I am looking for an association or mastermind group of vanilla owners. Does any exist?

odyssey999 · November 2011

Thanks for checking this out. I was hoping to become part of a group of owners who regularly meet and cooperate on various aspects of business, site development and enterprise building.

If you are interested in being part of a dynamic and exciting group of forward thinking people then please post a little here and send me a personal message so we can start this group asap!

Thanks

422 · November 2011

I am toying with asking the devs if they would allow us , to create custom commercial themes and a percentage of proceeds filters back to vanilla.

Would obviouly need their endorsement and set an agreement up to handle the pre nups .
What's your thoughts .. Could be a good revenue generator.

Ste

DirtyDog · November 2011

Is an evil sidekick a requirement?

x00 · November 2011

lol

DirtyDog · November 2011

Kidding aside, this is a good idea. Vanilla is a good product that needs to be made great through stronger community support and collaboration.

DirtyDog · November 2011

I don't know why you need permission from Vanilla to create custom themes. Other companies are already doing it. Go for it!

422 · November 2011

Yeah but we arent greedy and i would be happier giving a slice of it back to the devs officially

Lincoln · November 2011

To my knowledge, you don't need permission to create themes or plugins with whatever license you like. Obviously we endorse and prefer GPL2, but it's up to you.

odyssey999 · November 2011

Actually in this competive world there is no stopping anyone to sell any type of products. The catch is being able to get a nod from the company. Since this is open source they are more towards an open source setting. But already there is paid add-ons available and many approved by the company.

If we make it first, better and cheaper we will have their nods.

Bring it on, lets work together on some projects. I have a lot of business code that I own (not open source) to exploit. Many of it in PHP

x00 · November 2011

This an an alternative route that I suggested:

Sponsored Addons

Businesses and individuals want advanced plugins. They don't always have the capability to make them. People like myself are happy to make them should it be worth my while.

This would be paying for labour/time, rather then the software, the addon will them be released as GPL to benefit the wider community.

Anonymoose · November 2011

WANTED:

Pay to Upgrade Membership
Pay to Register
Pay to Post
Pay for Sticky Item
Subscription Service
Pay for Advertising

Until these kind of plugins are available, Vanilla will not be viable for commercial sites.

x00 · November 2011

@Anonymoose

What rubbish, commercial sites can pay someone to make those if that is what they want. Or do it in house.

I completely dispute that however. You have to consider what a forums is for, overwhelmingly it is for support. Some is pay but the majority is free.

A successful framework, and application, is one that is useful, adaptable, and reliable.

A commercial forum wouldn't confuse a forum with classified advertising. Some may use it for that. They may like the format, which is fair enough, but if they are really serious about, they would have no problem developing.

You are talking about a fraction of commercial sites.

The idea that this is seriously holding the vanilla back just isn't the case.

422 · November 2011

I concur , pay as you go forums are few and far between.

Once you initiate payg your into the realms of payment and security, which i think is better controlled outside of the forum framework.

If this is your thing, then usergroup permission systm can handle all of that by redirection etc.

Vanilla is the dogs gonads imho

In fact set up eccommerce site, and prevent access to the forums until user pays, then based on level of support ie amount they pay, auto assign them to a specific usergroup and tie in the permissions system.

But this is not a fundamental, and more over is not enorsed by any major forum platform. ( at core level )

Todd · November 2011

Vanilla is the dogs gonads imho

Is this a good thing?

markd · November 2011

Is this a good thing?

It's the best thing.

422 · November 2011

Vanilla is the dogs gonads imho
Is this a good thing?

Lol yeah ... dogs gonads

422 · November 2011

@markd beat me to it ;)

x00 · November 2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollocks#.22Dog.27s_bollocks.22

explaining British slang not the easiest.

422 · November 2011

thanks x00, your not a Canuk as well are you ?

x00 · November 2011

eh, no I'm from the UK, init. :D

It is when when folk start talking of 'fanny packs', that you make your exit sharpish.

422 · November 2011

Lol. I am originally from pommy land

Anonymoose · November 2011

@Anonymoose
What rubbish, commercial sites can pay someone to make those if that is what they want. Or do it in house.

