I really can't believe you've added sponsored links, I'm very upset that you could do this.

C. Oof - really?

I agree with Matt: http://photomatt.net/2007/08/21/vanilla-sponsored-links/

So, what are these costs, and how else could people help? Because adverts suck.

I was interested in Vanilla for some future project, especially after reading the article on Digital Web, but I think I'll pass: I'm spending enough time clearing spam comments and emails about online casinos, mortgage rates and whatever that it would be ironic to display hard-coded links for those on a Vanilla install, especially if they didn't benefit my wallet (and indirectly my users).
Sorry, corporate spam is too high a price for the package.

This strikes me as a bad idea. Is rel="nofollow" added to the links?

If you don't like them, they're very easy to remove as described above. They are not required.

I don't think that's their point. The fact you did it is what they are upset about.

I am very disappointed with the fact that you have decided to add sponsored links to Vanilla. I may find myself switching back over to bbPress! At least with bbPress I am guaranteed not to have sponsored links contained in the installation of the software.

Shame on you!

And by the way comments like: "if you don't like them, they are very easy to remove..." ticks me off even more! Being easy to remove is not the point. Sponsored Links overall is BAD BUSINESS!!!!

Everybody needs to pay their rent, even the talented open source coders ; )

The idea of having the forum installs generate money for Lussumo isn't new or unique to Vanilla -but- the way in which it's being done doesn't feel quite right, yet.

There should be an opt-in option instead of an opt-out one. The majority of web publishers would gladly do their share to support Vanilla (through such links) if it was implemented in a more collaborative way.

Furthermore, there's no shame in setting up a little PayPal donation button so more fortunate web publishers can send larger amounts of money.

This being said, Vanilla is a wonderful script that deserves to be known and used by many more web publishers.

Thanks for making it available for free, in the first place!

Like I wrote in my blog last night, this just feels so dirty. It's almost like a pseudo-adware approach for funding.

Seriously, how many Vanilla users want ads such as mortgage or casinos on their site? (Are these links even context-specific to sites?)

Like I said in my blog (and others have said) at least make it opt-in.

Otherwise the quality of Vanilla has gone way down.

<a href="http://misguidedthoughts.com/457/vanilla-forum-goes-sponsored">My post</a>.

Looks like the freeloaders are turning on you quicker than a bad curry Mark... I guess they don't understand what it takes to run an operation like this, cause everything like bandwidth and storage is so cheap nowadays, innit?

Matt Mullenweg, though, is a two-faced douchebag for his snidey offhanded comments on this, I know he's young and all, so I guess he doesnt remeber 2 or so years ago when he had cloaked pages on WordPress all for profit

I'll be honest with you. I'm not going to pay for Vanilla.

Neither are these whiners above me.

We're not going to pay $625 this month, next month, or any of the following months. You'd be lucky to get $6.25 from us as a one time offering.

I've never even seen any of these cranks say thank you, or help others out on the community forum, yet here they are, all criticisms, bile and "Shame on you!". No, mate. Shame on you for being another asshole who's just here to take, take, take and give nothing back in return and feel that you have the right to chastise another for trying to stop hemorrhaging money so the ungrateful SOBs like you can have a decent forum.

"BAD BUSINESS"? This isn't a business. It's not even a charity. It's software welfare. And then you lash out at someone who's done something great, and here you are bashing him for trying to balance out his costs? You're the problem here, not some ads.

With that said, thank you for Vanilla, Mark. I'm sure I'm not the only person who appreciates what you're doing here and can live with some ads if it's helping you out even a fraction of what Vanilla and the Filebrowser have helped us out.

I forgot about that, Greg.

Mullenweg's a real piece of work.

This is really dodgy. Why not ask for another round of donations rather than adding ad links into the core of Vanilla.

My two cents at http://hmmhuh.com/archives/2007/08/21/lussumo-adds-sponsored-links-to-core-coding/

@Greg: It's us "freeloaders" that would rather spend the $150-$200 for premium forum software than have to put up with sponsored links.

