I am sorry if this is not the right place but I wanted to post my thoughts here as well and see what the others think. Because I think here the users can be more open than at Mybb where they can get banned.

I have been a member at Mybb for not so long but I have noticed things that don''t encourage me to continue being a part of this community anymore.

I see that users get banned simply because they don''t agree with staff or friends of the staff. That is not right. As long as they don''t break any rules they shouldn''t be banned. I also see that most threads here are closed immediatly at a whim of a staff member. That is not right too.

All in all that leads me to believe that this community needs to grow up starting from some memebr of the staff to the majority of the users.

When I told friends that I was considering to move to Mybb they all told me how immature this community is but now I saw it with my very own eyes.

It is such a pity. It is a great software and it will never be popluar because of these things.

(06-08-2010 03:40 AM)walkman Wrote:  I am sorry if this is not the right place but I wanted to post my thoughts here as well and see what the others think. Because I think here the users can be more open than at Mybb where they can get banned.

I have been a member at Mybb for not so long but I have noticed things that don''t encourage me to continue being a part of this community anymore.

I see that users get banned simply because they don''t agree with staff or friends of the staff. That is not right. As long as they don''t break any rules they shouldn''t be banned. I also see that most threads here are closed immediatly at a whim of a staff member. That is not right too.

All in all that leads me to believe that this community needs to grow up starting from some memebr of the staff to the majority of the users.

When I told friends that I was considering to move to Mybb they all told me how immature this community is but now I saw it with my very own eyes.

It is such a pity. It is a great software and it will never be popluar because of these things.

I have a feeling i know what you are referring to. Thus my main gripe left with them showing obvious favoritism towards a few like labrocca. The banning of that dude ( keep in mind i don't care for him at all )  was not surprising as that is their typical mo when it comes to anyone who dare says something bad about labrocca. labrocca basically owns that project. Not literally but figuratively speaking that is. He has donated the most and naturally MYBB wants to protect that. What is worse is it is the guys in charge doing this ( the obvious connection to his donating )  and thus not just any staff member.  They are really shooting themselves in the foot with this.

I would love to post in that OT thread of yours but i am about certain that if i do i'll end up banned.lol  Even if it is just to simply agree. Be careful as you could be next. As said above anything that involves their biggest donator gets shuts down quickly by whatever means needed including banning.

This is why i suspect they will change the license as well. Thus no longer wont be GPL. Heaven forbid they upset their biggest contributor.

I don''t care about that_guy either. Hell, I dislike him but I mentioned him as an example. Mybb is very immature. It is a pitty because I liked the software a lot. But I won''t be using. Back to phpBB for me

(06-08-2010 07:15 AM)walkman Wrote:  I don''t care about that_guy either. Hell, I dislike him but I mentioned him as an example. Mybb is very immature. It is a pitty because I liked the software a lot. But I won''t be using. Back to phpBB for me

Yeah i just checked your thread again. Really pathetic ( saw the stupid baby pic and all ) and they let it slide. CAwesome ( along with the others who kudo it )   should be given a time out for that. That should NEVER happen but ala it does there.

Good luck with it. As mad as i get with the folks at MYBB there is nothing that could bring me to switch to phpbb. Sorry man.  Heck i would rather just fork over the money for another IPB license.

Personally i would not cave in to the idiots and just try to hang in there. I think we all need to band together and work on getting the changes done there.

It seems that they have already did what i suspected they would do. Change the license to LGPL.

And please save the oh they said it is not set in stone. All know they are caving in to the demands of a few because of how much they have donated to the project and now the whole project will look like total assholes to the world with no credibility. They just said that to keep it on the down low. This project is fucked. I hope all is happy.

I think making judgements on a single incident is a bit too hasty thinking.  I mean, there's a number of possible issues you may not be aware of, such as discussions in private (from my experience with the team, the ugliest stuff happens there).
I can't really say much about that person in question as I don't really know what's been going on there.

Unless you really hope to involve yourself with the community, I don't think you should abandon a software because you dislike the community.  I don't really like it, but I will still be using MyBB.  You can still easily gain support there without caring about sections such as Chit-Chat etc.  I mean, as long as you get what you want, it shouldn't really matter how mature the community is, right?  Of course, if you personally just prefer phpBB over MyBB, then by all means...

