Did you guys see what vb-germany posted?

I just saw this, I thought the last paragraph was very interesting..

http://www.vbulletin-germany.com/forum/showthread.php/60687-Frohe-Weihnachten!?p=376535#post376535

Google Translate..

Has anyone seen anything from Scott, a demo or mockup?

Could this be another "xenforo" or "launchforums" ??

 

Good. Scott is one of the few people who has a good grasp of community UXD.

 

I like the idea of him working on a new forum script, but is this really a good idea on their side? After all, the last time someone who worked with Internet Brands went off and made their own software, we got XenForo and the lawsuit. What if they ended up suing him too?

 

This is exactly what I was thinking as well, but was Scott a developer like KAM where?

 

Does it matter? Internet Brands would do anything to sue people they don't like or they feel have 'betrayed' them, regardless of whether they're guilty or not. Heck, I bet they'd just say 'well, he has access to the source code, so he MUST have stole something'.

 

AFAIK they're not business partners anymore. They have kick him out of business and they're providing german support themself (or at least they're trying to provide it, because if you check https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/407578-Frage-bezüglich-upgrade-von-deutschen-vBulletin-Lizenzen/page2?highlight=german it's not working ^^

 

Well tbh I was very amazed that Kier, Mike and Ashley actually choose a normal LTD company setup registered to their own names which as former employees made them vulnerable to litigation.
I'm sure that if Scott is to release new software he will be sensible enough to close off any legal vulnerabilities.

 

If the guy is located in Germany and has a "Rechtsschutzversicherung" ("rights protection insurance") for either himself or his business, then he won't need to worry about lawsuits, b/c his insurance will potentially cover all expenses.

 

Hi.

I thought I'd just comment on this thread, since it is me you are all talking about.

For the record! (And sorry this got to be another long post of mine....it is all important though.)

I have absolutely no partnership and no contractual obligations with Internet Brands anymore other than currently being a Publisher in their Affiliate program which, with this post, might just be ended by IB, if they even get wind of it. Who actually cares? The program makes absolutely no money for me anyway.

The only real obligation I still have with vBulletin is to our German speaking vB customers who bought licenses from my company and still require support service for those licenses. Yes, our customers can move their accounts to vB.com, if they'd like to and at will. But, to get personal support service from vB.com, they'd then have buy vB5 and wait for it to become gold, then they'd only get 30 days or have to pay even more for support. Not the best looking offer for them right now, right? So quite a few are sticking with vB-G.com or rather sticking with vB4 or even vB3 and sitting it out until a better alternative for them is found, which might even be vB5, in a year or two or three, maybe. This actually goes for all vB customers, I believe.

So thankfully, vB4 is fairly stable and the work load to support the customers isn't too bad. And thankfully IB has practically stopped releasing vB4 versions (which usually means more support work). This is not something customers like, I know, and it isn't something I hope for. "Oh, IB please don't make a new release of vB4". Nope, we certainly don't wish that. But still. The fact no versions are being made helps us with support efforts. We at Adduco also do not have to service vB5. I feel our canceled contract is actually a godsend. IB has done us a great favor. Thanks IB!

As for lawsuits....

In the past, I was not at all privy to any internal information within or from IB or vBSI, which hadn't been or isn't already known in the forum, Internet or business worlds. None of my team were even beta testers for vB5. I do not have a binding NDA with IB nor was I or my team ever given one. IB seemed to make is a point to "keep us away" from knowing what they were doing. Maybe because I was friends with MKA? Who knows? But it is actually good. The canceled distributor contract mentions nothing about me or my company working for or working on a competitive product or for another competitive company, should the contract be canceled. In other words, there are no secrets we'd need to keep or secrets we could possibly steal from IB or vBSI anyway. Why would we? I mean, the last thing we would want to do is make a vB5 clone or use ANY of the new concepts (whatever ones there are) in vB5 or use any of their code. And I think everyone would agree with me when I say, the concepts in vB, in general, just aren't really special anymore.

Will that possibly protect us from IB, should they feel the need to sue us for what ever reasons they may find? Nope. Absolutely not! All I can say to that possibility in connection with "competition" is, "anti-trust" anyone?

As for new products or services possibly being started by my company......

We are looking into moving into a real new future with the community world. We are currently creating concepts and a business plan. We are looking at a much bigger picture than just a "forum software". One, we feel, which could take on the likes of Facebook and any other social network with simplicity and ease. We are inviting alpha customers to join in and help mold our concepts to be true winners. We are looking for more programmers and we definitely need capital to get going and we are working on those steps too.

