vb5 beta released, and...

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Carlos said:
Who's cleaning up what?

If you meant iB cleaning up the vB5 code, then that's what they're supposed to be doing! We're just making it hard for them, as we should be!

They deserve that kind of treatment after the mess they've put us in with vB4! :mad:
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Cleaning up threads here.
Russ said:
This is how a vBulletin bashing thread should go :)

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/is-vbulletin-4-a-community-killer.29293/
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How ironic that the thread was closed.
Times have changed.
 
I still don't understand why anybody is bashing vB5 as the software is still heavily beta at the moment. I was wrong in saying that it was a complete re-write but am watching it closely. They seem to be headed in the proper direction.
 
Caliburn said:
I still don't understand why anybody is bashing vB5 as the software is still heavily beta at the moment. I was wrong in saying that it was a complete re-write but am watching it closely. They seem to be headed in the proper direction.
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Because we have seen people respond that understand on a professional level how a beta should look (from great to bad) and they were extremely negative about it. Beta does not mean that everything can be forgiven. Some fundamental level of quality needs to be present in beta and this seems not to be the case.
 
steven s said:
Times have changed.
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Steven lighten up for goodness sake - do you live with a painful disability or something that makes it hard for you to cheer up? If so my apologies for my comment. It was meant lightheartedly but honestly constant endless whingeing does get a bit much sometimes. Difficult to take it seriously as it's just on one note all the time.
Maybe you should start your own blog and just keep posting all your negative stuff. It might make you feel better - clear your head a bit.
;)
 
Morgain said:
Steven lighten up for goodness sake - do you live with a painful disability or something that makes it hard for you to cheer up? If so my apologies for my comment. It was meant lightheartedly but honestly constant endless whingeing does get a bit much sometimes. Difficult to take it seriously as it's just on one note all the time.
Maybe you should start your own blog and just keep posting all your negative stuff. It might make you feel better - clear your head a bit.
;)
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I don't see myself being negative. I'm being realistic.
 
I just can't believe people are actually buying the product, I mean, I can understand the fanbois/girls who seem to think it's the greatest forum software on the planet, but you'd think new users would try the demo first

Although, the demo isn't really linked on the main site, from memory
 
AdamD said:
I just can't believe people are actually buying the product, I mean, I can understand the fanbois/girls who seem to think it's the greatest forum software on the planet, but you'd think new users would try the demo first

Although, the demo isn't really linked on the main site, from memory
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If it ran quicker I'd buy a license just to experiment with and perhaps provide feedback.
 
jadmperry said:
Checking in over the past two days (plus or minus) there was minimal drama for once in a long time. Kind of sad that the drama needs to go on for some people.
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Yeah, I just don't know why we must resuscitate drama over and over again, when things have genuinely quieted down.
 
BGL said:
No.

1. Jelsoft was not a start up. Established company.
2. IB was paying them millions a year for software.

Nothing like a small startup like XenForo.
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Mincing details. Jelsoft was a small company, and IB must've waved a big wad of money before the eyes of its current owners and promised perfect freedom for creativity and 'letting things be as they were'. So the merger was completed, and before the ink was dry on the paper, IB was announcing the intentions to outsource VB development to India, turning KAM and other programmers into "code overseers" (or whatever), and perfectly ok about parting with any members of the core dev. team, including Kier who led the whole project for ~4 years at that point.

This is the very definition of a company taking over, using money as power, and destroying infant creativity with brutish short-sightedness. The same IB execs who thought they knew better than Jelsoft how to write forums may soon write off the entire VB division as a net loss.
 
R_A said:
Mincing details. Jelsoft was a small company, and IB must've waved a big wad of money before the eyes of its current owners and promised perfect freedom for creativity and 'letting things be as they were'. So the merger was completed, and before the ink was dry on the paper, IB was announcing the intentions to outsource VB development to India, turning KAM and other programmers into "code supervisors" (or whatever), and perfectly willing to fire the core dec. team for crossing them, including Kier who led the whole project for ~4 years at that point.

