26 (edited by bingiman 2007-10-13 18:03)

Re: An update

@BlackJack - Dude, that theme on your site rocks! Just had to tell you that. big_smile

Re: An update

Rickard wrote:

Now, as some of you might have heard, the rights to PunBB are no longer owned by myself and/or the other developers.
...
It should also be clear that once code is released under the GPL, it remains that way forever i.e. it cannot be made closed source retrospectively.

Code that has already been released cannot be un-GPLed.  However, the copyright and license on new code (future releases) is not governed by the GPL unless it is released under those terms.  There is no guarantee that future releases will be released under the GPL.  There are several examples of GPL projects that switched to proprietary models; Active Collab comes to mind.  That is entirely within the rights of the copyright holder.

Most open source project with a certain size can't rely on pure advertisement and donation (the only exception I can find right now is Wikipedia, which is special). They all use other means, usually partnership of some kind and/or sell service around their products, to support them.

Service integration and partnerships are different concepts from selling the rights to the code / brand / etc.  phpbb, wordpress, and others, for instance, offer various services and such, but the code / copyright is still owned by the developers.

Re: An update

banzaimonkey wrote:
Rickard wrote:

Now, as some of you might have heard, the rights to PunBB are no longer owned by myself and/or the other developers.
...
It should also be clear that once code is released under the GPL, it remains that way forever i.e. it cannot be made closed source retrospectively.

Code that has already been released cannot be un-GPLed.  However, the copyright and license on new code (future releases) is not governed by the GPL unless it is released under those terms.  There is no guarantee that future releases will be released under the GPL.  There are several examples of GPL projects that switched to proprietary models; Active Collab comes to mind.  That is entirely within the rights of the copyright holder.

Rickard wrote:

Enough with the drama. This isn't the "End of free PunBB". PunBB is GPL and will remain so. If push comes to shove, I'll fork it myself!

I think that about covers it. PunBB's code is released under the GPL and will remain that way. The copyright holder can of course choose to relicense the code at any point, but that would result in a fork of the code that remains under the GPL, as Rickard stated wink

29

Re: An update

I like to say Good Luck to all developers for next PunBB release.

If your people come crazy, you will not need to your mind any more.

Re: An update

You guys deserve your sponsorship smile Providing PunBB stays as easy to use in future releases I will continue to support it.

Re: An update

elbekko wrote:

Bingiman:
Yes, they want to make money. Like any other company. But they are merely sponsors and, as said, the paid forum hosting could produce quite the income if played properly.
And for a paid version... why not? Personally, I think it'd be better if people could 'buy' official extensions in that case. It'd be pretty much like a donation.

And you know, it's still software under the GPL. If the developers don't like the way the company is going, they can just fork off and go their own way again.

I completely agree.  I've been looking at vBulletin because some of my forums and projects are to the point that I'd like to leverage all the professionally built, tested, and supported extensions.   If a sponsorship deal allows for a paid version of punBB that has many tested extensions then I'm all for it.

In general I think we should all withhold judgments until we see a decline in productivity of the team or the viability of the product.  So far things look good and I'm seeing more progress on 1.3 than I've seen before.

Rob Ludlow 
www.Nifty-Stuff.com - Repository of all Stuff Nifty!
www.reviewum.com - Professor Ratings + Teacher Reviews

Re: An update

In general I think we should all withhold judgments until we see a decline in productivity of the team or the viability of the product.  So far things look good and I'm seeing more progress on 1.3 than I've seen before.

It is an Opinion and not a judgment. There is a big difference between the two my friend.

Bingiman

Re: An update

Actually, my dictionary and thesaurus says that opinion and judgment are similar. tongue

34 (edited by MattF 2007-10-14 10:29)

Re: An update

guardian34 wrote:

Actually, my dictionary and thesaurus says that opinion and judgment are similar. tongue

Did either of those tomes mention the missing E you three have, or is it merely another 'Americanism'?. big_smile big_smile

Re: An update

Can't wait for the release. Nice work fellas.

