Did Vbulletin lose more than a lawsuit?

I don't think it has anything to do with XenForo, but yeah... It would not be the least bit surprising if 5.x was the last version under IB. They have like 40 devs and probably another 40 managers and support staff... And with what I can only assume vB5 sales are like, they are in a pretty big money losing situation with sales compared to overhead/staff costs.

 

They have successfully done damage to XenForo. So thats a partial win for IB.
The state of the software, combined with the reputation damage they are accumulating (caused only partly by this law suit) surely is a loss for the brand and therefore sales.

 

40 devs. Oh, 40 devs. That would be fun. I could launch 10 companies! =)

 

I've got to ask, how do you determine the lawsuit as a victory for XenForo?
The terms of the settlement are confidential:

Are you calling it a victory because they aren't out of business?

 

The XenForo lawyers are calling it a victory because all Internet Brands their claims have been dismissed by all parties. This indicates that the claims were frivolous and now no longer an issue. The claims now no longer prevent XF from developing great software. That's the positive side of it.

 

Dismissed with prejudice as a result of a confidential settlement isn't the same thing legally speaking as dismissed for lack of a prima facie case. Settlement indicates the case was not frivolous. That's why I was asking. The terms could be, for example, that XF is required to give 5o% of their revenue for the next five years to IB. I'm not saying those are the terms. I don't know. But relatively speaking it's a victory for IB because they have far greater assets than does XF. If the information that each party is paying their own legal bills is accurate, Kier and Mike could be paying those bills for quite some time, whereas IB probably just cuts a check and moves on.

What I agree with in every case is that both sides can stop jerking each other off over intellectual property rights and get back to the customer bases. In that regard, I would call it a win for us. Where it is clearly a loss for XF is in that quite a few of their customers jumped ship and either went to IPB or returned to VB out of fear ...

 

of course IB lose more than a lawsuit.
IB lose their mind, they try to sell bugs (vb5c).
IB lose the trust from their customers.
IB will down to the ground, if they no take any action to improve their management.

 

that happened because of vB4 and vB5 and not because of the lawsuite

 

The small "undisclosed" information will come out at some point. But for the time being, XF is in business again. Development started again, in fact, they released 3 different updates all in one day.

- Resource Manager 1.0.0
- Elastic Search 1.0.1
- xenForo 1.1.4

They've begun to tease 1.2 features every tuesday.

While, in contrast, vBulletin has done only one update since the announcement. They've only done more mistakes in one day, than xenForo has done in one day.

I mean, restricting vBulletin license system even further by license-level? From members area, to support forum, then on top of that, treating customers like dirt?

I think this is a victory for them. That confidential information will come out at some point, because IB will die faster than any other corporation in history. Because this lawsuit hurt them in many ways than one. I'm sorry.

 

Dont be so quick to count them out.

Unlike forums that come online and die off in a matter of months, a business will have its ups and downs.

Any big forum already on VB or other platforms, takes more than a few months to figure out if and when they will upgrade.

vB5..... Once all the bugs are worked out, will go on to sell quite well..... and then all those who were quickly jumping off of the bandwagon to go prey at the altar of XenForo may just as quickly go back to VB, or whatever else is the "hot" forum software of the time.


Unless a forum NEEDS TO BE upgraded immediately, I do not see anyone on vb 4 being so quick to switch left and right, nor... would any serious forum upgrade the software on the first day it is released.

I do not use VB, nor am I a fan of 3.8 or 4.x, however there are features I really like on vb5. Would I switch to it? Not right now.... but once all the stuff is worked out... I would give it a serious look.

 

Dude, this is coming from a guy who's been a customer of vBulletin since before vB got bought by IB. This is when Kier was employed by Jelsoft Ltd.

Yes, business has it's up and downs. But we're talking about a corporation that deliberately treats their customers like they're not [customers].

I dunno about you, but an influx of big board owners has jumped ship from vB to xF or IPB or another software.... they disagree with you. I don't think they'll be back.

That's only going to be a small ratio of folks that will go back. It's like this, even if the bugs were ironed out with vB4, I never went back. I never looked back. It was one of the best decisions I've made yet. xenForo has some great SEO for the money.