And I don't think it's unreasonable to show favouritism towards certain members.  If they're your biggest supporters, I think it's natural to really do so.  It can be considered an incentive to try to keep them supporting you in the future.  For example, if your employer is paying you well, it's only natural that you want to please him/her so that you keep your job there.
Now whether you think the level of favouritism is too much is another thing - with that, I'd probably agree there's probably a bit too much.

(06-08-2010 09:38 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  I think making judgements on a single incident is a bit too hasty thinking.  I mean, there's a number of possible issues you may not be aware of, such as discussions in private (from my experience with the team, the ugliest stuff happens there).
I can't really say much about that person in question as I don't really know what's been going on there.

Unless you really hope to involve yourself with the community, I don't think you should abandon a software because you dislike the community.  I don't really like it, but I will still be using MyBB.  You can still easily gain support there without caring about sections such as Chit-Chat etc.  I mean, as long as you get what you want, it shouldn't really matter how mature the community is, right?  Of course, if you personally just prefer phpBB over MyBB, then by all means...

And I don't think it's unreasonable to show favouritism towards certain members.  If they're your biggest supporters, I think it's natural to really do so.  It can be considered an incentive to try to keep them supporting you in the future.  For example, if your employer is paying you well, it's only natural that you want to please him/her so that you keep your job there.
Now whether you think the level of favouritism is too much is another thing - with that, I'd probably agree there's probably a bit too much.

Seriously? I think MYBB needs to be forked. And if i can find the team i am gonna do it.

Keep in mind that the subject of favouritism there is a sore one that has been discussed at length everywhere and thus well known. So yeah this would go into the classification of going overboard with it. MYBB needs to lose that image and instead has gone the other way doing what they have on the community forums and now the license. Do you see this at say PHPBB? It should not happen period. Thing is MYBB is very obvious about it too.

Sorry but i think they really just shot themselves in the foot with their actions over the past day and now the license. Sorry to say but i think this project is doomed. And i say that because i see nothing ever changing there. They have no credibility left and that means everything in the GPL/Opensource/free world. They are better off making the software completely commercial.

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  Seriously? I think MYBB needs to be forked. And if i can find the team i am gonna do it.

I don't mean to be offensive, but I think it might be difficult for you to try doing that.  At best, you could suggest it around, but I think it will be difficult for you to get people to join up if you're leading the project.  The primary reason being the image you put out.
Again, don't mean to be offensive, but I thought it might for you own good if I pointed out what I thought.  Nevertheless, good luck with that.

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  Keep in mind that the subject of favouritism there is a sore one that has been discussed at length everywhere and thus well known. So yeah this would go into the classification of going overboard with it. MYBB needs to lose that image and instead has gone the other way doing what they have on the community forums and now the license. Do you see this at say PHPBB? It should not happen period. Thing is MYBB is very obvious about it too.

Again, most of this occurs due to lack of competition.  I think people like labrocca are well aware of this and purposely try to stifle competition.
I believe I've mentioned that he probably isn't doing this for profit, but possibly marketing reasons, encouraging support for him, as well as allowing him to funnel funds back to the project in a way that he has a significant say on how it works.  This way, not only does he have strong influence on the project, he also has a strong influence on the community.  This is really useful when most of your business is based off that particular script.
Since most of the people at the MyBB community are idiots, they don't pick this up, and just blatantly think this is all for profit.  In these sorts of "free" communities, it's all about PR and ability to take advantage of others.

However competition can make all this much more difficult.  For one, this means a larger, (generally) more intelligent community.  It also would make paid plugin developers' lives more difficult.
For example, labrocca is always yapping on about how he prefers MyBB over vBulletin.  I personally doubt this is solely due to just the script, rather, that vB is MUCH more difficult to influence, compared to MyBB, which started off as a really small community not too long ago.

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  Sorry but i think they really just shot themselves in the foot with their actions over the past day and now the license. Sorry to say but i think this project is doomed. And i say that because i see nothing ever changing there. They have no credibility left and that means everything in the GPL/Opensource/free world. They are better off making the software completely commercial.

I really don't think so.  As far as the software is concerned, development is quite focused towards users in general.  Influences you speak of, only have limited effects on the project, and all in all, there's no underlying contractual agreement of such control.