So, do we have a chance? I think we do. It will be a hard and long battle though. One I'd love to fight. I haven't spent the last 13 years on getting to know this industry only to leave it. I very much want to help it! I think it has some serious issues and one is competing with Facebook and other social networks for user acquisition, user retention and time on site. I don't have any real data or facts to back up my claims, but I truly believe the numbers in these areas are slipping more and more in favor of social networking and thus community owners must unite.

And, something I'd like to let everyone know now too. One definite decision has been made. We are concentrating on a purely SaaS solution. For all intents and purposes, we feel our system will actually be a PaaS solution with the opportunity for devs to develop applications on it and admins to easily customize those apps and it all being smartly combined with "community features" making it a very, very powerful network for all users; one that is based on personal knowledge and opinions and not only on personal relationships. Sorry, I can't say more. That is probably too much as it is.:o

I whole heartedly feel cloud computing is not just a fad or the latest IT fashion. It is the future of how software and internet services will be built, especially as the internet and computing blends in to more of our daily lives. There are just too many companies out there now creating great and very successful SaaS, PaaS and IaaS systems. Facebook being one of them. And the number is growing steadily. The advantages of cloud computing simply and completely outweigh the disadvantages for users, admins and developers on the system (if the system is done properly, of course). This direction may turn many of you away from our possible offerings, and thus I'd love to get into a nice discussion about the pros and cons of SaaS, PaaS and cloud computing with you and try to also convince you too of the great advantages there are. Maybe it is already a discussion topic here somewhere in this forum and maybe the advantages are already clear? Are they?

Cloud computing is a very important topic for the future. I really believe, if the forum/ community world wants to stay healthy and vigorous, it must embrace cloud computing and user networking. I really believe only the single communities out there. which offer special and attractive services on their own (their own SaaS) and have built up their own strong user base will survive overall. Our service will also cater and welcome these kinds of power communities too, for sure! hehe...one of the big advantages alone to cloud computing is scalability without the headaches of expanding your own servers to meet the new demands. Our system won't be any different.

At any rate, I am looking forward to the future and hope we can also help make it a promising future for the "real community and social world" out there. What we as forum admins do simply has a much better and more basic importance to people than social networks offer today. That is the sharing of knowledge and opinion. It is helping each other to get things done, to be better people, to be truly smarter overall. That is what the forum/ community world is all about and it should blow social networking out of the water. That must happen! That can happen. I want to make it happen!

Scott

 

I think you're reading way too much into things. Scott's a product distributor, not a product developer. He's obviously unhappy because vBulletin is costing him his customer base.

His last post on vBulletin.com regarding the product:

 

Hehe... I think our posts crossed themselves, no?

Edit: I see my post is in moderation. Mods, please help!

Scott

 

Looks like someone got it already?

 

This is interesting to read. I was very enthusiastic about you starting this project and definitely wanting to join in on the fun.

...until you dropped the S word.

SaaS has its advantages, but it has showstoppers in the sense of:

1. user-data & privacy
2. client independence

I run my own private cloud and host it from The Netherlands for a reason. I would not consider to be dependent upon:

1. uptime of any SaaS provider
2. the continuity of the provider
3. the legal framework / laws that the provider is subject to

I need to be able to modify, expand, delete anything and everything. I want to have full control over my files, data and security.

 

I would never, ever use anything run as SaaS. You know one other reason why (in addition to what Alfa1 posted)? Because it generally means your reliant on a single service provider, rather than getting to choose which cloud hosting service is best for your site, is priced fairly, etc. I'd prefer to download and install like a normal program on any hosting service I want to.

 

And actually, exactly those concerns are the last barriers for SaaS becoming the norm and it will. I believe in this whole heartedly.

Let's look into those great points.

User data and privacy - why would that be any different with a SaaS offering than with a hosting offering? The hoster has your data in their data center. They could take it, if they wanted to. It is their business to keep your data safe though. A SaaS offering must do the same. I don't think data privacy or security is an issue at all. It is something that simply must be done and taken care of as carefully and diligently as possible.

client independence - not sure what you mean with this, but I'd love to know what you mean.

uptime of any SaaS provider - this is and must be just as good or even better than a regular hosting service. So no disadvantage here either. And a SaaS provider will most likely have a much, much better infrastructure set up than any one person could ever dream to be able to pay for themselves. So theoretically, they should be able to provide much better security and reliability.

the legal framework / laws that the provider is subject to - how should that affect your ability to use the SaaS offering? Would you feel less protected or put into too restrictive regulations depending where the SaaS offering is being hosted? What is the real concern here? Can you give some examples?

