Mod License for upgrading???? Sooo Stupid...

i hate those that steal others mods and sales them but as hard as times are these days i dont blame them, but man they really f**** some s&*^ up so now if you have a major mod that members like to use and you try and upgrade it you now need a license? this is so stupid cuz now on my live site a mod will not work at all so guess whos site wont have the best feature on why people sign up for the next 24-48-72 hours for validation? its bs and they need to find away to make a lesser time frame, nobody wants to sit around for days waiting for a stupid code for upgrading...im mad just thought i vent to a few that maybe feel the same way about this s&^( and if you havent you will understand when you get multiple sign ups per day and a mod is disabled for a few days for some code crap..

l totally agree my members have fast lost interest in my site because with every upgrade of dolphin we have to wait for the upgrades of the mods, it would make so much sense if the mod creators are the ones that get the first copy of an upgrade so they can then check first to see if all there mods work and then it would be even better if boonex gives them a time limit to have all mods upgraded l think they would cut out half the complaints and the service would proberly run alot smoother on the high note though l do have to say that most or l can only speak for the ones l use, some mod creators are happy and very efficient in upgrading a mod once its been bought to their attention the mod does not work. problem though is the time limit it takes and then there is a small handful without mentioning any names that are not so fast in helping and think now they have your money you are not worth serving wheather its because its an upgrade which they get paid nothing for or they just happy to take payments and only treat you nice till you own it.

basically those that buy mods and sell them on as there own shame on you.

thieves are rampant around here, and you can most times read the source of a file on any given mod and find out who the true author is. you can also ask about mods in these forums. so if you are getting a deal of a price on a mod, most likely its stolen. as for the upgrades on the mods. the developers of these mods are provided the source the same time we are.

lesson, dont buy stolen mods

lesson check with  mod developer prior to upgrading your site on the status of any mods you have purchased

lesson dont buy stolen mods

you dont blame them for stealing, so you cant blame the mod developer for not having an upgrade released two days after a version release. let us know who you purchased your stolen mods from. this can protect others from purchasing from the same person.

I don't think it's stupid. How can you expect a developer to provide you with updates or support for a module you did not buy from them. I don't think any developer would.


Yea, it would be nice if boonex would release the final non beta versions to developers first so testing can be done, but also the other option as DosDawg pointed out, don't upgrade until the mod developers have had a chance to.

I agree with DD and deano.

Maybe it's mostly your fault eh? If you have an online site that needs upgrading, you're supposed to create a plan. That plan should include, among other things, making sure that all the mods you have installed have been made ready by the developers. If they haven't you should postpone your upgrade until they have!

This is your fault for bad planning and has nothing to do with the mod creators.

The past two updates, I have had no issues merging my code changes in to the update using win merge. And I have more then a few code changes.

If you have a basic understanding of php and took the time to add any missing comments for changes in the files merging them into the update should be fairly simple.

For mods that use encrypted code, this may be harder and require some guess work, but should still be doable.

encrypted code is only a detterent to those who do not know how to decode. i think if you are applying the upgrade patch correctly, you would not need to use winmerge. i also think you are not telling the truth there, because if file structure has changed completely, there is no way winmerge is going to assist you. yes it can merge some files that have subtle changes, but its not going to create files that are missing. it will also not update or warn you of sql structure change.

mods with base64 code became a requirement because of the thieves. when dealing with an open source entity, i have not seen where encryption was problematic on a relevant bit of source on a module. if a module is released, and it is version compatible, now read what is being written, because you can apply this logic across all software platforms, if the core has an update, and the version on the core is not compatible with the modules that you have installed on the earlier version, then you shouldnt be trying to upgrade or merge those instances of source. in most cases, all that is required on the modules upgrade is to change the config file on what version it is compatible with. unless the upgrade release has some structure change on the base structure of the core files that was previously being utilized on this modules version.

i.e. lets take win95, now do you think for one instance, that applications you were running on win95 could have been expected to run on win98, or follow the trail right along. matter of fact i have seen companies who had spent tens of thousands of dollars on estimating software for windows 2k, only to find out that there was no release for XP or Vista.

at any rate, not trying to ruffle your feathers, but put yourself in the developers shoes for a moment, if you spent your time coding a module, that you were selling at rock bottom pricing in the attempt at allowing everyone an opportunity of purchasing and utilizing that module, then you find out joe schmoe has purchased your $20.00 and is not selling it to the unknowns for $5.00? not very good i can assure you. now see joe schmoe thinks $5.00 a sale is a good price, because he has nothing invested in that module, whereas the developer of the module has everything invested.

so if you think its stupid to have a base64 code encryption in an attempt to protect the mod developers work, then so beit. i think those who purchase a module, knowing that they most likely seen the price here in the market, and said oh, that mod is $50.00 on unity, let me get this $20.00 mod and i can really get over.

KABLAM

Base64 is not encryption -- it's an encoding. It's a way of representing binary data using only printable (text) characters. It is trivial to decode base64. This is not what I was talking about.

Can you please point to a trac change set in the past two versions that resulted in a major existing structure change?

I think you also miss understand how I use winmerge. I do not just blindly merge files willy-nilly. I actually look at the new and old file, find the code differences and make a decision on what changes from the old file to bring in to the new file.  This is made significantly easer by commenting all code changes.

As for missing files and winmerge, this has not been an issue for me because I use it to merge my custom changes into the upgrade files.  The main reason of doing it this way is so when the update overwrites existing files, my changes are still present. This also makes it easy to update more then one install, which I do as I have a test environment that gets updated first, and my production environment.

I also specifically talked about code changes. A properly coded *module*, should not require changes to the core Dolphin code.  I don't want to get into an argument regarding terminology but in my book, a module is an independent 'plugin' that is plug-in-play requiring no code changes to Dolphin. Where as a 'mod' is a specific change, or set of changes to the actual Dolphin code.  Since Dolphin 7 came out, I have seen many developers release a product that is part Module part Mod and this is where I have seen the most problems with updates. Mainly because the mod part of the product is overwritten by an update. Which can be avoided by using something like winmerge.

Regarding the SQL updates that change the Database, the ones that I have seen in trac over the past few months have been index related. If in the event Boonex makes a significant change to the Database structure, AND you have a mod or module that uses the changes part of the database directly using custom SQL code, instead of a Dolphin API/Function then you may need the developer to release an update to proceed with the upgrade.

Changing the modules compatible version is only needed to install the module.  This is not needed to upgrade the site, unless you are uninstalling / reinstalling the module for some reason. I do think it is a good idea to update this regardless.

I find it funny you use windows as an example of backwards compatibility. Microsoft has always been the most backwards compatible consumer OS available. The amount of 'cruft' that is still part of windows, with the security and performance issues it brings is a result of the backwards compatibly windows is known (and cursed) for. Many people (especially business) will not upgrade there windows version if one business critical application will not work as they don't want to pay to upgrade the app (if thats even an option).

Perhaps it would be helpful if others explained, in detail, how they update there sites without help from the developers third party 'products' installed into there site.

I'm agree with all, except for base64 or ioncube encoding in php files.

Dolphin is open-source... so why some developers still resist to make mods packages with encoded files?

Mod Cost is ok (also if a little high, it's understable), but i want to have total control on the software running on my site! Forever!