This is the very definition of a company taking over, using money as power, and destroying infant creativity with brutish short-sightedness. The same IB execs who thought they knew better than Jelsoft how to write forums may soon write off the entire VB division as a net loss.
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According to Kier's deposition it's not quite that simple. My understanding is that James was at the center of all of this. James sold the company to IB with the promise of vB4, a promise that he failed to communicate to the devs:

Kier's deposition said:
20. In late June 2008, Internet Brands’ CEO Robert Brisco, Technology Director Jennifer Rundell, and Project Manager Michael Anders visited Jelsoft’s offices in England on short notice. The Saturday before Internet Brands’ visit on the following Monday, James Limm sent me an email instructing me to prepare a presentation about the development of vBulletin 4. vBulletin 4, however, was not being developed at that time, because the development team had been diverted by Limm to develop and write the social networking features that would debut in vBulletin 3.7.

21. I was present at and participated in meetings with Internet Brands at the Pangbourne office over three days in June 2008. During the first of these meetings, I discovered that Internet Brands’ corporate representatives believed that Jelsoft had been working on vBulletin 4 since at least 2007. Brisco expressed shock when I told him that we had been working on upgrades to the vBulletin 3 series, that we were just starting to plan the development of vBulletin 4, and that vBulletin 4 was two years away from commercial release.

22. I have since learned that Brisco has testified that, prior to June 2008, Limm had assured him on a regular basis that Jelsoft was working on vBulletin 4 and that progress was good. Contrary to Limm’s assurances to Brisco, vBulletin 4 had only reached its early planning stages, with functional requirements still being defined. With the exception of the decision to make use of MVC and semantic XHTML principles, no technical design or development work for vBulletin 4 had been undertaken at all.
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While IB thought their new acquisition was working on vB4, James was actually having the devs work on 3.7 / 3.8. Meanwhile IB was consumed with preparing for their IPO.

Kier's deposition said:
36. Before returning to England, I had an informal and cordial meeting with Brisco, Rundell and Morgan in Brisco’s office. During that meeting, Brisco and Rundell thanked me for travelling to California and participating in valuable and productive meetings. I asked them why they had previously believed that Jelsoft would be ready to deliver the vBulletin 4 “rewrite” in late 2008. Brisco and Rundell told me that that there had been a series of miscommunications between Internet Brands and James Limm. I was also told that Internet Brands’ lack of involvement with Jelsoft before the acquisition and for a full year after the acquisition occurred in June 2007 was due to Internet Brands’ management’s focus on preparing for a public offering of common stock in Internet Brands.
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When it came time to deliver vB4 there was nothing to show so IB was pissed. So having been lied to by James, and under the pressure of an upcoming IPO for which they wanted to show off vB4, IB imposed new plans and an accelerated schedule for vB4. Kier told IB the deadline was unreasonable, so the decision was made to compromise on vB4 as a product in order to release it on time.

Kier's deposition said:
29. When we arrived in Los Angeles on the afternoon of September 3rd 2008, we met Brisco, who was was cold and sharply criticized our development pace as “glacial.” He said that he had already informed Internet Brands’ shareholders that vBulletin 4 would be ready very soon, and, therefore, Internet Brands in Los Angeles would assume direct control over the vBulletin development process to ensure the delivery of vBulletin 4 by March 2009. To meet this accelerated schedule, Brisco proposed outsourcing all development to China and transforming Jelsoft’s development staff from code developers to code reviewers of work by Chinese software writers.

