vBulletin - is the source open?

[scriptster]

Rather simple question but important for me:

I will need some custom programming done by my humble self to add a feature I'm almost sure does not exists due to obscurity of the subject. I realize hooks exist and they may or may not allow me to do what I need ( operating in 'buy first, read the manual later' mode ). So, the general question is: is the actual PHP code I get scrambled/encoded/obfuscated in any way? I don't mean it as "is it easy to read" 'cause it's most likely not but do users/small-time developers have access to the actual PHP scripts without resorting to de-obfuscation and probably breaking the license terms in the process ?

Thanks!

[Steve Machol]

The vB source code is visible and can be modified, but there is no official support for this. vB is not open source though.

[scriptster]

Sounds good!

vB is not open source though.

Yes, I understand it's no GPL and I should have said "visible source" rather than "open source" which has a different meaning but you got just the point.

[Floris]

Yep, it's visible source, but vB also comes with a plugin system, you can just create a product (if you have multiple plugins that need to be tied together) and use the core engine of vBulletin for phrases, templates, etc still .. You don't have to edit any code basically . Just add a plugin, choose a hook (where you want to execute it) and put your php code there. And activate the plugin. Very easy, now if you upgrade, you don't have to worry about the source code - re-applying, etc .. because no code was 'changed'.

Docum. http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/plugin_system