Jus

Now that all the developers who made it what it was have gone and it has been turned into a complete cash cow with absloutely no regard for it's customers, can anyone recommend me a decent piece of forum software. Invision Board and SMF or phpbb do not count to me.

If you don't know what i'm tallking about apparently:
- No more Beta releases
- No yearly renewals
- Pay for every new version
- Additional applications can only come as part of a suite.

Also the three main developers have left vbulletin, since the takeover of Jelsoft. Now I've used vBulletin for years, but if they are going to charge for every new version rather than the existing license system, I don't think I want to be their customer anymore as it makes them out to just be in it for the money.

Info here:
vBulletin information leak - Admin Zone Forums
vBulletin loses another developer - Admin Zone Forums

TygerTyger

What about the forum software by Wordpress? Never tried it but the blog software seems to suit a lot of people.

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Jus

It's a bit lacking in functionality for my taste, and it's not laid out the best, I've seen examples of it and it looks far too basic.

In case anyone is wondering the plans they've been posted here now:
Web Hosting Talk - View Single Post - Leaked vBulletin information, what do you think [MERGED]

Basically anyone who wants to install vB4 has to pay them almost 200 dollars to upgrade regardless if they have a license already or not.

knapper

I'm not sure you're being fair here. If you'd paid for a licence for vbullitein 3 when it was released in 2005, it would have cost you to this day $320 to keep it up to date. If the proposed system was in place it would have cost you $195. I would also say that the system they are adopting is a more common licensing model, rather than their present system.

UH-Matt

Hmm interesting reading.

I am also interested in serious alternatives.

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rsawchuk

Good luck in finding a replacement. A few months ago, I spent several days looking at the various open-source and commercial forum programs.

vBulletin was the best I could find. Since I installed it to replace our old DiscusWare software, our users are much happier, it is easier for me to administer the forums, and it has cut down our bandwidth use by 50%.

I spend a lot of money each year on software. So for me paying to have the best software available is simply the cost of doing business.

Russ

Jus

Maybe so but that is not my gripe - my gripe is that I have paid for an owned license, and am paying 30 dollars every year to get updates, why should I now need to shell out another 200 to upgrade when I already have paid 30 dollars for another year to do exactly this.

I can see where you are coming from for new customers, but for existing customers like myself it is nothing short of a rip-off, why should we pay 200 dollars or so to upgrade when we've already own the software, and under the agreement many many forums made they pay 30 to upgrade per year. Why extract more revenue from us?

You then have the people who have bought an owned license in the last month or two, already their 180 dollars investment in this will be worthless as soon as vB4 comes out they need to shell out yet another 200 just to upgrade the software. The other downside is that anytime vBulletin want some cash now, instead of releasing say 4.5 they will just release 5.0 as they know for sure it's another way to extract money out of people. The old system could not be abused, this one can.

Then you factor in the fact that all the development team who made it what it is pretty much have gone with the odd exception and on top of that they're not going to make beta releases (Which will obviously lead to a more bug filled software) they won't sell add-in's seprately and support will only be provided for 30 days and then you have to pay yet more money out, and you realise it's a black day. Some of the developers have been there for almost 10 years, it's surely not a co-incidence they walked out at the same time?

UH-Matt

Thats exactly what I thought.

This isnt much of a problem for new customers considering the software, or for leased, but for those of us who paid to "own" the software licence, and assumed that was the last big expense, its unfair. We may as well have not paid extra for an "owned" licence.

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Matt
UnitedHosting Staff

For official support please use our helpdesk at UnitedSupport.co.uk

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knapper

Good points, I think one very important issue to bear in mind is this is leaked information that's far from complete. They might very well be working out some sort of discount system and it wasn't mentioned in the meeting, or simply wasn't included in the post. The nature of leaks mean they need to be treated with caution.

Saying that, still wise to make sure you're fully up to date with the alternatives...just in case

TonyW

The fact the memo was leaked means they'll probably have had to have another meeting to discuss where they go from here so things could change. They'll no doubt be aware of the general dissent since the information was accidentally made available. Only time will tell what'll happen next.

Vger

Invision Power Board, the commercial version of the old Invision Board, is excellent.

You pay for the initial install, then you pay $25 twice a year for access to all upgrades - and that includes new versions.

I find vBulletin to be very slow compared to Invision Power Board.

Vger

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