In order to collect more money for the creation of good forum software, ...
With AEF, bbPress, Beehive, esoTalk, XMB FluxBB, Fruit Show, Drupal, FUDForum, FusionBB, IceBB, IPBoard, Joomla Forum, MesDiscussions, MiniBB, MyBB, MyProBB, Phorum, PhpBB 2, PhpBB 3, PunBB, Quicksilver, SEO-Board, SMF 1.1, SMF 2, UBB, UltraBB, UNB, UseBB, Vanilla, vBulletin 3.8, vBulletin 4, Viscacha, Wikid Forum, Burning Board, WowBB, XenForo, XennoBB, JavaBB, JForum, jGossip, JsForum, MVN Forum, Nemesis, SKForum, Yazd, E-Blah, and YaBB available, why would you need to create another one?
Also, if you sold the ad space for a fixed fee I'd totally pay for it but this auction stuff is a bit too much. Anyone with a real world business that has a real world budget will be forced out of participation.
If you must stick with an auction format, might I recommend a certain number of slots and allow bidding as a lot auction?EDIT: Thank you Theymos for listening to my suggestion and I believe you have made the right decision! Let's see how it goes!