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Software and Technology by
Hari
Posted on Sat, Dec 31, 2005 at 08:51 IST (last updated: Fri, May 8, 2009 @ 17:36 IST)
I don't know how many of you might have noticed this, but LiteraryForums.org is no longer powered by phpBB. I won't go into the reasons for this, but the long and short of it is this: phpBB is no longer the only free forum solution left. It's age has shown up. Within the last twelve months or so, it has received several bug fixes, security patches and updates. Version 2.0.18 was the biggest update among them all and it was a pain to upgrade on a heavily modified board. And now, I just noticed that 2.0.19 has come out. I don't know when this meaningless upgrade cycle will end, but one thing is for sure: phpBB 3.0 was long overdue a year ago at the very least. And we still haven't heard a whisper about this. Take a look at this fairly recent thread at area51@phpBB and you will know the attitude of the developers. Open Source it may be, but they aren't winning too many friends out there.
The real issue is that there are several free competitors to phpBB now with many more features and a friendlier support community. Simple Machines is one such board. For a free forum, it's chock-full of features and though I'm not the biggest fan of its templating system, it's still a great option for people who simply cannot afford to pay for a forum software. Another is MyBB which current powers LiteraryForums. It's not open source, but it's still free for use and their support community seems to be much friendlier at present. Their community is still small and it's not a perfect forum solution, but it's as good as one can get with a free board. MiniBB is another free board. It's concept is totally different and its "minimalistic approach" to a bulletin board is quite refreshing but unfortunately it doesn't seem to have too active a community and the lack of working converters from other boards makes it a not too attractive prospect for existing forums. I'm sure there are quite a few free boards I've not mentioned here, but I think I've made my point.
Where does this leave phpBB? I don't know. It's still the world's most popular board, mainly due to its large modding community and the wide variety of templates available. Unlike a few free boards, it's also got a large network of support communities worldwide in different languages. Most importantly, there must be a million boards which are currently powered by phpBB. Does this make phpBB the best option? Not really in my opinion.
Some time back, I could have criticized phpBB 2.0.x for its poor security. The reason is obvious. The codebase is fairly old and needs a complete rewrite. As a PHP programmer, you take one look at their code and you can say that it's out of date even for PHP 4. The large number of changes in their session code in 2.0.18 alone showed you how much it's gone behind in terms of development. Then again, I could criticize it for its lack of features. It's amazing how quickly you find a need to MOD phpBB to get feature "A" or feature "B" which you absolutely want but which is missing. I'm not talking of the frills. Take for instance the ability to prevent old posts from being edited by users. No, it's not part of phpBB. Again the lack of a moderation "queue" is a severe drawback. I still cannot find a MOD for that one. Lack of subforums (yes, I know there are a couple of MODs for this one) is another. Sure, the admin control panel is one of the easiest to use in the business, but it always left one feeling a lack of control over features.
I know that I shouldn't be critical of a free, open source program and I usually am not. I also know that many of you might say "If you want a professional forum, you should pay for it (say vBulletin or IPB)". It is a good argument but unfortunately not all of us can pay $160 for a forum solution and not all of us can generate revenue from our sites to pay for our costs.
So I definitely hope that the phpBB programmers manage to roll out a full, working and stable version of 3.0 quickly. It's the least that they can do for the huge community of phpBB enthusiasts and supporters out there. Competition can only be good for everybody concerned and it's time that Jelsoft and Invision had some to contend with. phpBB 3.0, if it is up to expectations, will fill a huge gap in that regard.
2 comment(s)
Comment by gratis forum (visitor) on Mon, Jun 4, 2007 @ 19:23 IST #
Comment by hari (blog owner) on Mon, Jun 4, 2007 @ 21:17 IST #