Forum Software Going Paid

If whatever forum software you were using went paid, would you continue to use it as paid software, or would you hope someone would fork the development and continue the project for free?

 

What im using is already paid, but if I was using for example MyBB, and then it went paid... and my forum was doing real great on it then I would continue to use it, but if my forum wasnt doing good I'd just switch over

 

if phpBB went paid for example, pricing & feature depending, would depend if I continued on that line, otherwise I'd be a veteran and stick on the last known free version and wait for someone to fork the development for free

 

I wonder what happened to the people using ipb 1.3 back in the day lol. They had no idea that the next versions would be paid.

 

I'm presuming most got their backups and converted over to other software, upgraded or went onto one of the free hosts supporting 1.3

 

Yea thats what many did, one of the biggest ipb 1.3 host use to be ipbfree, they shutdown without anyone being notified, and it was a big shock to the people that had forums on them (Huge amount of people used them)... supposedly ipfree had many dmca complains, as many of their forums had illegal content, and they failed to take care of it. This is like a year ago.

 

yea, I know, there was a lot of speculation about that closure

 

Yea, I feel bad for the people that lost all their hard work.

Back on topic - I wonder what punbb users would do if it went paid, I dont think it ever will though lol.

 

If phpBB (likewise, MyBB would be the same) went commercial, someone would fork it and it will continue to be free, guaranteed. This is cause of the license it's released under (phpBB uses GPL, MyBB uses LGPL as of 1.6).

IPB got away with it because their license was their own.

 

PHPBB will most probs go commercial and MyBB will always stay free

 

And what makes you think that? None of them will go paid, but if it would I would think MyBB would.

 

MyBB on wikipedia states that its a small project and on MyBB site its all staff are volunteers.

PHPBB I dont know if it will but I think PHPBB will be the first to

 

Thats not much of a reason joker

 

MyBB isn't big enough to go paid though. They only just managed the $5000 or so for the "MyBB.com" domain and that was from user donations.

Anyway, I am using a paid software, so it wouldn't apply there. If I were using a free software and it went paid, I would at least consider how well the forum is doing and if it continues to do well, I'd continue paying for it.

 

Yea it was pretty interesting to hear how they got the .com

 

Correction: That was the buying price from the original holders of MyBB.com (that's why the only needed the $5000). Also, Chris Boulton (founder of MyBB) and Jesse Labrocca (of Hack Forums, MyBB Central and whatnot) donated $1000 each, so the community only had to give $3000.

Source: http://www.vbum.com/2010/05/mybb-project-purchases-mybb-com/ (Labrocca's blog)

 

I interviewed the guy, you guys can read it here.

 

Thanks for the correction. I still saw they struggled to get that now $3000 as it took quite some time from just an observers point of view. Although speculating, I'm sure PhpBB would gain that in a substantially faster time, which could see them as a likelier free software to go paid, but I'm sure many would equally not like it than like it.

 

They've already been forked (FluxBB), so there isn't much an explanation there.

They're volunteers as well, more or less.

 

phpBB is typically used by new forum admins that don't know any better. I can't picture such an inferior forum software getting away with getting paid...