I need to be able to modify, expand, delete anything and everything. With a proper PaaS system, you can. Definitely!

I want to have full control over my files, data and security. With a proper PaaS system, you can, however, the system will most likely take care of the security side of things for you. So you don't really need to concern yourself with security. It simply must be top notch.

Reliance on a single service provider - All data in a proper SaaS or PaaS offering is yours and you can move it away to another service provider as you wish. What is reliance anyway? Many have relied on vBulletin and what has that gotten them recently? As soon as you decide to go with any software or any service, you are basically stuck with their offering until you make the jump from them. A SaaS offering is no different. And again, for a SaaS provider to be successful, they must give their clients the basis or framework, the service, to also be successful. It must be a win-win situation for it to even work.

Choose which cloud hosting service is best for your site - Unless you are a server guru, you are not going to be able to keep your server(s) up-to-date and completely optimized on your own. Not even in a cloud hosting scenario. And even if you could, you will spend a lot of effort and time or even money doing it. That is time (or money) you could be spending on much more lucrative or productive efforts.

Install (software) like a normal program - The development of the software you want to install like a normal program is much slower or of lower quality than a SaaS offering, because the "on-premise" software has to be tested or fixed to cover a myriad of OS's and support a number of software versions (i.e. PHP, Apache/ Webserver, MySql, etc.) and if you are unlucky, your brand new server isn't set-up properly for that software either (Like PHP5.4 and vBulletin 4). With a SaaS offering, their software and supporting software are all aligned and tested for performance and development is faster, because the environment is controlled. A SaaS provider simply knows its systems and can optimize them for the highest performance. I'd venture to say the least number of hosting providers can offer you that.

Also with SaaS, updates are automatic. They just happen, smartly and without disruptions to your own service. You simply don't ever get that with on-premise software.

Fair pricing - If a SaaS offering has a large number of customers they can also get better prices for their infrastructure and should be able to pass those savings on to their customers. And a SaaS offering must be comparative with going rates for software and hosting. Otherwise, they simply won't succeed.

Scott

 

As i read of the SaaS/PaaS solution, i was also very sceptical, but it's IMO definitely the future and i have to agree with Scott

These are valid and important points!
Just think about how much time or money you have to invest, to get the hardware and set everything up .
Also just think about how much support time (=money) ipb,xenforo,vB stuff had to spend, because of posts like " my hoster upgraded to php 5.3 / mysql 5.x and now i'm getting error message XYZ, or i'm getting error message "table xyz is marked as crashed, pls repair it" where avarage joe doesn't know what to do
Or, how can i install addon foobar? where the support replies only "we don't provide 3rd party support"

With good SaaS/PaaS/Similar services you'll never have these problems.
And if there are some technical problems, it's not your problem

You don't need to take care of anything.You're able to spend your WHOLE TIME with your business, instead of spending it with server/technical problems.

 

Another reason why saas/paas is interesting: just think about pooling(with e.g. node.js), nosql databases or other technics, which are great , bring better UX or performance but are not used in todays software, because nobody could use them on an default host.

 

Imagine what would have happened if Jelsoft's vbulletin would have been SaaS and then sold to Internet Brands. This would have given Internet Brands access to user data, while their websites are competing with their customers.

I use a carefully selected host that is in my direct neighbourhood, whom I know and use a high quality datacenter very near.
I apply rigorous security settings and opt to pay many thousands of Euro's more in order to have security and privacy in order.
Having security in order does not cut it for me.

If you provide Software as a Service to clients, then the clients are completely reliant upon your performance. If your service has issues (like any service has to some degree) then the client has little choice but to accept this.
You compare this to regular hosting, but thats not the same. If my hosting company does not perform, then I can swiftly switch the management of my servers to any of thousands of other hosts as they all offer the same services. I doubt that there will be an alternative to your SaaS.

What if the SaaS product ceases to exist? Then my site would be offline without a way to safe it. Similar to how many sites were erased by an Amazon 3S outage.

tbh a regular hosting service is not very good.

Germany has very strict laws. At some point in time a German judge ruled that webmasters are responsible for the content in their forums. I know that is off the table for now, but still.
I know a vbulletin forum website that was shutdown and the webmaster raided because members on his forum where using his private messaging system for illegal activity.
Using a SaaS service from another country can also impose laws or policy.