30. I told Brisco that the vBulletin 4 product as then planned could not be developed within six months, and in a period of six months we could only develop a very limited set of new features based on the creaky and outdated architecture of vBulletin 3. Brisco replied that only programmers care about software architecture, and that anyone who proposed a project to him with a timeline exceeding six months would be fired. He indicated that if we did not agree with his new direction for developing vBulletin on an accelerated schedule, we were free to leave and not return for further meetings.
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There was no longer time for the full rewrite that Kier had planned. Kier helped to implement the new development plan but quit before the product was finished because he recognized that it was crap:

Kier's deposition said:
45. On May 8, 2009, I submitted my letter of resignation to James Limm, effective thirty days later. Later that day, I spoke with Limm and Morgan about the reasons for my departure and about plans for helping Jelsoft to manage vBulletin development after I left. We agreed that I would document my processes for developing and managing vBulletin software, and that I would put affairs in order prior to my exit, so that the ongoing development task would be as easy to manage as possible. I was also candid about my fears that vBulletin was being driven down a dangerous path that would damage its sales, reputation and market position. I stated that I did not want to be associated with an incremental version of vBulletin 4 to be released prematurely, because it would severely damage my own reputation for developing high-quality software products.
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So to say that IB came in and immediately took over development is overly simple. According to Kier's deposition IB was very "hands off" at first. They only took over development following broken promises and mismanagement by James. IB's reaction was apparently to blame the devs instead of James which was unfortunate considering that James was responsible for the mixup and he also profited the most from the sale of Jelsoft. So James sold Jelsoft and created a problem for the devs and IB. In a bid to save their own reputations the devs quit. Then they created their own forum company which is now being sued by IB. And where is James in all of this? He has the money. He created the problem in the first place. IB's only mistake was blaming the devs instead of James.
 
Jake Bunce said:
So to say that IB came in and immediately took over development is overly simple. According to Kier's deposition IB was very "hands off" at first. They only took over development following broken promises and mismanagement by James. IB's reaction was apparently to blame the devs instead of James which was unfortunate considering that James was responsible for the mixup and he also profited the most from the sale of Jelsoft. So James sold Jelsoft and created a problem for the devs and IB. In a bid to save their own reputations the devs quit. Then they created their own forum company which is now being sued by IB. And where is James in all of this? He has the money. He created the problem in the first place. IB's only mistake was blaming the devs instead of James.
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While I have no desire to look it up, I'm fairly sure Kier stated somewhere that vB 3.6 was the last vBulletin version without IB meddling, and everything after that they started deciding a lot of stuff about it, and the devs were no longer in charge.

Also, this thread makes me smile a little sadly.
 
In some respects, IB got screwed too.
The developers that made vB what it was ... left.
Was it's IB's fault ? Probably.
Did they shoot themselves in the foot ? Probably.
Was IB "pissed" ex-vB devs made a competing product that was awesome ? For sure.
Does the IB lawsuit have merit ? Probably not.
Was assembling 3 ex-Jelsoft staff cherry picking employees of IB ? Hmmmm. (It's the only part that worries me).
 
Paul M said:
Because this site is for a 'rival' product, and of course largely populated by people who (to put it mildly) dislike Internet Brands. :)
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True, although the vB site doesn't appear to be shining with optimism either, generally.

Edit: 1000th post in this topic, yay.
 
whynot said:
He sold it as it was with the promise that the developers will develop the new revolutionary bread slicer named VB4.
They still did not? That's not his fault.
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James sold VB to IB with information that VB4 was well on the way. That wasn't true.
The developers led by Kier told IB a mere 6 months was not enough to create a whole new system as VB4 was meant to be.
Understandably IB was shocked and angry that they'd been had.
But that wasn't the developers' fault. The main fault goes back to James and how he sold VB.
However as we have seen over two long years the calibre of a professional is how they cope when things go tough. IB did not cope well. They went for the fast and dirty buck.

Digital Doctor said:
Was assembling 3 ex-Jelsoft staff cherry picking employees of IB ? Hmmmm. (It's the only part that worries me).
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It was natural for people who were used to working closely together and respected each other as a team to have a similar reaction. They were being asked to make good on an impossible promise made by their outgoing employer (to produce VB4 as a whole new suite in only a few months).
Their alternative was to cobble together yet another mishmash based on VB3 and call it VB4. They were too honest to do that and anyway realised if they did it their reputation and career as devs would be destroyed long term.
They took the only other way out and left.
 
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