OS Bulletin Board Software?

[PermaBanned]

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.

 

[PermaBanned]

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/

 

[PermaBanned]

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.