Re: An update

One learns something new almost every day smile

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

37

Re: An update

That makes sense. I always write it as Judgment but thats because I'm invariably using it in the context "The Judgment handed down by Lord Justice etc".

In any case, it was neither a judgment nor an opinion, more of a prediction.

Re: An update

My prediction was at closing. My opinion preceded that. big_smile

Bingiman

Re: An update

reviewum.com wrote:

I've been looking at vBulletin because some of my forums and projects are to the point that I'd like to leverage all the professionally built, tested, and supported extensions.   If a sponsorship deal allows for a paid version of punBB that has many tested extensions then I'm all for it.

I very much doubt it will be something along those lines. If that was the business plan, well, why waste several month? Why not announce it, or at least the buyout? It seems much more along the lines of using PunBB for their products, maybe refactored, or something like that.

Anyway, at this point, it's pure speculation.

40

Re: An update

That explains my preference for using it with the extra E then. big_smile

41

Re: An update

I have been using Punbb for over 3 years on very small to very large websites. Unlikely to the other comments, this is the worst news I have heard so far.

I am very surprised about various points of this agreement. First, I believe you did not make this announcement public because you knew it would cause a huge reaction from the community, which you thought would not be funded. So, we don't know the amount of the transaction and probably never will, we don't know how it was divided between the team, and we learn it weekds (monthes?) later, although I consider this to be a very important news.

Then, sorry guys, but that company wanted to sell support - why the heck do they need the copyright for this? What I understand is you wanted to make money easily, sold the name, and thought if everything turns wrong, you'd fork it. It is pretty clear to me that they _will_ use that copyright to make money out of punbb. You usually don't buy things you don't want to use. And I don't see anything good there.

And finally, I am sick of that "if you don't like it, it's GPL, fork it". Punbb is like many other projects, 20% of the people involved do 80% of the code, and the other 80% 20% of the code. The 80% know the 20% can't maintain a fork, so basically they tell them to fuck off.

So no, I can not be happy with this news, neither the way this was handled, and people who are should seriously think about it again.

Re: An update

Yann wrote:

I have been using Punbb for over 3 years on very small to very large websites. Unlikely to the other comments, this is the worst news I have heard so far.

I'm very sorry to hear that, lets see if I can address some of your concerns.

Yann wrote:

First, I believe you did not make this announcement public because you knew it would cause a huge reaction from the community, which you thought would not be funded.

We did make the announcement public, that's why you're posting in this topic smile
As to why we didn't post it before now, Rickard really summed it up

Rickard wrote:

We haven't made a big song and dance about this because we know it doesn't affect the project in any noticeable way. We haven't even bothered to change the copyright notices yet. The only thing that has changed from before is that we, for obvious reasons, no longer accept donations.

Yann wrote:

So, we don't know the amount of the transaction and probably never will, we don't know how it was divided between the team, and we learn it weekds (monthes?) later, although I consider this to be a very important news.

It isn't all that important though, it's almost a non-story. I'll go with Rickard again:

Rickard wrote:

Now, it's important to understand that with an application released under the GNU General Public License, the ownership of the copyright is pretty irrelevant. The fact that we don't own the copyright anymore doesn't really change anything. It should also be clear that once code is released under the GPL, it remains that way forever i.e. it cannot be made closed source retrospectively. PunBB stays open source and the core development team is the same. There's no evil conspiracy. Think of it as a way for us developers to make a buck while continuing to work on PunBB in the exact same way we did before.

Yann wrote:

Then, sorry guys, but that company wanted to sell support - why the heck do they need the copyright for this? What I understand is you wanted to make money easily, sold the name, and thought if everything turns wrong, you'd fork it. It is pretty clear to me that they _will_ use that copyright to make money out of punbb. You usually don't buy things you don't want to use. And I don't see anything good there.

