Former vBulletin lead developer Kier Darby to develop new forum software?

[ThorstenA]

AlexanderT, I agree with you that a good product is important. Certainly, vbulletin 3 is a great product!

Apart from that, the communication from the old team was not so much better, than it is now. I do not speak about the time frame from the end of last year when we were told to install vbulletin 4.0.0.

As Adrian seems to be the product manager now, he has the power to have people do something they do not like, but he likes to do so (well, that's "power"). I hope he uses his job to do that.

[MRGTB]

As someone who was there during those days I can tell you that this is nothing like it. There was nobody posting anything negative about John because UBB disallowed any discussion about it.

John was not a UBB dev. John did not quit UBB. John was just a guy who ran a large UBB forum and UBB didn't fit his needs any longer. UBB had long said they would never add mysql support which everyone wanted. John created vbulletin. The development process and feature requests of vbulletin were discussed at EZ Board on a temp forum John setup

And now John's a millionaire with the sale of vBulletin to IB as a result. Amazing stuff, from rags to riches. All because UBB didn't suit his forum needs anymore. Wow!

[Gladius]

That does sound a lot like the old mentality many UBB users and UBB management had when vBulletin first came out...

10 years back things were much simpler. So was forum software. As I started with UBB 10 years back, I know all about what is and what isn't comparable. What's missing from your equation is 10 years of continuous forum and extended related product development. Any half-decent coder can put together a basic forum in no time. But today both vB and IPB are lightyears beyond the basic forum features alone.

[Alfa1]

And now John's a millionaire with the sale of vBulletin to IB as a result. Amazing stuff, from rags to riches. All because UBB didn't suit his forum needs anymore. Wow!

How many vbulletin admins now know that vbulletin does not suit their forum needs anymore at this time? Competition is good. IMHO there is a huge hole in the forum software market. It seems pretty clear that IB is not going anywhere near it. IPB seems to be heading in the right direction. Kier & Mike might. I hope we see more companies stepping up.

[is_it_me]

Well whatever happens it's going to be interesting.

Talking of interesting, although there's 10x the number of guests here, there's currently 76 members online over there compared to 61 here.

[MRGTB]

The number of members online here now compared to before on average, has dropped hugely. I remember the days when it was common place to see a few hundred members online here.

I noticed a while back that active members online here now has dropped off significantly.

[zshadow]

Xenforo is no where near vb or ipb.

Not sure how you can say this as we haven't seen the backend yet. From a client-side perspective XF includes many of the same features vB and IPB offer. No doubt there's a lot of fine tuning that needs to be done but in some respects it is a step ahead.

[ThorstenA]

Not sure how you can say this as we haven't seen the backend yet. From a client-side perspective XF includes many of the same features vB and IPB offer. No doubt there's a lot of fine tuning that needs to be done but in some respects it is a step ahead.

A blog ? Not available. Profile fields? I did not see so much in this area.

Currently, it's nothing IB or IPB should worry about at all.

[AlexanderT]

Currently, it's nothing IB or IPB should worry about at all.

And sure they don't. Is there anything or has there ever been anything they have to worry about? IB sure doesn't show any worry.

[zshadow]

A blog ? Not available. Profile fields? I did not see so much in this area.

Currently, it's nothing IB or IPB should worry about at all.

Well I was purposely not factoring in the blog or CMS. Those are add-ons that most do not even use. I think the vast majority is only interested in a solid forum product. I bought the entire vB 4 suite only because it was offered at a lower price during presale, as many did.

Custom profile fields may be there. Like I said, we haven't seen the backend yet.

[Bram]

So far i am impressed, really impressed. XenForo is what vb 4 should have been in the first place? At least it looks like it. It loads fast, layout is easy and understandable for users. The moment vBSEO decides to develop an advanced XenSEO system for it I am sold

Exciting times !!!

[MRGTB]

So far i am impressed, really impressed. XenForo is what vb 4 should have been in the first place? At least it looks like it. It loads fast, layout is easy and understandable for users. The moment vBSEO decides to develop an advanced XenSEO system for it I am sold

Exciting times !!!

From what I saw looking at the Friendly URL Structure on XenForo, it does not need vBSEO. Example below taken from the site, take note it also includes the Thread ID at the end.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/plans-for-mods.746/

[wii]

Great what Kier has done so far, but I think it will be extremely difficult for a brand new forum software to compete with forum software like vBulletin that has existed for 10 years.

But I will definately try it out when the software is released...

[dieKetzer]

im not sold on xenforo yet.
i still have vivid memories of the kier days of vb3, the lack of communication, resistance to feedback, the stagnation... many of the things people complain about, such as the compartmentalisation of vb, overblown permissions, convoluted admincp, etc, predate IB. i think IBs ham-fisted management has made the old devs into christ figures, but my memory isnt nearly so kind.
reading over xenforo, it seems kier and co are again taking the stance they they know better what my communities want, in effect managing by proxy. it appears many things are done in a way simply to make them different; changes for the sake of change. i am having a hard time with that. imo if an upstart wants to knock vb off its perch it needs to create the board vb users have been begging for for years. the guys at xenforo should know what that board is, if they had ever paid attention. instead they are trying to reinvent the wheel.
i will def keep one foot in the water over there, but i reckon my future is at ipb.

[Ramsesx]

im not sold on xenforo yet.
i still have vivid memories of the kier days of vb3, the lack of communication, resistance to feedback, the stagnation... many of the things people complain about, such as the compartmentalisation of vb, overblown permissions, convoluted admincp, etc, predate IB. i think IBs ham-fisted management has made the old devs into christ figures, but my memory isnt nearly so kind.

Don't forget sometimes it makes a difference if you are just employed or run your own business.