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Funny, I don't remember indicating I considered all differences of opinions to be attacks nor do I remember referencing "MattF" in my generic comment about attacks in forums.

Doth thou protest too much, perhaps?

Thanks for the acknowledgment. It is indeed nice when someone on a forum writes that they appreciate someone else's involvement as more often then not people use forums to attack others they don't know.

One week is no time at all.  All us in the USA are all paying attention to Obama-vs-McCain anyway.
Even 4-6 weeks is really no time. That's Thanksgiving in USA and close to Xmas.  If Jan 1 sees #1 & #2 then all is very good for 2009!

Good luck!

Thanks.

From an outsider's perspective, here are my thoughts:

• I really like the clean look of PunBB.

• I find it a shame that the community fragmented into PunBB & FluxBB as fragmented communities rarely help anyone.

• I think you Informer Technologies might generate a lot of good will if you go back to the http://punbb.org domain and include a "Sponsored by Informer Technologies" link on the right of the top blue banner. That will give you probably more exposure and will address one of the sore points of the community.

• Why not create an advisory board of community members that will be able to make recommendations for direction on PunBB and have Informer Technologies follow their recommendations whenever possible.

From what I see I really like this forum, but I would not want to adopt it if there is a chance it may become an orphan. A strong community is essential as is a strong community leader.  Forgive me for saying, but I think you should acheiving that as a top priority.

Also,  one of the best things that could happen would be for you to develop an integration with WordPress; what's the chance of that?

Also, where is your documenation for writing extensions?  I'm not able to find any as this page is blank: http://punbb.informer.com/wiki/punbb13/ … evelopment

I don't exactly follow.  Who all sold out?  The people on the FluxBB?  Go through what? Having FluxBB be bought?  What kind of assurances do you want? 

Forgive me for saying, but my first impression is that you are strangely non-pragmatic.  In other words kinda "bite your nose to spit your face" non-pragmatic.  But please don't shoot me for saying it, I'm just giving you my impression.

That said, at least you support Obama. :-)

That's a shame because it doesn't help anyone.  Seems like SoftDeluxe bungled the acquisition, or is it the sole fact that it was acquired that you object to?  Could SoftDeluxe have done things differently to keep the community together?  It sounds like a nasty divorce where the only ones that make out are the lawyers w/the two ex-spouses being financially devastated. Or the mutual assured destruction of two nations nuking each other.  Why can't people get just along?

All that's fair except I don't think the part regarding "millions of dollars of funding" is applicable for WordPress, and only applicable for Drupal very recently.  They both got to where they are on the strength of what they offered their respective communities.

From what I see, I do really like PunBB though I've not actually installed it yet and I haven't seen the extension docs (are they online yet?)  I would personally prefer a stronger user base, but maybe PunBB is the project that will be on the top of the heap in 3-5 years? And if PunBB offers a WordPress integration extension I think that will be a lot more likely than not. 

I could even possibly help with such an integration since I develop WordPress plugins if I had a paying client project that could fund the development. I wish I could just contribute but I already spend all my free time organizing web entrepreneurs locally via http://atlantawebentrepreneurs.org and don't have any other free time. I obviously do "contribute", only I do it in other ways.

You are painting with a very broad brush.  There are many complex systems that have matured and thus have minimal problems.

My rule?  Anyone who speaks in absolutes is an ideologist and by their very nature, not correct.

Based on your words you've obviously never been responsible for the budget required to hire people. Broad experience is of little value when the person doesn't have strong problem solving skills. That said, people with strong problem solving skills who have experience with a specific system are much more cost effective than people how have strong problem solving skills but no experience.

And why would someone need to use MODx when they are not hired for that?  That's a non sequitur. If someone is needed to deal with MODx, hire for it.

Everything can have security nightmares; open-source apps like PunBB especially because people can study the code to learn how to crack it. (I'm not disagreeing with open-source, just making an appropriate comparison.)

"Security" can be used as an argument against anything so I almost never see it as a valid argument when used as a reason not to do something.  George W. Bush has been using it for 8 years and I don't view his warnings as credible either.

Maybe, but as I'm not one of those users it doesn't apply to me.

Bottom line there are benefits to the size of a user base, i.e. Acquia couldn't exist to support Drupal users if Drupal had no more users than PunBB. The fact that you don't value those benefits does not mean that those benefits do not exist for those who value them.

Worse is the fact you try to discredit those benefits rather than to simply acknowledge that for you those benefits are not important. Whenever I come across someone who feels compelled to strenuously deny those things that other's value I wonder if the person doing the denying is trying harder to convince me or are they really just trying to convince themselves?

Sorry, comes with the territory?

Not the most glowing recommendation for someone who works with Drupal & WordPress over TextPattern.   A large installed user base is very important to me.  But I appreciate your sentiment.

For the record, I use Windows and not Linux or Mac precisely because of its popularity; that makes it better for me. But "better" is in the eye of the beholder and is determined by what the beholder values most.  I value popularity because it means 1.) when I have a problem and google for it I am more likely to find an answer, 2.) when I need to hire someone who knows it I am more likely to find someone who does, and 3.) when I need to acquire an add-on there is a greater likelihood that one will exist.  So if vBulletin were open-source I wouldn't even be asking here, but since it's not and I've decided I need an open-source solution I decide to look around.

I also value aesthetics and that's something I really like about PunBB; it has really nice aesthetics.

BTW, me saying I value popularity should in no way be taken to mean that I am attempting to diminish what you value; I am only stating what I value and making the distinction that what one values has a lot to do with determining the best solution for that person.  I do value what you value here, just not as highly as I value popularity.

And there we value the same thing; Drupal's forum module bites, but hard.  I generally prefer a best of breed solution with integration.  That said, are there any integrations to WordPress that you know of?

Cop-out! 

But seriously, thanks for taking the time to reply.