Free CPanel/WHM Skins: you may loose your business to their

[Vital]

Greetings to everyone.

I don't think someone paid attention to this, but two new Cpanel skins contain links to sites of hosting companies, which advertise hosting plans, and other services... Now imagine: we can't prevent our resellers to use those skins =& we can't prevent them from advertising in them. Same is with dedicated customers, who may go elsewhere because of it.

Guys, we are really appreciate your donations, and your efforts to make Cpanel/WHM look great (it's the only thing this product really lacks, i love everything else , and personally i love new &X skin&, but please, when you donate something, make sure it's not a kind of &trojan horse&, that will hurt other's business. This is unethical, as for me.

I would like to ask Dave to remove both themes from WHM temporarily, and i would appreciate, if respected developers of those themes will either remove links to their business sites from them, or point them to something business-neutral.

With respect,

 

[Omar]

I think you can remove those themes by going to WHM -& Themes -& Addon-Cpanel Themes and Addon WHM Themes

and un-checking those themes.

You may have to use the delete cpanel theme option too.


But I agree, we do appreciate these high-quality themes are being given for free, but it defeats the purpose if there are links to other hosts in them.

This does not mean that the makers should recieve due credit, but please try to figure out some other way.

- Omar

 

[SHSaeed]

I would like to thank the developers of these great themes, but I have to completely agree with Vital about the linking.

 

[mikerayner]

I'm agree with you, please do not develope a free theme if you add your commercial ads or links in it

You can offer themes seperately as a commercial service not a hosting, and don't damage others' businesses.
Also Cpanel (DarkORB) should not add like these in Cpanel, what we have to do for ressellers and dedicated servers that we offer to our customers when you compete with us directly by our control panel.

 

[Vital]

That's exactly what i thought. By the way, i don't see that link in the X skin anymore, do you ?

 

[cass]

Actually I've removed the comercial domain (cascompany) and used a free one (hotpop) for the mail link on the simpleCP2

http://whmcas.cascompany.com/simpleCP2/

(this is not the version included actually on addon whm themes... this is the new v.2.0 released yesterday)

Regards.

 

[cass]

[quote:3870482ace][i:3870482ace]Originally posted by mikerayner[/i:3870482ace]

I'm agree with you, please do not develope a free theme if you add your commercial ads or links in it

You can offer themes seperately as a commercial service not a hosting, and don't damage others' businesses.
Also Cpanel (DarkORB) should not add like these in Cpanel, what we have to do for ressellers and dedicated servers that we offer to our customers when you compete with us directly by our control panel.
[/quote:3870482ace]

btw, I've already removed the comercial link, but come on people!!... you may OPT OUT and DO NOT use the themes... you need to go and click &install & keep updated& to do just these.... the themes does not AUTOINSTALL and GET YOUR CLIENTS ... be real people...

Also ... this is WHY I made a FREE and a NON FREE version of the theme, the free has a link (but non commercial) ... but is there. If you can live with this .... it's okey ...
but you have the option to:
1) dont install it.
2) buy it.
3) kill yourself

Regards.

 

[Vital]

Carlos ))
Yes, and i thank you for removing that link. Thing is, that i, as a web hoster, can choose, should i install this theme, or should not, but if i sell dedicated servers, i cannot prevent those clients from installing it, clicking on links, and going elsewhere

That was my point, and i haven't mentioned your theme, 'cause i was satisfied with it, but X-styled one contained such a link. Now they wonderfully don't have it anymore... Whatever it was, if you, guys, have removed it - my respect.

 

[portman]

I agree with what I am seeing here. We have removed the vertex theme just because it has a link (even though there is currently a DNS failure on it).

Certainly DO should not let those out of they have links to competitors in them. Those that show up should not link to sites or companies that are selling hosting.

It is simply unethical to do this. Any links from inside WHM or CPanel that go to a competitor should be banned. If you are selling themes you should be required to have a seperate NON-LINKED site seperate from you hosting site to sell the themes. As has been stated we cannot stop this on our dedicated servers.

