Question about Ioncube

[HellRazor]

A few questions!

1. One concern I have is, what will happen if/when you eventually stop selling the mods?

I had a bad experience with another VB developer who sold IonCube encrypted PHP mods. My "lifetime of free upgrades" lasted less than 6 months when he decided to get out of the VB Mod business. A VBulletin upgrade broke the encrypted mods, and I was out over $150 for software I couldn't use and which lasted only 6 months. This makes me VERY wary against buying anything encrypted with IonCube since there is no way for the end user to make any fixes to it.

How would you guys handle things with your customers if a time comes where you decide to call it quits? Will you allow your customers to have the source PHP files so that your customers can ensure that their purchased mods remain usable in the future as VB receives upgrades?

2. Also, what happens after your 1 year download access expires? Isn't there an upgrade path for licensed users to stay current with the latest releases?

Thanks,

HR

[vBcover]

Hello,

Just like vBulletin, after one year, you renew your download access.
As far as ioncube is concerned, we are not in the business of hurting people. For any unlikely reason that we will have to "shut down", the source code will be released.

[Alfa1]

I must say that this is a real concern for me as well. I am happy that I have been able to have my site stay ioncube free. For some software I actually paid for the ioncube free version. Your software is mighty interesting and therefore I will probably jump on board in the future. But if ioncube would not have been included in the deal, then I would already have purchased vbmagazine bundle.

[vBcover]

Sorry, but too much time was put in these products for them to be in Warez sites overnight. Ioncube is here to stay, until they crack it.

[Alfa1]

I can certainly understand that.

[Michelle]

Are all of your products Ion-Cubed?
I am interested about vBCaption.

If so, thats too bad :( I never install a mod without changing its code to suit my needs exactly. :(

Btw, just found a bug while testing vBCaption: When I try to preview a post that had attachments with descriptions, I got a blank page (probably some php errors that weren't displayed).

[vBcover]

Hi, could you tell me the exact steps that you did? I can't duplicate. And, previewing a post with attachments would not cause that as attachments in vbulletin are handled separately, only after submit.

And yes, sorry, all products are encoded. Although vBcaption requires a lot of files edits. It's just one function that is encoded

[Michelle]

Hi, could you tell me the exact steps that you did? I can't duplicate. And, previewing a post with attachments would not cause that as attachments in vbulletin are handled separately, only after submit.

I uploaded 1 image. I added a description to it. I then uploaded another image (same window). I added a description to that too. I closed the window. I added to the post the first image with the [attach] bbcode. Then I hit Preview and got a blank page. I tried it twice, so I don't think it was a coincidence. :(

And yes, sorry, all products are encoded. Although vBcaption requires a lot of files edits. It's just one function that is encoded
What percent of the whole code is that encrypted function? (roughly!)
Or, how many lines?

Thanks :)

[vBcover]

ok, we are talking 2 different things. We have vbcaption where you add a small caption under every image and you also have vBattach which allows you to display attachment anywhere in a thread (first post), and you do [coverattach=1] etc...

vBattach is fully encoded
vBcaption has 2 entire functions, roughly 75 lines, encoded

[vBcover]

OK, thanks for pointing this out... I just disabled gzip and it appears I forgot to include the attachment code in post preview

[Michelle]

ok, we are talking 2 different things. We have vbcaption where you add a small caption under every image and you also have vBattach which allows you to display attachment anywhere in a thread (first post), and you do [coverattach=1] etc...

vBattach is fully encoded
vBcaption has 2 entire functions, roughly 75 lines, encoded

I know dear, I'm taking about vBCaption. :)
When I said I used the [attach] tag for inserting the attachment into the post, I meant vBulletin's [attach] tag, not vBattach's one. :)

75 lines is not very much, however I'm very skeptical about encrypted code. Thanks for the info, I'll think about it, I'm not in a rush. :)

[Michelle]

OK, thanks for pointing this out... I just disabled gzip and it appears I forgot to include the attachment code in post preview
You are welcome. :)

[vBcover]

OK, it's fixed. Thanks again. BTW, I've always admire your work. Nice and clean coding