Lots of development news has been announced on the XF site today. Delights include the new Enhanced Search, the long-awaited Resource Manager (can't wait for that one) and sneak peaks of the spam management in 1.2 http://xenforo.com/community/threads/development-update.25726/ Can't wait
I'm quite looking forward in seeing how the resource manager is progressing. More so if it accommodates other resources like standalone graphics unlike the resource manager at vb.org which primarily accommodated focused on housing add-ons . Hopefully this accommodates a variety of resources in the way of options and criteria settings and is more versatile. Edit: Since this is somewhat related. I hope with regards to the attachment system that attachments can be distinguished from actual files which guests won't be able to download to screenshots that guests are able to view without downloading files. since the resource manager will heavily go hand in hand with the attachment system work distinguishing between files is a must. For me this will be a nice feature to have and eliminate the need to post 2 screenshots one for guests and members.
Can't wait for 1.2 and the resource manager. I plan on releasing a lot of add-ons over there this year. Happy to see they learned from the vB.org days and are doing all they can to make sure the users that post add-ons/graphics/styles have a nice system to work with.
I have been seriously considering getting Xenforo for my site ever since I saw the positive impact it has had on this site but I just read this thread on TAZ and I'm back-peddaling real fast. What is the likely outcome of all this?
Some good insight here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/california-case-update.10037/page-154#post-309790
It hasn't stopped people like IGN, Digital Point, and dozens of other sites continuing forward with XenForo. We're all confident XenForo will win even though IB is really mad angry Kier and Mike came out with a superior product. Even if in the Twilight Zone-like event that IB wins, nothing will happen to your XenForo installation. The good thing is that XF is built from scratch using modern libraries and techniques, meaning you can stay on XF for at least 3 years easily and still not be considered legacy. It may be a stick in the side interms of functionality because development is halted–you may need to then hire programmers if you can't do it yourself–but it's not like they can force you to change your installation.
I believe they could. Software licences are always worded strongly in favour of the software owner. Look how vB owned licences are now governed. At one stage they could be leased annually but then you were forced a couple of years ago to purchase an owned licence or close your site. The owned licence now states that the software may only be transferred once. There was no such limitation on it when I bought the licence. My continued use of the software is an implicit acceptance of the terms as they stand now. My only recourse is to cease using the software. I can't even give it to someone for free at this point. What is to stop them coming up with some equally restrictive licence clauses regarding Xenforo if the courts award them ownership of the software? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They will ride roughshod over the licence holders as they have in the past.
They have all the cards, play their way or don't play at all. You agree by continuing to use the software. You can disagree by ceasing to use the software. Simples.
To put some perspective on the matter regarding the court case; I really do believe it should be given very low priority when weighing up the pros and cons of using XenForo irrespective of the outcome. It's become a way of doing business these days, the mobile phone patent wars being a prime example. That however isn't usually a factor for most people when choosing their mobile phone. Nobody can predict the final outcome of the vB vs xF case but whatever it is I highly doubt it'll stop anyone using the product they have paid for and for sometime to come. My biggest concern is that XenForo is written and maintained by such a small number of people and if it wasn't for their previous track record I probably wouldn't use it for any of my forums that mattered. I'd say that element alone is of far more concern that the court case.
But the good thing about that is, they are moving along nicely with quality work. Can't say that for companies with a lot of people doing the work. I've heard some things about the work ethic of some companies by people who work for them...and it isn't pretty. It's lazy and not really caring too much about their work thus it lacks the quality.
For vBulletin to be granted ownership of XenForo's code would require them providing evidence that it is derived directly from vBulletin (Which cannot be done). The claims that were granted were ones that were obviously there as lawsuit filler (RICO claim and conspiracy?). If you want serious and professional insight into the lawsuit, just pay attention to TheLaw and jadmperry as they're both professional lawyers and have posted since the first day of the lawsuit. The vast majority (Like Kotonoha saying vBulletin can be rewarded rights) is just speculation and fear mongering for the most part (Even if it isn't intentional). To be rewarded rights to the software, vBulletin has to prove that XenForo is based off of the vBulletin code base, which they were unable to do with their expert witness.