Also, If you dislike Matt so much, then why are you running Wordpress on your own site?

@james: blah blah blah. Maybe your considered the freeloader here since your unwilling to pay for anything.

If there was a commercial version of Vanilla without any sponsored links or ads in any form, I would pay for it in an instant.

I've been a long time user of Vanilla but will be switching to phpBB 3 as soon as they have written me a board converter. It's quite sad to see an excellent forum package like Vanilla resort to planting links to grab a quick buck.

A 5 minute google session would show that there has been many a backlash from similar procedures in the past (WordPress themes etc.)

Sorry guys but laters!

There are TONS of locations offering free space so you cannot give me that crap about "bandwidth costs"... anyone with a part time job could afford adequate hosting.

@Phil, because I've ran Wordpress for a great number of years and it works for my needs... You don't have to like the "creator" to use the product.

I don't like Rupert Murdoch, but I still watch FOX, FOX Sports, DirectTV when I'm at my in-laws (when he still owned it) and SKY when I was in the UK, not to mention 20th Century Fox movies.

Hi Mark,

First of all, a big thanks for writing such a nice piece of software, though I haven't used it much so far, but its the fact that Vanilla is great.

Now on the ads topic, I don't know why people go angry over this, but since its your software you can do anything with it. This is your goodness that you are giving your software to the whole world for FREE!.

Besides everything other people said in the comments, I would like to make a little suggestion, what about adding a check box in admin back end to switch it off or on?

Once again thanks for all the hard work you are doing to create a product which benefits other people.

Good luck.

All said and done... its his baby, he can do what he pleases!

He can make money anyway he wants... its his decision not ours.. since we are just piggy riding what he created... cut him some slack people..

I've got a suggestion for everyone who doesnt want adverts and is (or even isnt) willing to pay for vanilla:
1. Turn them off
2. (optional) Make a donation to Mark

Is it really so hard? I must say i was a bit surprised at first to hear that they had been implemented, but Mark isn't an unreasonable guy and I know he's put a lot of thought into this. I do support the 'admin setting' button so that turning them off is even easier than adding a line to the settings file (which is pretty easy to begin with) but then maybe people would turn them off without thinking, instead of having to jump through a tiny hoop due to the strength of their feelings on the matter. It's not like he's even asking you to go into the code and cut a bit out (which you could still very easily do since it's GPL software). Another problem with the links being 'opt in' is that I bet very few people would bother going to the enormous effort of ticking the box; wheras equally fairly few people would bother going to the effort of unticking the box unless it bothered them that much.

Furthermore, it seems that the google ads have disappeared from the community - those were pretty garish things and I got so used to them being there that I didnt even notice they were gone - I've a feeling the links in the panel will soon fade into the background in much the same way, but if they bring in the bucks then that's even better.

Some of you are complaining more about the nature of the ads than the fact they're there...I must say I'd rather see adverts for charities than mortgage companies but unfortunately corporations everyone hates tend to have more bidding power than good will causes and i suspect that for the ads to be effective they needed to be reasonably financially supported by their purchasers.

As for people claiming that hosting is free or very cheap - Mark has chosen to run the community on a pretty highly powered managed server with a managed backup service in place too (I think..) - naturally services like that dont come 'cheap'. Even if he was only spending $1000/year on the hosting (and I'm guessing it's a few multiples of that) that's still a pretty significant sum of money that I'm sure he'd rather he had in his bank account to take his wife on a nice exotic holiday. Not to mention the sheer amount of (very valuable) time he devotes to these free projects which over the development of vanilla has (i guess) run into the tens of thousands of dollars. All of these figures can realistically be counted as 'costs' of giving vanilla away because his time and money could just as easily have gone into something far more profitable. I recon it's probably a little unfair to brand Mark as 'selfish' or 'greedy'.

First, I have to say that I won't be using the ads in any of my Vanilla installs: I can be certain that none of my users would ever click any of those links so why bother?

