BGL
Well-known member
It's baffling. There is simply no GOOD reason for it and that is why this is a 23 page thread.
Any good news? Please help to stop rumors...
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It's baffling. There is simply no GOOD reason for it and that is why this is a 23 page thread.
whyweprotest
Well-known member
In my own defense, I don't think I and many others are assuming since KaM are still mostly given the benefit of a doubt. This doesn't change that we are not seeing them live up to both the expectations and promises they made. Whether this is because of a gagging order, whether it is the undeniable strain the lawsuit has put on XF and KaM, or whether it's something else is secondary. It would make it understandable, it would explain things, but it doesn't change the current problem.
To give you an idea.
Mobile style is planned pre november 2010(one and a half years ago): http://xenforo.com/community/threads/mobile-styles-for-xenforo.7955/#post-110841
We have a mobile skin june 2011 (yes a year ago): http://xenforo.com/community/threads/changing-placement-of-log-in-out.16869/#post-222014
So please, people have been holding their breath for a very long time.
I agree, the energy and time invested in the product indicates passion, this also wouldn't go away over night. However, this has dragged out over any months, you can't present that as "over night". There comes a point where KaM will have used up all the goodwill and empathy clients can have for their situation. I rather they not.
petertdavis
Well-known member
If that was the case, the tactical thing for them to say would be "our lawyers have instructed us to withhold any comments at this time." IMO, that would put an end to this endless debate.
steven s
Well-known member
Point well taken.
whyweprotest
Well-known member
That there are legal reasons not to comment on the court case goes without question, any lawyer worth his salt will recommend this.
That being said, I have yet to meet a lawyer that advices you to not continue running your business. Because that's what it is, or to the very least looks like.
What exactly are the legal implications of them announcing the expected release date of 1.2, whether there will be 1.1.3 first? Yes, they have announced q2 2012, a long time ago. It would be nice to know by now whether they are going to make it or not, whether we can expect to see a mobile style, the RM addon, how far they've gotten with stop forum spam, etc.
iTuN3r
Well-known member
Yes big fuss going all over net about xenforo ! Everyone is asking same question as well . They will show up fix some bugs and members will dance*Seems like the release date is near*then again back to cave.
steven s
Well-known member
OK. Take this conspiracy theory. XenForo Ltd is forced to turn over everything to IB. Why continue working on the product just to give it away?
Although as a customer I do think a simple statement saying we can't comment is long overdue.
Nudaii
Well-known member
This is exactly my thought also, it makes the most sense that they can't say something opposed to won't say something
whyweprotest
Well-known member
Notwithstanding that there is no court order to do so. If that were the case I'm pretty confident that the first thing that would be mandated is a ban on sales of new licenses. Neither has so far been the case. It's very possible that KaM aren't as confident anymore about their winning the case, this could explain their apparent lack of interest in releasing an update. I'm again not saying this is the case, but how are any of us supposed to know at this point?
Nudaii
Well-known member
I have a vague theory that they are not releasing 1.2 to avoid IB trying to stall case yet more
"hey kier stole x idea in 1.2 from vb 4 prelim.. planning alpha beta gamma edition he once glanced at when it was written on a napkin in the vb mess hall.. we request a delay of another x of time so we can look into this more"
Just a wild guess theory however.
"hey kier stole x idea in 1.2 from vb 4 prelim.. planning alpha beta gamma edition he once glanced at when it was written on a napkin in the vb mess hall.. we request a delay of another x of time so we can look into this more"
Just a wild guess theory however.
petertdavis
Well-known member
Well, that's an interesting wild guess, but if he were thinking that then maybe announcing that 1.2 will be released in Q2 wouldn't have been a good idea.
whyweprotest
Well-known member
Is there a need for sarcasm? Are you inferring that it is on us to stalk the forums for comments from dev's, instead of on them to announce what can be expected, when, and how far they are?
http://xenforo.com/community/forums/have-you-seen/?order=post_date
Nothing has been posted there in give or take 8 months, that is almost three quarters.
That is absolutely a possibility, being able to make an informed decision on whether to stick with XF or not, whether falling behind with what the competition has to offer is worth it, is however something I for one would like to do.
"Just wait" is getting really old, and please don't pull the strawman that VB is no better in this, XF used to be accountable and dependable.
BGL
Well-known member
There's no legal reason. That a settlement had been reached and XF=VB was eliminated on June 12. If there were settlement discussions, it is in XenForo's best interest to be in as strong a position as possible from sales and ongoing concern point of view. So no legal reason for the communication breakdown.
Best guess. The financial cost of legal battle with millionaires did them in. Used up their start up savings, had to get jobs to pay bills including legal bills, no time to build their XenForo biz. How many XenForo customers? 200? That's $40K. Legal costs ate that up already. Be cool if they said that. "Hey folks, we are slowing on XenForo development because we had to get day jobs to fight the lawsuit. Hang with us, we'll bug fix as we can. Hope to get back at it after we win the lawsuit in January."
They could be talking to users, refining the priorities in XenForo 1.2 and all would be good.
