I posted this in the Private Coders Forum on vb.org, but since not everyone can actually access that forum, I thought id copy it here as well. I have been making modifications for five and a half years now, and over much of that time I have kept records on install counts in excel, and mapped them out in charts over time. Its quite interesting (to me anyway) some of the patterns you notice over time. One of the patterns that has always repeated over all the 3.x > 3.y releases is that as each new major version is released, the counts for the previous version stop rising and immediatly drop by a few %, and then continue to slowly fall over time, while at the same time, the counts for the new version shoot up initially, and then continue to rise steadily. Neither of these is really much of a surprise as it shows members switching from one version to the next. However, the move from 3.8 > 4.0 is breaking this pattern in a very significant way. When 4.0 went gold in December, the usual pattern seemed to kick in, the 4.0 counts shot up, the 3.8 counts dipped [slightly], but since then, the pattern has changed very interestingly - while the 4.0 counts continue to slowly rise, so are the 3.8 install counts - so much in fact that they are now back to the level before 4.0 was released, and they are still going up. This has never happened before, and IMO this is a significant fact - I take it as a real life indicator that admins are not moving to 4.0, but sticking with (or starting with ?) vb 3.8. Im sure we all thought that, but to me, this displays the trend in actual figures.
I suppose the comparison to make would be to when 3.0 came out....as the incremental releases after that (3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8) made only comparatively minor changes (3.5 added the product system which was quite major, but in all cases the basic coding & styling structure stayed the same). This mean that people found it easier to perform those upgrades without wholesale changes to their site. For example, I went through all those incremental upgrades without making any real changes at all. However 3.0, like 4.0, meant changing almost everything on your site to perform the upgrade - arguably more so than 4.0 as it was a complete rewrite. So I'd be interested to see how the figures for 4.0 compare specifically with 3.0.
and id love to tell you, but thats more than 5 years go. 3.0 was already the standard version when I started modding, and 3.5 was when I started collecting information.
Well I think in defence of 4.0, that might have a bearing on it - it's such a major step that people will often hold off for a while, even if it had been released as near-perfect. Anecdotally there was some delay in people taking up 3.0 at the time of its release (though not on the part of Cableforum, then nthellworld.com, who ran 3.0 from the early betas! Blame Frank.)
I love the statistical analysis you have done Paul M. Quite invaluable to me and I really appreciate your forthcoming with it given that not many people have been around, maybe, to track such things in their spare time. Your statement in BOLD (that I marked) is quite telling. I wonder how would this breakdown as the path to run 3.8.x? 1. Previously had 3.8.x and not paying for v4.0. (I would think this case excluded from your stats?) 2. Previously had 3.8.x and has purchased the v4.0 Suite for ONLY updates of 3.8.x. 3. Previously had 3.8.x and moved straight away to v4.0, but then went back to 3.8.x 4. New 3.8.x licenses obtained from private party sales. Just thoughts of how admins are arriving at your deduction, which I'm not completely knowledgable about. I have 2 3.8.x licenses. Got my second one via private party.
Are the modifications now standard in 4.0? (Doubtful, but question worthy) I'm just wondering if other coders have a similar experience with their modifications. I know your mods (Paul M.) are some of the more famous ones there so it gives a good picture, hopefully someone has some mods with install counts to get a broader picture.
Hmm, in my case I bought the vB 4 license but I still use 3.8.4, or you could say I bought it just to get 3.8.4 since I never had the intent of using vB 4.
Nice post Paul. It will be interesting to see these stats a year down the road. My guess is that 4.0 will level off or drop slightly and 3.8.x will continue to rise until it EOL's. I'll be interested to see an update to the stats.
I'll be interested to see what happens when 3.8 goes EOL. Thats when I think we see the real exodus happen.
I am seriously trying to learn PHP and MySQL to make my own forum software. Something I can customize to fit my own needs and something I don't have worry about getting to a cost that is ridiculous! If I create it, I doubt I release it to anyone. But I will convert all my forum communities to it
Any particular reason why you just wouldn't use a already freely available one and either build to it or take away from it? Either way, best of luck it'll be a lot more work..
Thanks for sharing that Paul Very interesting. I can only speak for myself, but I've been adding things from 3.8 recently because I don't intend to go to 4.0 so I kind of have been spending time getting my boards exactly how I want them going forward.
Just to update this a month later. My 3.8 modification installs continue to rise - and in fact I now have more than when vb4 was released.
Now a year has passed since vb 4.0 was released, I thought id just quickly update this. My install counts for 3.8 continued to slowly rise all throughout 2010, and are now about 300 higher than when vb 4.0 was released this time last year. Over the same period, my vb 4.x counts have reached just over 8650. Compare this to the first year for 3.8 mods of 9400, or 10000 for 3.7 mods). What does this mean ? well I guess you can interpret it many ways, but IMO it certainly shows that vb 3.8 is still popular, and in use by many - it also shows that vb 4.x is in wide use, certainly more than some of the doom and gloom members would have you believe.
Actually very interesting. I'm guessing it shows a lot have moved over but a lot stayed with 3.8. prob 2 main reason I think why they a lot stayed with 3.8 1. they didn't like the look of vb4 (me included) 2. 3.8 wasn't really broke was it. So was it worth updating and paying for vb4 when the forums they had suited the purpose.
