[Idea] - WHMCS Authorised Developer - Seal Of Trust

[bear]

I do though think it wouldnt be such a bad idea if WHMCS kept unencrypted copies of devs work just in case someone went AFK for x amount of time.

Outstanding suggestion, I completely agree with this. It would also aid in settling "he copied my work" disputes.

[MACscr]

It would also aid in settling "he copied my work" disputes.

 

Maybe so, but i dont think whmcs needs to be messing with such disputes. I would make rules for the unencrypted releases to be as black and white as possible, leaving it pretty much impossible to dispute. I personally think that if a developer is unwilling to visit his thread at least once a month, they dont need to be selling on the forum (they can obviously sell other places out of whmcs's control). If 60 days have passed without any interaction on the thread, their code gets attached to the thread. These are just ideas and maybe people think they are to strict, but to be honest, if people done want to adhere to them, then they simply just dont get the luxury (its not a right) to sell their items on the whmcs forums. Pretty simple if you ask me. People need to be made accountable.

[bear]

Maybe so, but i dont think whmcs needs to be messing with such disputes.

Rather than have more 2 week long arguments in the forum when this happens, it would settle things far quicker, I'd suggest. Original submit date and code comparison would be a simple "who was first" resolution.

Not sure they'd want to be involved, but it would surely help keep order and honesty here.

[ChrisTERiS]

I'd suggest. Original submit date and code comparison would be a simple "who was first" resolution.

 

For code comparization (and maybe database structure) I totally agree. But for that "who was first", I don't think that is valid. The market is open. eg Who will prohibit me to post an Articles module, because there is another one before?

 

Maria

 

I personally think that if a developer is unwilling to visit his thread at least once a month, they dont need to be selling on the forum (they can obviously sell other places out of whmcs's control). If 60 days have passed without any interaction on the thread, their code gets attached to the thread..

 

My 5 years experiance on developing PHP scripts (actually mods for vBulletin) says me that 95% of the companies are solo-partnership companies (one person company). And as all of us know very well, life is full of unexpected moments. Last year I had emergency be hospitalization for more than 40 days. And I don't know what happens abroad, but in Greece Internet connection is prohibited in hospitals. So, who will decide to post my code attached? I don't think that is legal. Code is intellectual property and nobody except the author can decide how to treat it.

 

Maria

Edited January 20, 2011 by bear
multi-quote

[bear]

For code comparization (and maybe database structure) I totally agree. But for that "who was first", I don't think that is valid. The market is open. eg Who will prohibit me to post an Articles module, because there is another one before?

No one; this was referring to those circumstances where we've had people copy code and re-release it as their own. Simple enough to compare code and original release date to see who was first. To release, they submit to WHMCS; release first, you are first. Release after, and have very similar or identical code, easy to spot who copied in that case.

 

I don't think that is legal. Code is intellectual property and nobody except the author can decide how to treat it.

If releasing a commercial product through this system (if this happens), you agree to the terms. If you don't agree, you don't use the system.

[Grizzlyware Josh]

I can live with WHMCS holding copies of the modules, but releasing them publicly on the forums seems crazy! Disclosing the code to the people who have purchased the module, and contact WHMCS requesting such source code, should be able to claim the source code on proof of purchase. If someone disapeers, that doesn't mean their module becomes freeware Respect the time they've put into it, and be a bit tighter on releasing code.

 

I dont know. I personally wont buy any scripts anymore on these forums that are encoded. Promises from devs that say that if they choose to give up support, etc, they will release an unencoded copy is a completely worthless promise. Just like the ones that have promised they wouldnt go afk in the beginning.

 

This is why I think we need a seal, you're scared (maybe the wrong word, but you know what I'm trying to say) of buying addons on these forums because of bad past expiriences. If there was a seal / trust between WHMCS, the developer & the customer this fear would disapeer. If this seal also supported releasing the source from WHMCS, then I'd see no issue with buying on these forums. It would be failsafe.

[bear]

I feel I should point out clearly that I don't represent WHMCS in any way in this or any other business matters, in case I was somehow giving that impression. I'm expressing opinions as a user of the paid version of WHMCS, and/or an impartial forum moderator (this is all I do here), nothing more. I'm speaking only as someone that has seen an addon or two I'd consider buying, but past threads about ripoffs, failed or missing updates and disappearing authors has left me not buying any at all.

[ChrisTERiS]

If releasing a commercial product through this system (if this happens), you agree to the terms. If you don't agree, you don't use the system.

 

To be honest, I didn't even knew that someone can release (for sale??) commercial products here. Even if there are many years that I've bought WHMCS only latelly I started using it, and thinking to port some of my vB mods to WHMCS. And is self explanatory that if there any rules here are having priority on author's rules as you said.

[Alistair]

Sounds like a lot of work for WHMCS to do - can't see it happening.

[jeremyhaber]

Yes this whole idea is a lot of work. That is why it would be up to the developer community to build this whole system.

 

The advantages for such a system is uncanny. Here is what I believe this seal of trust will entail.

 

Resolution of Disputes: Lots of disputes are opened against developers. We've seen it time after time again. This developer did that. That developer did this. Often the community stepped in to voice their opinions on the matter and who was at fault. The same will still happen however this seal will make it so that the developer can actually be at fault.

 

This is not a way to regulate who made what first. My personal stance is, if you can make it better then the other developer go for it. However whenever possible I try and avoid releasing addons that other developers have released.

 

Establish Trust: One of the hardest things for developers is that trust is hard to come by. We want to be able to encrypt our code without having people worry about whats in the code. A trusted developer would never take any vital information without the users consent. This seal of trust is meant to better ensure that.

 

Developer Guidelines: In order to ensure quality of the developer; Guidelines are set forth that the developer has to agree to in order to develop for this community. This tells the potential clients that this developer adherers to the standards expected.

