I thought 3.8.5 was out already, I went to dl it last night and read this announcement. I'm not in a big hurry to update to .5, the .4 works fine for me
I won't be touching it, I'm not at all convinced that such an upgrade won't introduce a ton of bugs into the mix, as has been the case with 4.0. It sounds awful but I just don't trust the company not to screw up an incredibly stable product. Even the 3.8.4 PL1 security patch caused issues, it logged everyone out. Which we should have been warned about, but weren't. I'm leaving well alone, I won't be touching any Internet Brands releases for any version until such a time as I become confident they've got their heads around the code.
I'am glad the developers are keeping 3.8X updated. But then again, with every update, we move closer to the end of life for 3.8. I see 3.8, 3.9, and thats going to be it for the 3X series.
There will be no 3.9. 3.9 would be a features release, that is not going to happen, categorically. No new features will ever be added to the 3.x series now, just as none were added to the 2.x series after 3.0.0 came out. You may well see a 3.8.6, 3.8.7 etc, but these will be bug fixes and security updates, nothing more. All development on the 3.x series has ceased.
Never the less, I don't see anything that can go wrong with a mere bug fix, so it's all good. But no more of the version 3 line will be made feature wise.
I would keep a close eye on things Internet Brands might have up-their-sleeve to add extra into it vBulletin 3.8.5 to suit themselves (so they can cover people sticking with the vB3 series in the future). Like better Ads tracking slipped-in e.t.c. If you know what I mean, because you never know? By the way, some of you might be interested in this I just added to my forum for use with vBulletin: Link: vBulletin Spoiler and Rant BBCode
They managed to mess up the 3.8.4 release. In fact, they have messed up every single release of any version since Kier left. Funny that.
^How did they mess it up? Oh, they made the login more secure by changing the password mechanism and it logged a few people out, is that it?
No that was the PL1 patch. The actual release of 3.8.4 had problems, something to do with some things not working in certain versions of php, or something. Andy Huang had to correct it all shortly afterwards. Can't remember the specifics.
No, having done my best with the awful vB4 search I have found one of the posts....it was blank white pages in php4. They only tested it with php5, which is not really the cleverest thing to have done. The fact is, Kier and his team held the whole thing together with their skills and insight into the product. Although Freddie is still there as a long term developer, it's the departure of Kier and his team that has caused all these problems, the product is a pale shadow of its former self without them.
I remember the 3.8.4 release. I believe it was up for 2 hours, they found the bug, then changed the software with the same version.
Worth mentioning Mike and Scott by name here I think - they were just as much a part of the stability of vBulletin 3.x as I ever was.
Fair comment Kier... To clarify, many of us can now see just how good vb3 actually was, and that was mainly down to the skills of Kier Darby, Scott MacVicar and Mike Sullivan. It can now be seen clearly how pivotal these three were to the quality of the product, as it has become something of a train wreck since they left.
