1 (edited by ganes 2008-11-19 05:53)

Topic: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

I remember a forum software (Invision Board) which was free to use at the beginning, the developer than start to charge users.

Will this happen to punbb? or will punbb adopt automattic (wordpress) business model?

edit reason:
it should be Invision Board, not SMF hmm

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

No, on 2009 it'll cost 10$.

... just jokin smile Now, seriously it'll be $9.99. wink

3

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

come on'..which one is serious? yikes

$9,99 monthly? or what?

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

No plans to charge users now.
PunBB is currently under GPL.
Even if the license ever will be changed, some one may take last GPL-ed version (once published under GPL, the code cannot be "taken back") and go on development of the free version. See GForge story for example.

Carpe diem

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

ganes wrote:

come on'..which one is serious?

$9,99 monthly? or what?

Though you may pay $9,99 monthly... or at least yearly... if you want tongue

Carpe diem

6

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

wew..if there is a "free choice" why should I pay? big_smile

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

Anatoly wrote:

No plans to charge users now.

I think the plan is to give away the razor and charge for the blades.

PunBB will remain free but Extensions will cost money down the line. It's the only viable way I see to keep PunBB going, since the staff of PunBB are paid employees, not volunteers.

8 (edited by vankon 2008-11-19 17:54)

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

usually, in  China, open-source is not mean  non-business or business. users free for non-business, and must pay for business.

gpl allowed you use the soft freely, but not free for support. so, if a problem no one support, then you can solve it by your self.

smile

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

ganes wrote:

come on'..which one is serious?
$9,99 monthly? or what?

I was just joking smile

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

hcgtv wrote:

but Extensions will cost money

That should say 'official extensions'. smile They can't charge for extensions created by members.

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

MattF wrote:

They can't charge for extensions created by members.

They can charge for access to a well done repository. A repository you can access from your admin screens, that checks for updates, let's you peruse what's out there and installs it for you. If an extension that's made by a member happens to be on the list of available, installable extensions, does that hurt or help said member?

Now if we want to compensate members for their work via some mechanism to track installed extensions, well that would be a win-win for everybody.

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

I can see how extension contributors might find the pay-per-install, (to give it a loose term), nice, (and it would be an incentive for their work), and the system would probably be well accepted in general, but still...

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

Garciat wrote:
ganes wrote:

come on'..which one is serious?
$9,99 monthly? or what?

I was just joking

                        Garciat - Die hard

My Extensions and Me

i knew that wink

14

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

i think, instead of asking any fee to personal users, it is better to offer some "vip" service. I'm thinking of something like "hosting", "installation service", "custom development" etc.

and leave what is currently free as free, or else user will potentially leave away (to fluxbb or perhaps even to vbulletin).

I personally think that it is fine to keep the donation open.

Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

hcgtv wrote:

PunBB will remain free but Extensions will cost money down the line.

No plans. And all extensions MUST be under GPL while the core is GPL.

hcgtv wrote:

It's the only viable way I see to keep PunBB going, since the staff of PunBB are paid employees, not volunteers.

Not all the staff is paid already. We welcome volunteers, so that they have other benefits from their work and have no any enforcement from PunBB owners. Paid work means deadlines and obligations. Free work means you may do just what you are interested in as long as you like it. (Though I really like my paid PunBB work very much wink) We may give our experience and infrastructure to volunteers so that they can learn and become world-famous web-developers cool

hcgtv wrote:

They can charge for access to a well done repository. A repository you can access from your admin screens, that checks for updates, let's you peruse what's out there and installs it for you. If an extension that's made by a member happens to be on the list of available, installable extensions, does that hurt or help said member?

Now if we want to compensate members for their work via some mechanism to track installed extensions, well that would be a win-win for everybody.

Are you ready to pay for this? We'll do this for you smile
Seriously, we have no plans of any kind of direct charging the users. This may be done just to support the extension developers. I personally was thinking of some non-commercial fund accepting donations: all it's money would directly go to extension developers only.

Informer's interest are end-users themselves. Our aim is to offer them other Company's services and to get money from advertising/charging there. We really would like to make all our services better (best with time) and to integrate them into forum extensions (as soon as it is requested by end-users).

Carpe diem

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

Anatoly wrote:

Informer's interest are end-users themselves. Our aim is to offer them other Company's services and to get money from advertising/charging there. We really would like to make all our services better (best with time) and to integrate them into forum extensions (as soon as it is requested by end-users).

Interesting smile

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Re: Will PunBB be Free for use forever?

i really hope sooooo.:P