focused on MODification development. Though out all of 2.x development, and the many years since 2.x was released, I maintained control of the phpBB MODification Development for the phpBB Community.
After I left the phpBB Group I totally walked away from phpBB, taking down all of my forums, except for one which was too big to take down.
After I returned to the phpBB Community
(as an community individual, not a Group Member) I decided to re due most of my MODifications and start up my new website
www.phpBB2mods.com
While I was re-developing my MODifications I began to think about the previous 6+ years I had invested in "helping others" and began to think about how much more time it was going to take me to rewrite all of my MODifications and again support them.
I quickly realized that (a) I was one of the leading phpBB MODification developers in the world, (b) I was no longer a member of the phpBB Group and thus did not answer to them, and (c) as I no longer was apart of the phpBB Group I could start charging people without destroying the "image" of phpBB being a "free" application and (d) I needed a way to pay for the domain names and hosting for my new phpBB Site.
I also realized that no all of my MODifications where things people would want to pay for, so I would need to do two things:
First, I would need to continue to offer most of my MODifications for free.
Secondly, those MODifications that were the largest MODifications I had, that took the most time to develop and update, and those MODifications that required the most amount of "support time", were probably MODifications I could get money for.
Now let me say this quickly... I do not charge people for the "downloading" of my MODifications, rather I charge people for the "support and downloading" of my MODifications. I place those MODifications I feel fall under the Second instance listed above into what I call my "Premier forums".
Within these Premier forums I do a number of things.
First, I offer Premier support. This includes must faster response time, normally a few hours. Anytime someone posts a question that is not in my Premier forums I usually do not answer for about two days, whereas those who post a question within the Premier Forums normally get a response within 5-8 hours.
Secondly, I offer for download those MODifications that I feel are "Premier modifications". Legally, people can download them and re-distribute them. Of course, nobody so far has, because it's a matter of respect that they do not.
Thirdly, every 45-75 days I release one now MODification to
only those people who are apart of my Premier Membership. I do this to show people that being a Premier member is not just about having better support, but that I care about them and want them (and only them) to have the latest MODifications I develop. Most people really love this!
I have read through most of this discussion - some of it I could not understand the translation of - and find that most of what you all have discussed is much more mature and correct then any other discussion I have found about "paying/charging for modifications". Most everybody else (especially those at phpbb.com) just seem to yell and scream about it, rather than understanding that some of us (like myself and others who have started charging for premier support) have spent *years* learning phpBB and know it very, very well.
It really is a sign of respect when you are willing to pay them for what they know. In nearly ever other industry people get paid for what they know... so why not this one! To me it seems that the term "Open Source" became a term that also meant "everything is free". To those people I would have to ask "how much money do you think I have spent on phpBB? How much money do you think Paul Owen has spent on phpBB? How much money do you think Frank from Doreo Hosting (phpBB user: ffeingol) has spent on phpBB? Is it right that just because we develop and help support an Open Source application that we have no "right" to charge people for our own knowledge and expertise of the given Open Source application? Of course it is. So long as we do it outside the boundaries of any "official position" within the overseers of the given Open Source application.
So, for me, asking people to pay me (and I do not charge that much) for the nearly 8 years of experience I have with phpBB is a justifiable course of action.
Would I pay so noobie who has only developed one or two MODifications? No. Part of charging people for MODifications is knowing that what that person creates is *secure* and stable! That is where trust comes in. People can trust you when you have developed a lot of proven MODifications. And when people trust you they are more likely to pay you.
I have a number of people who come to me and hire me on an hourly basis to modify and maintain their forums. Is this wrong of me? Of course not! These people do not know *how* to do the programming involved, so for them hiring someone they can trust is much better then spending weeks or months learning enough PHP to modify or update their forums. Could these same people get someone to do it for free? Probably. However, someone with proven work and trust is almost always more important to them than getting something done for free. Why should I turn my back on making a few dollars, when I could work for free? That is not logical. If someone were to come to you and say that they want you to give them your car... are you going to give it to them or tell them you want some money for it? Chances are you are going to tell them you want some money for it!
In what I do (paying for development/support of MODifications) my time, my experience, and my knowledge is worth money. People understand this and they pay it. What is wrong with that, I say to those that oppose charging money!
Thank you for reading and again, sorry for the English.
).
хотя я там регился