They can add PunBB to their portfolio of work. They can develop "official" services using PunBB and make money off of that. They can develop a "premium" version (although to the best of my knowledge there are no plans for anything like that), which if done wrong by them would result in a fork by the development team.

Yann wrote:

And finally, I am sick of that "if you don't like it, it's GPL, fork it". Punbb is like many other projects, 20% of the people involved do 80% of the code, and the other 80% 20% of the code. The 80% know the 20% can't maintain a fork, so basically they tell them to fuck off.

Except the core development team is the group that writes most of the code and the group that has said it's more than willing to fork. I really don't see what your problem with that is.

Yann wrote:

So no, I can not be happy with this news, neither the way this was handled, and people who are should seriously think about it again.

Hopefully I've managed to address your issues, if you have any more points feel free to respond smile

43

Re: An update

Hello Smarty, thanks for your calm answer. The only difference now is that they do not have to respect the GPL - they can turn the licence into a proprietary one, and continue the work to propose premium services without having to release the code; which is likely to happen. If you then start to code the same features, they will probably not be too happy about that, will be interesting to see what happen. Anyway, I still don't see what "good" can come for us, the users.

I hope you already have a good new name in mind, and that you read all the small prints at the end of the contract. I guess you know that for most punbb users the licence and ethic of Punbb are primordial.

Re: An update

With a lawyer on the dev team, I'm sure they know what's in the contract.

45

Re: An update

Just a small question. If the company wanted to make money of PunBB, could they then force those that already have it to pay or is it just that if you want a new version, you would have to pay? hmm

Darth Vader will chase you away with his lightsaber!
GalacticEmpire.se Forum

Re: An update

Gotipe wrote:

Just a small question. If the company wanted to make money of PunBB, could they then force those that already have it to pay or is it just that if you want a new version, you would have to pay? hmm

No, every PunBB version ever release up until now are guaranteed to be free forever.

47

Re: An update

Jansson wrote:
Gotipe wrote:

Just a small question. If the company wanted to make money of PunBB, could they then force those that already have it to pay or is it just that if you want a new version, you would have to pay? hmm

No, every PunBB version ever release up until now are guaranteed to be free forever.

humm... So, what does this say for 1.3? Since every version before 1.3 will remain free!
I have noticed that punbb is a tight community an I think that people will be worried about what going to happen with the future of punbb. I feel in the beginning that most of the community should of been told of the movement of the selling out to a company. You say that it will be better support and such, but what has ever come out of selling out to a big company. I bet that fool that sold the codes to bill gates for dos is hating him self all the way to the bank.
Most forum script that have started out free and ended up selling out to a big company has lost out on the community support. Granted they have a free version that is very limited in function. IF you want to add this you will have to buy the full version etc...... I think that the support system now with every punbb and punres user is the best i have seen as far as in support for any type of forum script. In simple terms i would of said Guys i need more money for support and to keep things running. People would of step up to the plate to donate and helped out more. I would of even seen punbb it self charge a flat rate for a support or even to use punbb.

This is my 2 cents worth... which doesn't equal much..
http://www.bde.es/img/euros/moneda2_cruz_n.gif




Q

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

Re: An update

quaker wrote:

No, every PunBB version ever release up until now are guaranteed to be free forever.

humm... So, what does this say for 1.3? Since every version before 1.3 will remain free!

Every version until now, 1.3 alpha is GPL (labeled as such, and released to the public through Trac).

Frankly, for now, I don't believe the scenario where SoftDeluxe buy PunBB intellectual ownership to make a paid, proprietary, verison of PunBB. If that was their goal, they would have done so month ago, when they bought it.

Don't forget it has been done months and months ago, and nothing happened since (either good, or bad).

49

Re: An update

I first heard about it back in march of 2007 rumor and such..
I guess we will have to wait and see!

Q

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

50

Re: An update

Can't see any cause for concern now, myself. The original author himself has said he will fork the code if that scenario ever arose. Even if he didn't, someone else could and probably would. No reason for concern. smile