Heck...the new "just like XenForo vB" won't be out until end of the year.
whyweprotest
Well-known member
I wouldn't even be surprised that if they were open about having financial problems some of us would -- probably with certain conditions -- be more than happy to help.
Hell, I've said it before, if I had a huge bag filled with money it would go towards comping the legal costs for xenforo, purchasing the rights, opensource it.
Where to go from there to keep it financially sustainable? Turn the RM into a market place for developers. Use a payment processor, take a cut from the sales. Keep KaM working on the core releases, while other contributors are free to do bug fixes, exotic branches etc. Provide and lease hosted communities, like vanilla and others in the opensource forum market do.
The above, is not outside of what could be possible, there are enough large sites using xenforo that can easily afford paying for an enterprise SLA.
Had I been KaM, that's what I would have done.
They would have blown everything out of the water.
jadmperry
Well-known member
We might just have to agree to disagree on the importance of this, though. I do agree that you see a lot of staff at vb.com posting. But, as I suggested above, I am not sure there is any substantive difference between what we have here and what we have there.
By this I mean, if you read through on vb.com, you really don't get much, what you do get is not that reliable, and I would say (that is, this is my point of view) it is actually worse in the big picture.
Some case in points-
The staff turnover and changes. There was the Adrian Harris/Fabian phase where we were told, going on for a lengthy period of time all about what was coming and the new agile development. We were told that Kevin Sours was the haed of development and that Edwin was in charge of the CMS. We were told all about new features, upcoming changes (Sophie's UI mock-up, Zoltan's search, e.g.)....and then none of that happened. Hate and discontent, a period of more than a year when nothing really was done except bug fixes (which are important, too, but not anything really that interesting). Then Lawrence Cole came, said that they had gotten the message and things would be different. But, that nothing that was said before was "official" and neither was anything that did not come on official letterhead (whatever the heck that meant for an online business that has never sent a piece of real mail to me). Now, they are basically silent on vB4 development. In recent weeks, I have seen several people ask whether Kevin Sours was still in charge of development. I never saw that one answered. So, while I definitely agree with the fact that a lot of the staff post over at vB.com, nothing substantive or authoritative or trustworthy seems to get posted.
Lack of substantive information. To take off from the previous point, again, I rarely see anything worth a damn posted. The vB5Connect "rollout" is a good example. They posted about vB5 on their facebook page and released three photos. People immediately posted on vB.com about this. I read (from staff members) that there was going to be a demo at forumcon; that it was not even in alpha yet; that the photos were of mockups; that this version would largely be a re-write; that jquery will be used; that there was a "live" demo site at forumcon of vB5Connect;it will be released later this year; "more details/additional previews will be released in the coming weeks/months"; the mockups were "a Teaser and people who visited ForumCon had more access and more information."; that Paul M was working on vB5 Connect;".
Okay, now, this is going to be the next version of vB. But, despite numerous questions about this, there was dispute about whether it was a live demo at forumcon or more mockups. No answer about any any features. No answer about tagging system. No one could (or would) answer if if it is going to use HTML5 or css3, whether content would be held in one table or each gets its own table, or what JS Libraries are used.
Basically, it was what they claimed- a Teaser, but the majority of the staff confirmed that they don't have any info. After reading all the posts, I am left with a lot more questions than answers and the answers I got, I don't trust. I really do not believe that there was a live demo at forumcon. Almost certainly, someone would have posted their experiences or posted video or even stated they tried it. But several days later, nothing. The only one report was from Carlos who said there was nothing there to see at the vB booth.
Now, I agree that there is a feeling of vb.com being staffed with people responding to posts. But, over the past, say 2 years, I have very little feeling that anything of substance or that is reliable is posted. In fact, at this point, I don't believe anything that is posted from staff there.
Right, but see my above comments. The stuff you do get from vb is not very reliable, IMHO. So, its value is nil to me. This thread has made me think about this, but starting about 2 years ago, I stopped viewing vB.com as a source of reliable information. So, the relative value of getting a lot of rubbish posted by staff (what happens there) and not getting much communication from Kier or Mike on future updates should be weighed. Now, don't get me wrong. I would love to know more about development here and plans. But in absolute value, I feel worse off with what I get from vB.com. I don't believe what they post and so, it is useless to me. Here, I don't get as much as I would like in an ideal world. But, what I do get, I trust.
I agree that it would be in their interest to post more. But, my guess is that a big problem is legal fees and pressure from the lawsuit. Given that they don't have infinite resources, my guess is that they have decided to take from the posting and use that time to work on other things. (One point I will disagree on, though, is that I don't believe that their lack of posting hurts development. I suspect the opposite is true- the time they had spent on posting in the past is now available for development. Unless they are doing something else with that time (maybe spending it with family, or even a hobby) that is time available for development. I do agree that it may hurt sales, though. However, I don't have any idea how appreciable this might be. To be honest, I suspect that, like with vB, the vast majority of customers don't check the forums, don't participate, and could care less. I also suspect that many site owners actually buy on the recommendation of their website developer and maybe never even join the site themselves. So, while the passionate folks here notice the goings on, I think many are oblivious to anything that happens here.
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