I couldn't agree more. My concern is if something were to happen to one of the developers e.g. abducted by aliens, renounced technology and went to live in a mud hut or something. It's a more likely factor with a small outfit and something I've been bitten by before so I'm naturally a little wary.
You can go around forever saying "What if..." and never get anywhere. Your examples would go for any forum software (Except probably vBulletin, as they change developers weekly it seems); if their main developers left suddenly, they would take a huge hit to their development and would start to decline rapidly.
As someone that's spent a lot of time in the vBulletin source code, and plenty of time in the xenforo source code over these last few months I'm 100% sure that IB will lose in court. I've gone through the released .PDFs related to the case and I see nothing in there that worried me. I think xenforo will be in business for many years, and IB is honestly just bitter that they ran off the heart and soul of the vBulletin dev team and now they're paying for it because so many of their big customers are jumping ship. So, I understand you're worried about this but honestly this isn't some case where IB has solid evidence that code was copied from them. Nothing was copied, its obvious from the source code of both products, and at this point its basically a situation where IB is hoping to drag this through the courts in an attempt to bleed as much money from the xenforo guys as possible in the hopes that they can no longer continue to afford the court costs. But I assure, that's not going to happen, in fact, I give you my word as a southern gentleman that its not going to happen.
Brad, I tend to agree the law suit is little more than an aggravating source of, well, aggravation. I think IB's up a gumtree, trying to get anyone to believe there was any code copied from them. It seems IB has a simple case of monkey-ass and they figure they might be able to out-spend XenForo's owners. Which seems to be quite effective at alienating the few customers that hadn't already left them, years ago. The thing that is most upsetting is the claims all appear to be frivolous at best and ludicrous in the extreme, yet the legal gods must be appeased, so everyone is going to have to spend precious resources to see this pig in a poke land in court. Excuse me, but it seems the court system in Cali has other and much more pressing business it could be attending to.
We don't call it the Ninth Circus (rather than Ninth Circuit) over here for nothing. The actual good news with that, though, is that VBSI was actually interested in trying to win this, they would've venue shopped this over to Texas. Everybody in IP knows that the Fifth Circuit is where you go to shop if you want justices friendly to big business when it comes to this stuff. All of this blow-by-blow really just riles and agitates folks, especially when we get commentary by the (not necessarily legally inclined) true believers who think that the righteous shall lay down thunderbolts on VBSI and that all the charges should be drop and any idiot can see that. They have the best of intentions, but that's just not how the legal system works, and every time a motion gets filed everybody gets their hopes up that the case will finally get crushed, just to be let down when it just proceeds another step. Honestly, this all is good news; the case making any movement is good news, because VBSI's mission plan is to drag this out interminably and bleed XF dry. The most dangerous accusations -- the ones with criminal ramifications -- got punted, and those are also the ones that were most likely to cause snags because of the number of people starting to get dragged in on the conspiracy allegation and such. As I put in the armchair speculation elsewhere, the judge is absolutely right to be circumspect in keeping the other allegations on the table: anything and everything he dismisses up front becomes another grounding point for appeals down the line and another weapon for VBSI to continue their delaying tactics. VBSI won't be able to make their case to the point of being capable of demanding the intellectual property. Just not happening, and it doesn't matter how many crackpot has-been expert witnesses whose computer science knowledge is still "so early 90's" they trot out, especially when their own people continue to dodge being deposed or have been caught out in blatant falsehood. The worst case scenario is that they attrite out the XenForo guys before this can finish. The best way that is staved off is by us continuing to support the product and to not get scared off by the legal monster. Everybody who is holding off on purchasing because of the supposed uncertainty is doing what VBSI wants them to do in this situation and is in fact marginally increasing the possibility of that scenario. And there I go again. =)
