Topic: Development team annoucement

Hello all,

Some of you may have been wondering about the future of PunBB and the current development team following Rickard's announcement that he will not be actively involved with PunBB, at least for the time being. To cut to the chase, Neal (Smartys), Paul, Kristoffer (Jansson) and I have, with regret, decided that we are unable to continue our involvement with the development of PunBB.

We all became involved with PunBB largely because we shared Rickard's vision of the project. We were all happy to defer to his views on the future development of PunBB, especially since the project was his "baby," so to speak. Now that circumstances have changed with the inevitable shift of power within the project, we all feel that we need a degree of control over future development which is no longer possible. We all share a desire to develop software for the benefit of the community and ourselves, without commercial concerns influencing the final product. This is not a condemnation of PunBB's current owners: we simply feel that this change is necessary so that we as developers can maintain full control over the development process.

Despite this change, we are not abandoning the PunBB community. As we promised in the past, we have started our own fork of PunBB called FluxBB. We are continuing to develop the 1.3 branch of PunBB (re-branded as FluxBB) and have released a new beta version of it along with some extensions. We will also support and continue to provide security updates for the 1.2 branch of PunBB. As a part of that promise, we have released FluxBB 1.2.18, a stability update for 1.2 which fixes several known issues with 1.2.17. We hope that everyone can check out our site and that those who wish to do so will register and become a part of our new community.

EDIT: Topic moved to General Discussions as it is not an official PunBB News //Anatoly

Re: Development team annoucement

Just to note I'm fully supporting this fork and will thus not be further developing any of my extensions for PunBB. They however have been ported to FluxBB (along with a few new ones), and will only be supported and continued there.

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Re: Development team annoucement

I am happy with this change, I am already there smile

Re: Development team annoucement

Iv been part of the punbb community for a long time and i was when Rickard sold the rights, even tho he said nothing would change, i was shocked. Then the move to a sub domain, ugh. I'm glad i join the Fluxbb community where i know the goal of the project and (kinda) know the people behind it.

Re: Development team annoucement

I also am for this move... Going to use fluxbb... though i think punbb just has this originality..

Shame the community was force out, so to speak

Sorry. Unactive due to personal life.

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Re: Development team annoucement

I don't like the move either. I'm shifting my focus on FluxBB from now on smile

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Re: Development team annoucement

Me too. I'll make my Download Mod working on FluxBB too.

Re: Development team annoucement

Great move guys. Thank you.

Re: Development team annoucement

I know you guys probably have to be all political etc...but did the new company screw you all over? I am just curious.

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Re: Development team annoucement

bingiman wrote:

I know you guys probably have to be all political etc...but did the new company screw you all over? I am just curious.

No they didn't. They have stuck to all the committments they made.

Re: Development team annoucement

Glad to hear that. I do know how these things can start off greta and then end on a sour note. Anyway, I wish you guys all the best with your new venture and I shall be just as active as I was over on this site.

Cheers!
Shedrock

Re: Development team annoucement

I'm hoping a lot of people will make the move from PunBB to FluxBB, so that this last one could have an extensive community, support, etc.

I'm already planning to work on the localization of FluxBB.

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Re: Development team annoucement

I *knew* this would happen.

I've been through this before with the fork of the Mambo CMS > Joomla several years ago. Things changed with the original Mambo project (IP and ownership issues etc) in a similar manner to what has happened to PunBB, and a big chunk of the core devs and hackers soon left, worried that their input was being commercialised and open source ideals were being compromised.

But it is very disruptive and lots of things can suffer. For example with the Mambo/Joomla fork, the security of the code in Mambo (never that great) and Joomla went completely to crap for a long long time, since with the shift of devs and code no one knew what was going on and those who took an interest in security auditing in one project didn't bother with the other code base anymore.

The disruption caused by the fork also meant I never touched Mambo or Joomla again. I went across to a CMS with a more stable developer heritage and community instead.

For the moment I'll probably move on over to FluxBB too if the code is (at least for now) compatible with PunBB, since I have a lot of mods and hacks to worry about integrating into it. 

But please, no more radical moves, or I'll have to seriously start looking at Phorum or SMF or even (shudder) PhpBB...

