What will you do if xenforo closes shop this year

I think this is a valid concern of many xenforo owners with the lawsuit and lack of updates from the dev team, if the team is even together still.
what would you do if there were no more xenforo updates and even worse than that, what if some security exploits start popping up and no one is around to fix them.
I know I have at least two options here, move to IPB (doubt I'd do that) or move back to vbulletin.

 

Come on over to the good side(IPB), Brandon

As far as what i am going to do....i'm actually recently acquired my friend's xenforo site so i am curious to know what is in XF's future as far as updates. I may as well just go and end up converting his site to IPB and calling it a day.

 

Oh ya, what site?

 

For the most part I'm back to vBulletin. I'll be buying a IPB license within the next couple months just to play around.

I don't see anything good coming of XF. They have already lost all their goodwill with the utter lack of communication. As far as I'm concerned they're dead in the water.

 

ouch

 

Im still going to buy it probably even though there is a ton of stuff up in the air and all xenforo negativity like these articles at forum complaints.

But i still think its a pretty wonderful script from the looks of things. Now if i could get get a demo or something that'd be great.

 

As long as I am legally allowed to, I'll keep all my 4 licenses. LOVE the script, I am very pleased with it and I can keep my forums on it for as long as I want to. If anything breaks (which might not be an issue for 2-3 years at least), I can hire someone to patch it up or create a 'spin off' for my network only.

 

It's not that simple at times. Had it happen to me before using an old version of MyBB, which I never kept updated for about 1 year out of 2 years site was up, because it was modded way too much. I just changed version showed to people.

First, had one redundant PHP error warning, which I was able to search out a fix for fast used in about 3 files. But later when server updated PHP again, then was left with thousands of error warnings because newer PHP version made a lot of things redundant in most PHP files forum board used. That's what will happen with XenForo, a day will come if you end up sticking with current version (they go under). When there's very little you can do to fix your board. Already people are talking about JQuery and TinyMCE in XenForo, both now old versions causing one or two browser problems.

It's started! Some thing used in XenForo are well outdated on current version out now (XenForo is 2 years old), and with important fixes included in them as well. XF are doing nothing about it, you'll be very lucky getting 3 years from now. It's no joke when you spend hours working on a forum adding content daily, then one day "what you think won't happen" does happen when you least expect it. And all that hard work and time wasted. You need to be using forum software that being developed, there's no two ways about that. If you don't, you're running a ticking time bomb waiting to go off in you're face.

 

I'll also keep using XF until I'm legally bound to stop using it OR it stops working and I'm unable to fix it. When and if I have to stop using XF, I will probably just close the community using it down unless I can find a suitable forum software & importer to keep the community alive another way.

 

vBulletin or IPB...yay :/

 

@GTB I am using VB 3.8 on a forum. It's been like this for at least 3 years and it works PERFECTLY. It depends on many things and, as long as you don't fill the forum with lots of junk plugins and features you actually don't need, it should 'hold'. I updated a MyBB after 3 years too, just cause I decided to take the plunge at last. Worked like a charm then and every time. I NEVER had any issues like this with any platform I have used in the past 10 years. I migrated or upgraded when I just was bored, usually I like to leave them running. I am careful with my plugins (have very few installed) and keeping the database clean. Other than that .. never had any head aches

not to mention that, if I need it, I am sure I can find someone to repair my junk. I mean I have managed programming teams for my main client and the guys built such amazing stuff based on our requirements that I think, if I need something done, they will do it. It's php/mysql at the end of the day and fortunately, even if I am really useless with this, most programmers are pretty smart

 

you would close a forum down if you couldn'tt continue using XF? I mean i know you said likely close it down if you can't a suitable software but i couldn't imagine shutting my site down if the software i'd use was no longer allowed to be used. I take it the community isn't a super active one or something?

 

I will be disappointed.

I don't personally have XenForo running anywhere, so I'm not really out anything. Some of my favorite forums at this point are using it, though, and I was really looking forward to it taking off more....not coming to a halt.

 

Had nothing to do with mods, only used 2 for registration. Q/A and SFS. I'm not the type who uses mods if I can avoid them, don't use any now with the phpBB3 forum (and won't in future). It was MyBB files that had depreciated warning, lots of them. As I said, it was an old version used and when server host switched to PHP5 from 4, that's when they all came because a lot of forum php files used some code that was now deprecated in PHP5 (or whatever you call it, changed). I'm not talking 3-4 files, but hundreds using code PHP5 didn't like. So was time to remove the forum, as I couldn't update it! And server host also removed PHP4 support, so could not even choose to drop back using PHP4 instead of 5 as an option, they removed PHP4 completely.

Keep in mind that I use Shared Hosting, I don't have no choice in what they do with PHP and MySQL installed. It's not like I use dedicated hosting and can stick with same PHP version that works for my forum all the time, wish I could. Was my own fault really, I changed a lot of things with the forum over 12 months because I didn't like MyBB stock install, so really knew a time would come like that sooner or later.

 

I already moved back to vbulletin, because after I used Xenforo for awhile I liked vbulletin more, and vbulletin 5 looks nice. I'm glad I decided to relaunch my forum with vbulletin now after hearing these rumours that Xenforo might shut down.

 

Someone said, (forgot who) that the devs promised to continue with security updates while the court case is ongoing.

Still, even if there is a security exploit and no one is there to fix it, someone from the add on developing area from the community will work out a fix.

That's my thoughts/

 

Am I the only one rather skeptical of that claim? I mean, the devs also promised they'd answer questions, visit the support forums and still work on the script, yet they've done none of those things. I doubt they'll come back from nowhere the minute a major security issue pops up.

 

It's a nice script got a deal on 2 used licenses and I'm just waiting to develop them. In it's current state it gets the job done and there's enough member support to keep it updated for quite some time. With that though it could be so much more if there was ANY kind of updates made to it and honestly I don't think we ever see 1.2 from the current developers, could see it passing to someone else though in a long shot.

Just doesn't look good when there's been no updates for close to a year, broken demo, and purchasing on the main site. I hope it's just the trial causing the delay and not something else that's been rumored all over the web.

 

They DID release a security update regardless of a lawsuit.....

I'm getting sick and tired of people spreading doom and gloom about xenForo already. "Am I the only one skepitcal? Of this and this...?" When the history has shown that yes, they've done it, and will obviously do it again...

 

Bottom-line, xenforo is based on php/mysql and some other goodies. There's a gazillion of people to choose from, developers from all over the world, so, if push comes to shove, I know I can get someone to play with it. I mean I had programmers do such amazing things with wordpress, I'm sure they'd be able to do it with xenforo. While the developers are great guys for knowing how to handle this all, I am sure I can find at least 100 people worldwide who know enough programming to take it over.