 

Developer Community Growth: This seal of trust also will grow the community of developers. Finally we can have a place for us developers to go ahead and discuss issues with our projects, requests developer beta testers, ect.. As developers we should work together and not have to develop our addon's alone.

 

I know for a fact that I would rather not mention my current projects right now on this forum until they are ready to be released. A developer area where trusted developers (people who wont take your code and use it for themselves) can communicate to one another is a valued asset.

 

Legitimate Absences: I know MicroHellas has mentioned this issue. This can easily be solved in these cases. Surely we wouldn't penalize you for being hospitalized. As you grow in the developer community and get to know a few people, developers will start vouching for your legitimacy. As well this will allow you to partner with other trusted developers to help you while you are recovering.

 

Fall-back Licensing: As developers we can work together to improve our licensing system. Using an official server, if the licensing check returns an error where it cannot connect to the your server for any reason. The licensing code can do a check with a WHMCS official server to verify that your server is down. At this point the licensing check will validate and return successful. Thus solving the problem of users abandoning their code with license checks.

 

Saw a thread about this a few days ago. Figure we could settle that issue here.

 

Increase in Sales: Well this is obvious. One of the main advantages of this system is an increase in sales for developers. People that see "Trusted WHMCS Developer" on a developers site will make them more likely to buy from you.

 

Also to comment what this is for: This is not only for commercial developers. I myself have made many free modifications that I wish to protect. The modification that was taken from me that actually triggered this idea was in fact a free modification that I had recently released. I release some encoded modifications for free, reseller rights are not, developer versions are not, ect...

 

Also in the proposing of this Seal of Trust I would like to propose a developer market place to go along with it. This is not in replacement of our copies of WHMCS.

 

Pretty much what I think should also happen is that we build an Addon manager that can handle installs/upgrades/removals/downloads.

 

What makes this so special?

This will be handled internally in WHMCS. Once the user registers for a product/service on the developers site a retrieval code is given to them. This code will be formatted: developer_publickey-uniquesoftwarekey-hashed(developer_publickey+developer_privatekey)

 

From there they go into the addon manager and enter this key into a form.

From there the public key is sent to the WHMCS Seal server.

The server looks up the developer_publickey and then returns a result to the clients WHMCS.

The result contains the addon developers URL.

From there the key is sent off to the developers site where a download of the addon is made if the unique software key is valid.

The addon is then installed with the proper licensing information.

 

The developer can still offer manual downloads and installs as a fall-back.

 

The advantage to this system is that it verifies where this addon is coming from. This essentially is a secondary licensing tool. More specific to free encoded modification. This gives the addon a key that can be checked before the addon is activated.

 

It's not a license key! What this can do is allow a developer to hard code a check that the developer key used is in fact theirs. That way if another developer attempts to redistribute your addon with their key it wont work.

[MACscr]

The last thing that is needed is more encoding and licensing systems. Definitely not interested. My suggestion was much much easier to maintain. If people dont like the terms, dont participate. Obviously the same can be said for jeremyhaber's idea.

[ljesh]

First of all, good idea.

Second, whenever I need a module about WHMCS, I visit this forums.

Being sc***d by members of this forum is not a good thing.

I will mention that we had several cases where a developer develops a module, sells it (for a nice price), people buy it, developer disapears, people remove the module (although they have paid for it).

We must find a way for proper protection of developers, AND buyers, especially buyers.

If this happens several times (and it has happen) people lose trust to buy new modules. I know I have lost trust. No matter how good a module is, I think twice or even more if I should buy it, since it may happen that the developer disappears as soon as he sells a number of licenses.

 

I don't know how you will solve it, but we must find a way.

WHMCS has very great possibilities and I have a feeling that they are remaining unused mainly because of the lack of existence of trust between us.

It will be hard for WHMCS team to enter in this "battle" but if they do not enter we cannot move forward. If they enter this "battle" then there is a hope and a way of insurance for all of us, developers and users.

[Grizzlyware Josh]

@jeremyhaber's above post hits the nail on the head. That's excellent, apart from I don't quite understand the concept of users downloading modules. A bit like WordPress, as in you download them all from within the application, is the idea you're going for. That sounds great, but WHMCS would HAVE to have all these checks uniformed in their addon module system, otherwise it just gets complicated with different developers doing these checks in their own ways.

[jeremyhaber]

@jeremyhaber's above post hits the nail on the head. That's excellent, apart from I don't quite understand the concept of users downloading modules. A bit like WordPress, as in you download them all from within the application, is the idea you're going for. That sounds great, but WHMCS would HAVE to have all these checks uniformed in their addon module system, otherwise it just gets complicated with different developers doing these checks in their own ways.

 

Yes exactly. I do not see a problem with creating a uniformed solution to this. Already most of the developers here use the Licensing Addon to secure their source. I really see most of this as an addition to the Licensing Addon or to the WHMCS Addon Manager. Though this would be something that would be best figured out once we get the go ahead that WHMCS will support this idea and help implement it.

 

I could also support the idea of charging for the trusted seal. I think it is important that we have an impartial spectators managing the system we put in place. This is because WHMCS is going out on their way saying that they "Trust Us". They would need to constantly have someone checking out the developers and assuring they should be going out of their way for us.

 

I still take the position that the network should be primarily community supported, however sometimes issues fall out of the reach of the community entirely and need to be dealt with by a higher power.

[wsa]

I see that Matt did not response yet about this

[panacheweb]

I just think that some modules should automatically be included..

 

or what about authors selling the rights to whmcs directly.. licensing

 

for example if someone were paid 1 cent for 12 months for each license sold in that year, lets say there are over 500k copies of whmcs out there..

 

think about that concept.. as a limited royalty concept.. many companies do it..