Ray Morgan retires?

ROFL! Pwned.

 

So you don't know why I'm so angry but you'll rant and ridicule like a jacka$$. I'm happy that you don't have anything to lose, but perhaps you should listen up lest you "prematurely articulate"...

Since at least 2002, vBulletin sold us licenses with the clear agreement that we could purchase annual maintenance updates for our product. It was $30 until Internet Brands raised it to $40 last year. With the presale of October 2009, vBulletin suddenly refused to allow me to update my maintenance subscriptions for each of my vBulletin 3.x software without any prior notice. They bent my arm behind my back to force me to pay $175 or greater to update each and every forum whose maintenance agreement expired recently in 2009.

But it gets worse - I own multiple licenses all with brand free options, the cost being in the thousands of dollars. Because vBulletin refuses to allow transferring the brand free option separately (despite nothing written to the contrary), it means my residual value of my entire investment has been effectively reduced to ZERO.

So my choice is to spend thousands of dollars to replace all these licenses at Invisionboard simply because I can't spend my $40 just to maintain my vBulletin 3 license to end, what I and all of us had been sold for the past 5 YEARS.

What is your "experience" with Ray Morgan. You know nothing more than any of us. He "proved" what? In fact, you insult him in stating that he didn't know anything about project development - how do you KNOW?

Did Ray get a huge bonus for the record sales? If he decided to take the money, that doesn't make him a whipping boy - it makes him a very well compensated employee for doing the dirty work. We don't know the facts, hence I was curious and asked.

EXACTLY - and THAT is what I am mad about. Unfortunately you just are too preoccupied with trying to be the class clown to do the simple math. All of us have been funding salaries at vBulletin with our license fees and evidently some of us more than you.

You didn't get a thing except make a fool out of yourself and others whom you fooled to jump on your bandwagon. Fun to flame others, isn't it? When you're looking at an investment that is worth thousands of dollars that is going to be gone in an instant, it's not a dead horse. The only thing dead is the vB 3.7 that I cannot update until the end of the product without paying Internet Brands $175 for each forum I have for version 4.

 

The irony here... is that Mike jumped ship to IPB a few months back.

 

And perhaps Mike may have been better off researching what he missed before shooting his mouth off.

There is no question, IMHO, that Invision Power Board is a far superior forum/social networking product than vBulletin 4. I've moved some of my new sites over already. Brisco had his team focused on cramming in YA blog/cms into VB4 instead of looking at what the product as a whole should have been. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck with a bunch of very costly vB 3.x licenses that can't be updated to 3.8.4pl1 except at king's ransom.

 

And that where I disagree (not that I didn't disagree from the start).

vBulletin 4 is a great product, and I look forward to utilizing it.

The Suite product as a whole will be a great product, and I'm actually a fan of the new licensing scheme. It's simple to understand. Buy vB4, get the entire series. I don't have to remember to renew licenses and I don't have to schedule a time to pay on those renewals.

The only problem I have, now, is the Release Candidate execution and bug fixing priorities.

So, I'll be holding off on the upgrade until a few releases in. Which is normal for me, because it'll take some months to recode all of my customizations anyway.

 

Well... vBulletin 4 still isn't quite done yet. Potentially it may be a great product in time and how much "better" it may be than vBulletin 3 - I don't see a long list right now. Some of our sites that are so integrated with vBulletin 3 that I really don't care to make the jump to vBulletin 4, especially without the plugins my users love. While I appreciate your enthusiasm, vB 4 is not for everyone (and it's not right that Bob Brisco intended to beat us with a crowbar to get the upgrade money, Mike.)

Give it until the vB 5 presale and then we can see how much of a fan you are. If vBulletin came out with a new version every 2 years you'd have been saving (and I really mean "saving" ) $95 on every license you owned - $40 x2 versus $175. Even if you want to put the assumptions aside, the real problem is that there is no guarantee of what your purchase buys you now. At least with annual maintenance you can decide whether the latest efforts are good or whether development is stagnant. With the current scheme they can release a "new version" every 9 months or every year with no guarantees... and when you have 5, 8, 10 licenses, the amount of money we are talking about is large... and don't be surprised if you see that happen if they need the money.

Probably a good practice. I wish you the best of luck with it. It will be a while until we consider moving some of our large boards since we'd rather see what potential problems lurk with this way too early gold release. Additionally I'm hoping to hear from people the issues of moving from vB3 to 4 and other forums with regard to SEO, etc.

 

Yeppers, that was all me ranting. You've not ranted at all. <cough, cough>

Suck it up. You made a business mistake, placing all your eggs in one basket. And you've been telling all of us about it. Incessantly. For weeks.