(06-08-2010 10:24 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  Seriously? I think MYBB needs to be forked. And if i can find the team i am gonna do it.

I don't mean to be offensive, but I think it might be difficult for you to try doing that.  At best, you could suggest it around, but I think it will be difficult for you to get people to join up if you're leading the project.  The primary reason being the image you put out.
Again, don't mean to be offensive, but I thought it might for you own good if I pointed out what I thought.  Nevertheless, good luck with that.

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  Keep in mind that the subject of favouritism there is a sore one that has been discussed at length everywhere and thus well known. So yeah this would go into the classification of going overboard with it. MYBB needs to lose that image and instead has gone the other way doing what they have on the community forums and now the license. Do you see this at say PHPBB? It should not happen period. Thing is MYBB is very obvious about it too.

Again, most of this occurs due to lack of competition.  I think people like labrocca are well aware of this and purposely try to stifle competition.
I believe I've mentioned that he probably isn't doing this for profit, but possibly marketing reasons, encouraging support for him, as well as allowing him to funnel funds back to the project in a way that he has a significant say on how it works.  This way, not only does he have strong influence on the project, he also has a strong influence on the community.  This is really useful when most of your business is based off that particular script.
Since most of the people at the MyBB community are idiots, they don't pick this up, and just blatantly think this is all for profit.  In these sorts of "free" communities, it's all about PR and ability to take advantage of others.

However competition can make all this much more difficult.  For one, this means a larger, (generally) more intelligent community.  It also would make paid plugin developers' lives more difficult.
For example, labrocca is always yapping on about how he prefers MyBB over vBulletin.  I personally doubt this is solely due to just the script, rather, that vB is MUCH more difficult to influence, compared to MyBB, which started off as a really small community not too long ago.

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  Sorry but i think they really just shot themselves in the foot with their actions over the past day and now the license. Sorry to say but i think this project is doomed. And i say that because i see nothing ever changing there. They have no credibility left and that means everything in the GPL/Opensource/free world. They are better off making the software completely commercial.

I really don't think so.  As far as the software is concerned, development is quite focused towards users in general.  Influences you speak of, only have limited effects on the project, and all in all, there's no underlying contractual agreement of such control.

I do agree about your points where labrocca is concerned. That is what this ALL gets back to about what i have been saying. It is a stain on MYBB. Yeah i know i have a habit of coming across poorly. Please forgive me for that.

It is all about public perception. Sure it may work ( The new license ) but MYBB will now always have this stain on them thanks mainly in part to labrocca. That is all i am saying. I am not arguing over free vs paid. It is about how MYBB will come out looking when this is said and done.

(06-08-2010 09:55 AM)Harry Wrote:  I think MYBB needs to be forked.

If anyone wants to fork MyBB, after the MyBB 1.6 LGPL release would be a good time.

Forking GPL projects is usually unattractive because the original authors can just say "thank you", take the best of the fork and integrate it back into their original project. And any smart authors would do just that. In practice this means a GPL fork can't get a leg up on the GPL project because any real improvements you make to the fork, will also be in the original project. Giving users no incentive to switch.

If MyBB 1.6 is licensed LGPL however the story is different. It would mean that the original project is LGPL, whereas the fork can be GPL.

This means any improvements or fixes made to the original project, can be taken into the fork (since nothing prevents LGPL => GPL). So any improvements the original project makes, your fork has them too. At the same time, any improvents you make in your fork, can't be taken back into the original project, since it doesn't work in the other direction (GPL => LGPL) - you can't just take GPL code and declare it to be Lesser GPL.

GPL is often referred to as a virulent license and it's true, since even the LGPL is, in a way, still GPL, in that it does not stop you to go back to GPL at all.  It wouldn't work like that for BSD or MIT.

MyBB in general is the ideal fork candidate; most of its developers are incapable and the project itself is already declared dead, as the current codebase will be abandoned  in favour of a complete rewrite. No other project rejects so many simple to implement improvements in favour of a vaporware that may never be released.

That said, I don't see anyone in the MyBB community who would actually be able to fork this project. If there's one more requirement to make a fork succeed, it's that you need capable developers on the team that's doing the fork, and within the MyBB community, there quite simply aren't any. If you decide to do it, it may be a good experience for you personally, but I highly doubt you'd be getting anywhere with it.