It does look like you're defending vBulletin. The only thing that's good about the current state of vBulletin is the vB3 line. So, the only thing IB has left going for them is vB3.8.

Honestly, if vB5 even is "ironed out" I wouldn't even waste my time with it.

 

Those are forums that needed to switch. =)

Like it or not, here is the situation...

There is nothing that XenForo can do that VB or IPB cannot.

There are plenty of things VB and IPB can do that XenForo cannot.

The vast majority of the major forums run VB or IPB if paid, or phpbb or mybb if free.

I was close to buying a xenforo license... but it is not a complete solution.

So right now I am on IPB and have thousands of dollars a month coming from subscription fees. There is no way for me to get them into XenForo. There is no good Blog or pages system.

If you run a forum that is more a community, you really have no choice but to either stick with VB or IPB.

I have no skin in the game, to see VB or XenForo succeed. no one in my niche is even considering xenforo, not yet. It is awesome forum software, and has a lot of great features.

What gets me most, is how quickly people go camp to camp and start bashing and it is either their way or the highway.

 

Hey, it's your money. If something happens to your instance, don't come crying. I don't like it because of security concerns, and the page speed.

 

That's really not true. vB4.x is still, at least as of 4.2.x, a solid performer with a number of enhancements and improvements over 3.x. And yes, I was using 3.x and upgraded 5 forums to 4.x.

There are still some things that need to be updated for vB4.2.1 (e.g., compatibility for versions of PHP more recent than 5.3) and we at least can have some hope that these updates will be done eventually, as frustrating as it is to have to wait for them to spare a developer or two from vB5 to be assigned to that task.

But 3.8x is at end of life already and there will be no updates at all, only security patches. Meanwhile, Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc., are not standing still.

 

What did they lose to like what was it about ? because i just read up and couldn't find why, i was going to buy vbulletin but hearing this i am not going to buy it its a big investment i always thought that vbulletin was good?

 

Once again:

 

I have no problems with page loads as of 4.2.1 and there are no more security concerns for 4.2.x than for 3.8.x. It does of course require that people look closely at server security and that they pay attention to and patch any security vulnerabilities that become apparent, both with vBulletin and any addons, and with the server software.

It also of course requires that forum owners have a modicum of common sense when it comes to passwords and demoting mods or admins who haven't logged in recently. Double passwords are always a good idea, IMO (one at the server/directory level and one at the vBulletin admincp level). And proper directory and file permissions are essential.

 

Look, the point I'm making here is that vBulletin - the way it is now - is not quality-minded. My vB4 instance with CODForums broke on upgrade. I expected better from a company that has millions of dollars backed on them.

It's like this, xenForo doesn't really require too much security measures like vBulletin does now. Mostly because xenForo doesn't attract hacking because it takes preventive measures to make sure that the software isn't inviting hacking through version number display and other ways.

And the thing is, xenForo is a new company. You'd think xenForo has millions of dollars in capital. That's because the developers behind them are the best at what they do, and it's only a 3-man team.

3 man. I don't know about you, but that's scary, it makes vBulletin look like it was developed by 1,000 kid developers.

 

I've looked extensively into security breaches with vBulletin 3.x and 4.x installations, with or without vBSEO, in the past couple of years. Without exception, the affected forums I've looked at were

1. using outdated versions of vBulletin or vBulletin add-ons; and/or

2. had faulty server configuration issues; and/or

3. had faulty directory or file permissions; and/or

4. had terrible password requirements and multiple dormant admin accounts that were easy to hack.

So why the predominance of vBulletin forums being attacked vs. other forum software? As with any other malware, it's a matter of numbers. Mac users used to think they were invulnerable until the numbers warranted attention from hackers and malware coders. Linux users used to think they were invulnerable with the same eventual outcome. Right now, like it or not, the predominant software for forums is vBulletin. If Xenforo becomes sufficiently popular, they too will be targeted. See the data from Digitalpoint elsewhere on this forum for confirmation of the numbers.

As for the version number, vBulletin has ALWAYS allowed suppression of the version number if you wish. All that must be displayed is the vBulletin copyright.