I would suggest DO listen to this very closely or they may find they loose market to the competitors very quickly. I work hard enough to get the customers I have I do not need back door advertisement!

 

[portman]

Here is the crux of a letter I just sent to Nick at [email protected]

--------------------------
Nick,

It is unfortunate I have to write this to you but I feel a great disservice is being done here with how the themes are handled. You simply cannot permit links in the themes, Cpanel or WHM to link back to a competitor’s site. Many of us have customers on dedicated servers that can both install and visit these sites even if we do not install them.

The simple solution is that free themes need no link unless the company wants to do custom work. Providing free themes is admirable but they do not need to also advertise to my clients on dedicated servers. If they wish to do this they must be required by Dark Orb to have unlinked tertiary sites for this express purpose no matter if the theme is free or for a fee. This means no correlation in the FQDN to the hosting domain.

I think the themes are of excellent quality and mean no ill will toward the creators. We cannot control what is seen by our dedicated server customers and this is the key reason for my letter today.

What you are doing is well intended but this consequence is intolerable. I can assure you that we will not purchase CPanel on additional servers unless this practice is stopped in short order. This practice is in the very least unethical and no intelligent business owner would place a sign for a competing company in their front window. Essentially this is what they are doing.

I look forward to your response on this matter and a swift correction of the issue.

-------------------------------------

Basically I appreciate the themes but I would rather do without them than have dedciated server and Co-Lo clients have advertising.

mep

 

[portman]

I am not sure what happened...but we certainly do not need two posts of the first draft

 

[itf]

[quote:ecd3d82505][i:ecd3d82505]Originally posted by mikerayner[/i:ecd3d82505]

I'm agree with you, please do not develope a free theme if you add your commercial ads or links in it

You can offer themes seperately as a commercial service not a hosting, and don't damage others' businesses.
Also Cpanel (DarkORB) should not add like these in Cpanel, what we have to do for ressellers and dedicated servers that we offer to our customers when you compete with us directly by our control panel.
[/quote:ecd3d82505]
You have started a war here and I do not want to get involve in it,

MikeRayner,
You cannot ever ask someone to remove his/her link or copyright notice while he/she is legally the owner of the theme.

However, let me show you how to remove add-on themes part of WHM for your dedicated or co-located customers, technically and automatically,

In this file in any theme:
/usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/docroot/themes/-any-theme-directory/command

find these lines:
&a href=&/scripts2/getthemes& target=&mainFrame&&
&a href=&/scripts2/getthemes?whm=1& target=&mainFrame&&

and remove them.

then use this command

chattr +i /usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/docroot/themes/-any-theme-directory/command

Or it is recommended to add “ i “ attribute to that entire theme directory: (lock files)

chattr –R +i /usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/docroot/themes/-any-theme-directory

then there will be no add-on theme

[b:ecd3d82505]Attention: any time that Cpanel is updated these files will never be overwritten, but you have to make sure to upload that themes to those customer dedicated or co-located servers if WHM added new feature in WHM interface, I recommend every time a stable build is released upload new themes there [/b:ecd3d82505]

[b:ecd3d82505]Implementation:[/b:ecd3d82505]
[b:ecd3d82505]Symptoms:[/b:ecd3d82505]
The problem is you cannot ask your dedicated or co-located customers to give their Root password to apply those changes; also, you haven’t enough time to apply those changes to so many servers

[b:ecd3d82505]Resolutions:[/b:ecd3d82505]
Put your updated themes on your site:
and
Write two scripts and install them on your offered servers:
1) theme-update

This script downloads your theme update packages and your scripts, then calls theme-update script also create a cron job for theme-update to run once a day after Cpanel update time

2) theme-modify
This Script applies those changes after downloading:
a- Recognizing themes
b- chattr –i theme files
c- Installing updated themes
d- chattr +i theme files


With this technique, you can do whatever you want, you need to expand it and make necessary changes to fit your needs.

 

[bert]

I don't know what the point is with opening two identical threads in two different forums, but I posted my response to this here:
http://forums.cpanel.net/read.php?TID=4971