I certainly want to concern myself with security. I am a fanatic with security as I have learned the hard way to close off any minor vulnerability and to have a ridiculous number of security layers.

If the SaaS product has an exploit then this affects all clients. Imagine again: what if vbulletin would have been SaaS and that all the times that an exploit was discovered, this would have affected all vbulletin clients.

You are correct that security must be top notch, as this SaaS is not for normal services. Its for communities for millions, many millions or even billions of people. A great number get upset and try to attack the site/service. My sites security has been a decade long headache, but its nothing compared to such SaaS service.

How can the client be able to modify and delete anything while automatic updates still work without disruptions to the service? Please explain.

 

Imagine what would happen, if you sold your site to a competitor of yours. I am not sure what you offer, but that danger is always there for your users/ clients too, no matter who they choose to "buddy up" with.

Also, do you think a SaaS or PaaS company would apply less rigorous security for their customers? They just can't. The system must be trustworthy for it to work and be successful.

Absolutely right. And the same goes for any software you choose to use or for any hosting company you set up with. Yes, the SaaS offering is going to certainly be special. At least I would like to make something special. But any end-user software is special in its own way too, with its own schemata and design and migrating from one form of software to another is just as difficult or easy as migrating to or from any SaaS offering to another. You have to find a migration tool. It must work properly. And your data must be correct when the migration is all finished. That "migration pain" is the same for any software, SaaS or on-premise.

If the SaaS system is owned by a German company, than the German laws would control how the SaaS provider offers service to their customers. If the SaaS company offer their service internationally, then international law will also prevail. That would be a good thing although possibly a pain to make sure all laws are abided to. On the other hand, how the owners of sites on that SaaS system offer their services to their users or customers/ clients will be governed by the laws the company or owner of the site must abide to. I know this is still quite a grey area in Internet law, but that is how I understand it. So, you could host a site on a SaaS offering, but must fulfill any laws governing such a site for your company or your person.

For instance, let's say the SaaS is hosted in the US and the company is also based in the U.S. The company running a site on the SaaS offering is German and serves mostly German customers. That means they must fulfill German law to run that site. The laws of the U.S. wouldn't be in effect, as the site is its own entity. It's the same for any hosting service. If the site owner intends to run the site in this scenario internationally, then he must be aware of and abide to those laws too. For instance, if the site owner is a bank in Holland, they couldn't use a SaaS offering hosted in the USA, because European Law says the servers must be physically located in Europe to save personal data of any banking customers/users. So the determining laws for the site owner aren't where the service is hosted, but where the company or person is from.

That security fanaticism should and must be a part of a SaaS offering too. But think of the time and worry you spend on being so fanatical. And think about everything you need to be worried about. PHP, comes out with a security update. You need to patch it. MySql comes out with a security update. You need to patch it. Apache or your Linux distribution comes out with a security update. You need to patch it. Your end-user software comes out with a security update. You need to patch it. With a SaaS offering, this responsibility is no longer yours. It is theirs and they MUST take care of it. If you don't want to give up that responsibility and trust the service, then you'll be stuck worrying all the time. The choice is definitely yours to make.

Think about this. Any exploit made against an on-premise software like vBulletin does affect all vBulletin clients. And some upgrade and some don't. Then some do get exploited, because they didn't upgrade. Sure it's their fault, but could it have been avoided? With a SaaS offering, the exploit is closed for everyone on the system at practically the same time. All clients are thus much, much safer. If SaaS is also done right, exploitation won't expose the whole system or all data to the exploiter. An exploitation would be just like hitting a regular hosted site.

I like that, security being a decade long headache. SaaS could be your aspirin. Yes, the responsibility is great. But it isn't a reason to not do it. It is, to me, one of the many reasons to do it. Let us take away that headache.

Ahhhhh, hehe....now I'd have to give away some secrets. But this is a main goal we want to reach and it is possible. For instance, with API versioning. I can't go into detail, but let's just say, seamless upgrading is a key concept to what we'd like to offer. It is a major pain issue for most site owners and, as you have pointed out, for SaaS to work, it must have a trustworthy system AND must bring some very good advantages for people to make "the jump" to it. I know this and it is something I contemplate about constantly. And I think we have some pretty good ideas and we know what needs to get done to make site owners much, much happier.

Scott

 

Oh, one quick note. As I mentioned, we are aiming at creating a PaaS offering. The clients/ customers/ site owners who are on our system are then actually SaaS providers.

Scott