Until these features are available, people will gladly pay for vbulletin for the whole package and the bulk that comes with it, instead of paying you for your vanilla plugin.

There's no Vanilla plugin marketplace right now, everything is free, so there is no real incentive for developers to develop commercial plugins.

x00 · November 2011

Wordpress is free, what is your point? Wordpress has many more plugins than vBulletin could even dream of. There are also many free forums, older than vanilla that are stocked with plugins.

Also you argument is flawed becuase there is less incentive for companies to release code. Share alike you do.

It comes down to the 'intellectual property', which often is a misnomer. You can do things thing like burring, trolling and ever-greening intellectual property, none of which promote innovation and sharing. The whole intellectual property area need serious reform. Right now it is not in the interests of competition, innovation and progress. It is just another form of protectionism

You think we should provide free plugins so they can charge, where is my incentive in that? Don't think so.

Also don't assume that vanilla's success is going to be based a certain sector of commercial sites. Vast majority of vBulletin are small to medium size groups which provide a free service. People pay for vBulletin for some features, but not the feature you are talking about so much, except in rare instances. The main reason it is a sure thing, an establish brand, it is consider reliable and stable. However the vanilla plus over that is it is vanilla code base approach, and potential to be really flexible. With vBulletin you are dealing with a juggernaut, and they don't want it to be too changeable becuase the want the vBulletin brand to be there always, where as with vanilla it is what you make it.

vBulletin suits Admins, vanilla suits developers.

Again I go back to the useful, adaptable, and reliable and I add flexible.

It is still early days these things don't happen overnight.

x00 · November 2011

I pity those who cannot put a paypal button.... But seriously a forum is a forum, if you want to to be somethign else, you are better off with software that is friendly to the developer mindset with the Garden framework aims to be. Then you can pay someone in Romania a few bob to do that if you can't, and you have it how you want rather the stereotyped. better than being fleeced by vBulletin year on year.

Anonymoose · November 2011

@x00, You don't seem to understand what the Moose is writing in plain English, and you reply in convoluted Eurospeak English.

"You think we should provide free plugins so they can charge, where is my incentive in that?" Says who?!

I said: Offer a marketplace for addons, so commercial addons can be made.

Vanilla is developer friendly? Great.

Best way to give developers an incentive? Make a marketplace where developers can get paid by those that need addons.

ddumont · November 2011

@x00, You don't seem to understand what the Moose is writing in plain English, and you reply in convoluted Eurospeak English.

"You think we should provide free plugins so they can charge, where is my incentive in that?" Says who?!

I said: Offer a marketplace for addons, so commercial addons can be made.

The code is developer friendly? Great.

Best way to give developers an incentive? Make a marketplace where developers can get paid by those that need the addons.

Why don't you make a market place? Better time spent doing that than bitching on these forums.

Anonymoose · November 2011

Why don't you make a market place?

Very well lets get the offical OK to starting to post pay-to-download addons in the official addon section.

x00 · November 2011

@Anonymoose I can agree to the extent of economising labour, listing and bidding on projects, but if you want pay-to-download, then you can start your own market place. The addons section suits GPL or similar IMO.

I understood most of what you said, you just happen to be incorrect about those examples. I wouldn't try to teach Grandma to suck eggs over software or English.

Lastly Vanilla, isn't trying to be vBulletin, it would be pretty foolish to try and imitate.

-----

Back to @odyssey999's question. I think if you want an owners' club fair enough. I pretty much know what I want for my purposes, so I'm less interested in the rotary/enterprise aspect. However if people want solutions, I like problem solving.

Lincoln · November 2011

Very well lets get the offical OK to starting to post pay-to-download addons in the official addon section.

The AddonsApp doesn't support pay-to-download so I don't know what good that would do you.

Also, attacking someone's grammar is incredibly lame. That's not how we roll here.

422 · November 2011

This thread seems to have passed its sell by date , shame. Perhaps closing it seems the best option. Allow everyone to chill take stock and reenergizzzzeeeeee :)

Anonymoose · November 2011

The AddonsApp doesn't support pay-to-download so I don't know what good that would do you.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It should support pay-to-download.

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I am looking for an association or mastermind group of vanilla owners. Does any exist?

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