PS - don't the core devs who are leaving now for FluxBB feel bad about ragging so heavily on the poor guy who forked v1.3 into SunBB about a year ago? smile

Re: Development team annoucement

i will move to fluxbb too ...

but this complicated things furthur ... i mean some developers here and some there ...

some extensions here and some there .... this realy complicate things ...

any way ... lets see ... what happens next

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Re: Development team annoucement

lol ... the funny thing is that i 100% suspected that one of the develpers may do that ... and its not a bad thing ...

but didnt know that almost all will go to this idea ...

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Re: Development team annoucement

I have also moved to FluxBB.

I say moved... I will be keeping my Free PunBB Hosting going for the moment to see what Informer does next. If it comes to it then I will be converting the free hosting over to Flux as well.

I will leave the demo site up for 1.3 as the domain can not really be used for anything else. tongue

Re: Development team annoucement

What about Rickard, what wil he say?
What happens to punbb then?

PunBB, the FluxBB of tomorrow - today!

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Re: Development team annoucement

What the... :S What is meant with "fork" in this case?
I do not understand, is this FluxBB going to be straight off the same as PunBB, just with a new name, so there'll be two of them now?
And will it come to that I have to pay for a PunBB-forum later on or do I just have to change "PunBB" to "FluxBB" on the forum.

(I am sorry to ask so many times, but as I do not know so much about this, I am concerned. Again, sorry.)

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

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Re: Development team annoucement

Gotipe wrote:

What is meant with "fork" in this case?
I do not understand, is this FluxBB going to be straight off the same as PunBB, just with a new name, so there'll be two of them now?

A fork is, in the most basic way of explaining it, a completely separate version, based on the same source code, but with a different set of goals over the long term. Initially, differences will be minor, but later on, as things progress, larger differences between the two will occur.

Re: Development team annoucement

I don't know what will happen. I like both of them. I am concerning about the compatibility of punbb & fluxbb. If I want to development extensions of them ? What will I do? hmm

Re: Development team annoucement

if the devs are forking to fluxbb it seems the smart choice is go with them.  i'll be moving my site and mods over as time allows.  good luck on this new venture.

Re: Development team annoucement

still didnt got a comment from rickard or antololy

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Re: Development team annoucement

We all knew this could happen. Personally i believe there's no reason for drama, and i guess the development team tried to use a sober tone in the announcement as this is more natural than most might think after a first look.

The dev team got a little money for selling the copyright and the community goes on. I think it's good that you guys got a bit of money for your great job.

This is why free licences like GPL are valuable. The community never gets ripped off.
The new punbb owner should probably be disappointed with this move, but on the other hand this is very natural as he bought only the copyright of PUNBB code at that time and not punbb itslef, which is not possible to commercialize anyway due to its license.

I will naturally move to fluxbb too.

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Re: Development team annoucement

MattF wrote:
Gotipe wrote:

What is meant with "fork" in this case?
I do not understand, is this FluxBB going to be straight off the same as PunBB, just with a new name, so there'll be two of them now?

A fork is, in the most basic way of explaining it, a completely separate version, based on the same source code, but with a different set of goals over the long term. Initially, differences will be minor, but later on, as things progress, larger differences between the two will occur.

Ah, thanks. Figured it was something like that, but always nice with confirmation. big_smile

pedrotuga wrote:

The new punbb owner should probably be disappointed with this move, but on the other hand this is very natural as he bought only the copyright of PUNBB code at that time and not punbb itslef, which is not possible to commercialize anyway due to its license.

Great, then I can't be charged for having a PunBB forum. smile

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

Re: Development team annoucement

Connorhd wrote:

...Some of you may have been wondering about the future of PunBB and the current development team following Rickard's announcement that he will not be actively involved with PunBB, at least for the time being.

Wow, this seems sudden walking in here today. 
I didn't realize Rickard's statement actually implicated what you state there Connor.  Do you mean what he posted just a couple days ago (on the 29th), or was there something further back (I searched but ...I didn't find clarity on that)?

I'm kind of on the fringe and haven't been able to invest enough time getting to know you all better (yet), so I can't say as I know so much about you guys relationships and what's really happening in the inner circle,
but I've been hanging around since I first got here because I really dig your collective spirit and focus with pbb  - and I thank you for sharing that.
Considering that, and what I am hearing... if the core are moving on to something else, then for what its worth, I feel like its only right to continue supporting your effort.

I wish you luck, and I'll bcnu there.
Cheers,

TwoHawks
Love is the Function
No Form is the Tool