OS Bulletin Board Software?

PermaBanned · 22 May 2010 at 22:31

Just wondering what people know about Open Source BBs. Namely:

http://vanillaforums.org/

http://bbpress.org/

http://webtecker.com/2008/05/02/8-popular-open-source-forums/

They all seem to range from being modern and innovative to simply adaptations on the tried and tested BB layout. What i want to know is that since they seem to depend on Apache, MySQL and PHP/CSS which are mostly all Open Source and freely available i don't see why many people use software that, while it may have a 'free' version it is still closed source and covered in adds.

Hxc · 23 May 2010 at 00:23

Which BB software has a free version with ads? vB and IPB both do not offer free versions of their software. It is also echelons ahead of anything offered in the OS community.

Administrating a big board with phpBB or any of those above is a pig, with recent versions of vB or IPB it's a simple and streamlined task, with everything you could possibly need there for you.

The only two that come close too vB/IPB are phpBB and SMF anyway. SMF is ugly and... just generally not very nice to use. phpBB is much better as of 3.0 but the ACP still feels cheap and simple compared to IPB/vB, plus, it certainly has a worse security record than vB and recent IPB versions (old ipb security was rather poor, it must be said)

Normally with web apps I am fully in support of OSS, but with forums, the paid and "closed" source software is really, genuinely, worth the price.

PermaBanned · 23 May 2010 at 00:36

IPB? SMF? etc.

But yeah, i think Vanilla and bbPress are aimed at smaller communities, and they achieve that goal brilliantly.

I have tried setting up a few types of forum, it was a while ago now but none of them seemed to have especially easy to use administrative facilities. Since you obviously know more about it than me what would you suggest needs to be done to make them actual competitors? Remembering of course that it's Open Source, everyone can chip in and nothing is set in stone.

What about...

http://icebb.net/
http://www.yabbforum.com/
http://punbb.informer.com/
http://www.mybb.com/
http://www.deluxebb.com/

Hxc · 23 May 2010 at 00:49

IPB is Invision Power Board, it's the main competitor to vB in terms of "big" forums.

SMF is Simple Machines Forum, it along with phpBB are the two largest OS alternatives for vB/IPB. myBB is fairly alright, but nothing special, others in the OS world are either massively behind this lot or aimed at a small niche market (sort of like vanilla with it's "different" threading)

punBB, Vanilla, bbPress (not ever used bbPress myself) are all ace at small comunities where nor a great deal of management is needed, and I have used punBB for this on lots of occasions.

Where all OSS BBs fall down in is in the administration, for some reason it's never as streamlined, never as well organized, never as powerful, never seemingly as accomodating to what you want to do without modification. It just feels awkward to use when managing a board with a fair number of users with different requirements. I can't quite put my finger on it but if you ask anyone who has managed large boards they will agree with me; the paid software just always seems better, but there is no definitive reason why... I'll have a think overnight and post again later.

PermaBanned · 23 May 2010 at 01:00

I know, I listed them in answer to your question. I don't think SMF is OS though...

If what you're saying is true however then surely it's just a matter of figuring out what you want and then making sure that gets into one of these projects, or even a seperate one. While this 'standard' BB layout and control system are all very well it's still important to branch out and try new things.

memyselfandi · 23 May 2010 at 08:12

SMF is free, but isn't Open Source. You can modify it, distribute instructions on how to modify it and suggest code base changes back to the project but you are not allowed to redistribute it yourself (according to the license information on their website).

I used it for a site quite a while a go and found it pretty easy to setup and administer.

Swanster · 27 May 2010 at 20:43

memyselfandi said:
SMF is free, but isn't Open Source. You can modify it, distribute instructions on how to modify it and suggest code base changes back to the project but you are not allowed to redistribute it yourself (according to the license information on their website).

I used it for a site quite a while a go and found it pretty easy to setup and administer.

It sounds like it is Open Source if you can edit the code, just not Free / Open Source Software (e.g. GPL) if you can't redistribute it.

memyselfandi · 27 May 2010 at 21:20

Swanster said:
It sounds like it is Open Source if you can edit the code, just not Free / Open Source Software (e.g. GPL) if you can't redistribute it.

I'm pretty sure that it's not an OSI approved license hence whilst the source is available to make you own, local, modifications to it probably should not be referred to as Open Source (in the capitalised sense)