Shall I tally up the dollars I spent on vBulletin for you? Why would I waste my time, when it's all water under the bridge. But I'm sure we'll still be hearing the same, broken record from your side of the table in the days to come.

And you certainly make an uneducated assumption by stating I should have researched vB4, before I shot my mouth off. On what do you base that silly statement? Because you are most assuredly wrong. While people were p*ssing and moaning on the vB.com forums, I was quietly contacting Ray Morgan to get details, rather than myth and innuendo. I was looking at vB4 Alpha1, the day it was released. It was then I realized it was time to get out. And I did just that. But let's remember, it's just been me shooting my mouth off, OK? It will all look so much better for you, if we continue to convey that fallacy to the onlookers.

Move along, everyone. Nothing to see hear, other than me ranting and shooting my mouth off.

 

This thread seems to have wandered way, way off topic.

 

Was vBulletin ever for everyone?

I'll answer that. No, it wasn't. There hasn't been a single version of vBulletin that was the "catch-all" solution for every forum at there, and the fact that IPB, MyBB, and phpBB are still going strong proves this.

Not gonna make the jump? Fine, your call, and I'm not going to down on you for it. Everybody has their own choices to make, and that choice will always be the best choice for you. To the rest of us, you'll just be one of the millions that decided vBulletin is not the best solution for them. And we will not care a single bit.

All this ranting and raving you're doing is futile. A good website owner will follow the path that they feel brings them the most benefits. That means that they agree with a companies policies, and they will gladly pay money to get the product. If any particular company fools their customers, then sorry about your luck pal.

The best part? There is nothing you can do, or even should attempt to do, about it. Let them fall on their ass, and learn to be more wise with their money.

First, I can do math. No need for you to do any calculations on my behalf.

Second, do not tell me how to spend my money.

Third, do not tell me how I will think, either in the present, or in the future.

It is a good practice, and one I recommend all administrators should take.

Readying the "I told you so?" cannons? Let's get something straight.

1. There is always some kind of issue when migrating between major versions. It happened for 2.x going to 3.x, and (like clockwork) it happened again for 3.x to 4.x.

2. For the SEO part, if you are referring to the URL's, vB4 has this simply amazing option that allows you to stick with the URL structure from 3.x. In addition to that, if you do go with one of the new structures, it's coded so that it will issue a 301 Permanent Redirect header to tell search engines of the new location.

On top of that, vBSEO is prepping 3.5 for release, so if you are using them you can keep your old URL structure as well.

I'm not going to say vB4 is more SEO friendly than vB3, but it's certainly not less.

Now, I'm hungry, I look forward to your reply which will make an attempt to tear mine apart.

 

This topic is about Ray Morgan and his exact role in vB. Let's stick to that.

Through the woods, Slinky is merely questioning the perception regarding Ray and his role coupled with its impact on us (customers). Moreover, if any of you have actual input on it and how you might perceive what is behind it all (i.e., pricing change, license change, teh GM change, Brisco-ish schtuff).

I don't see Slinky really...flaming, drama until some of you, at least what appears to me, is simply like: yada yada yada, we've all heard it and know about. i watch the .com forums, the flame forums, the etc. forums and I'm way ahead of you...b/c I have gone and seen the light (changed to IPB or w/e). It's like you guys, Mike and Ryan, are pulling this great hindsight is 20/20 thing here and it really is uncalled for.

Slinky has said he has moved to a different sofware, partially, but this is not at all what he's has been talking about. Not talking about the differences in software and customer requests, good/bad, crap....until you guys jumped to the slap fest.

Get back to topic and take the moment to see a bit, which is to ask and delve into....the THREAD title!!!

Otherwise....leave the thread, with all do respect.


My question to Slinky or if anyone knows b/c I may have misread, is that you say you cannot obtain update to latest patch of v.3.8.4?? I'm assuming those licenses were not active?

And if so, then I'd be quite pissed too (how many licenses) given a NON-FORMAL communique from vB about License changes to come. (Speaking to the shared point of Slinky and Mike).

I refer to this quote from the Law Professor, the last comment of the article as it seems to be particularly relevant to this train of events:


vBulletin 4 Forum - The Upgrade Dispute | The Law Professor

Regards

 

aww c'mon, it's good for entertainment value, is it not?? :p

 

...?

That's not what I'm saying at all.

What I'm saying is, worry about yourself a little more, and let those who may be heading into trouble learn through experience, rather than giving them a one sided view on a topic.

Besides, how is what I'm saying uncalled for? Slinky called Mike a Jackass, and I'm the one being called unruly. :shrug:

 

ummm I do have to agree with Ryan here.........

 

Exactly. As such, this thread is being closed. Please also keep in mind that personal attacks are not permitted whatsoever.