That said, James (not James M.) is absolutely right. The ones who are acting the most butthurt in here are the ones who've never shown up in the Vanilla forums to offer help or say thanks. Nor have they shown up here in this blog. Did any of you donate when Mark had the Paypal button on this site? No?

A word to all of you: If you did just one or the other (shrieked complaints or never offered thanks) you'd still be a jerk. But doing both makes you a jerk sundae with sprinkles.

James M., nobody is trying to "grab a quick buck" or "give you crap". That would be insulting, if you actually knew anything about Mark or his motives. But since you don't it's just hot air.

Mark this is probably a tough time for you, and I can relate. As some people have pointed out I made a similar mistake on WordPress.org a few years ago, and I've regretted it every day since. That said, the web community can be very forgiving.

If you decide to remove the spam links from the site and the code I'd be happy to provide whatever server resources you need to run the community and the site, free of charge, with no strings attached or links required.

Looks like I'll be adding nofollow to our vanilla link now. I felt alright linking to your site freely because I'm using your software, but I'm not going to dare let myself begin to start linking to a professed link seller to completely irrelevant sites. Casino, loans, home mortgages, those are completely irrelevant and worthless.

I've never heard of vanilla until I read about it at wordpress Matt. Shame on all the communists for having a moan about this.

We live in a capitalist society - if you don't like it move to North Korea or Venezuela.

If you like the software but not the links - remove the links.

Anyway I really can't see the difference between this and the wordpress blogroll with Matt and his friends links in there.

Hon, thats a very good point.. wonder how come I never thought about that.

Let's hear what matt has to say about it

My what great publicity for you Greg, I'd be interested to hear if the number of vanilla increases after this PR.
As for the links, I would remove them if they <i>were</i> there, but I would also make a donation in it's place.

Hey, come on! I know you can come with a better idea than that. I dunno, I prefer the "Buy me a beer" plugin, but not ads on my site

People are complaining as if these links are embedded in the code and mandatory, or that they are hiding them from everyone. From the posts above it is clear that they are asking you to voluntarily leave the links there. They are telling you up front that they are there and how to remove them if you do not want them. They are just trying to make some money off their work. I understand the bad taste in people's mouth over spam links, but since it is so easy to remove these, and they are telling people up front about them and how to remove them, it is your own decision whether to leave the links in there or not, or even whether to use a different forum package instead.

Making money is fine. Making money in a way that'll get other people's websites booted off Google's search rankings, as sponsored links can potentially do, is a lot shadier.

Haha why was my comment removed from here Mark??

Any evidence that this particular implementation is going to get you booted off google, or are you just talking out of your ass?

I know I can remove the links, it's the fact that I have to show them by default that irks me.

If I want to use something as nice as Vanilla, I shouldn't have to go in and hack out some code to make it usable to me.

That extra step kills it for me. Sorry.

This is terrible, if wordpress can survive being free and open source, why cant you? Resorting to sponsored link is just lame and insulting to your followers and users.

I recommend minibb.net, they are free and always will be

James - you dont have to 'go in and hack out some code' at all. Even when it was released it was as easy as adding a setting to a file, now it's just a matter of unticking a box. If that's really too much work for you then I'm not sure how you've got the inclination to move forum software in the first place.

Jason - I dont know cause i've never really followed wordpress but a lot of comments on here would seem to suggest that wordpress actually went through a similar phase themselves a while ago... Maybe this is just a phase for vanilla too. Time will tell.

Look in the top-right corner of your Firefox. See that little logo there? In 2005 The Mozilla corporation got paid ~72 million for that "sponsored link" "embedded in the software".

This is nothing new. Mortgages and casinos just happen to be the industries that are competitive enough to give this venue a try. Just turn the links off if you believe the FUD. It's as hard as two or three clicks.

"users can opt-out during the install process, or they can opt-out afterwards by going to the application settings form. the links only appear on the first page of discussions, and they never appear if it is a private forum."

really, i think some people just like to complain.

WordPress.org may be free (with it's cloaking pages hiccup) but WordPress.com has a tiered pay scheme for things such as "custom" CSS along side the stunted free accounts