A few questions (legal issues, subscription, price, queries, etc)

Luxus

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I read a lot of good things about XenForo and wanted to have a few questions answered that the demo was unable to provide.

1) I heard that XenForo has legal issues going for a long time with Internet Brands. I don't know the details but am I right with the assumtion that those issues are still not solved? How are the chances that Internet Brands will win this battle and what would happen to XenForo?

2) I am tempted to buy a license but I am unsure how this works. The problem is I currently don't own a domain and wanted to install XenForo on my local server to write my own templates and themes. How does XenForo check if an installation is legit? I thought that every customer needs to enter a domain upon checkout. If this is the case does that mean that I can't buy a license if I don't own a domain?

3) The regular price of a XenForo license is $140. I am from europe and from my understanding I have to pay additional $28 VAT? How can this be? XenForo is a UK based company, so I don't get why european customers have to pay 20% more for a european product than US customers. It's bad enough already that almost anything in europe is more expensive than in the US.

4) How many queries does XenForo perform on a clean installation on the index page, forum list page and showthread page? I have used MyBB and WBB in the past and their queries were practically unbeatable. I need to know the exact numbers.

5) What else does XenForo have in store for us in the near future? I'm asking because compared to other forum scripts XenForo lacks important components of a community suchs as a gallery and a blog. I am aware that I can extend XenForo with plugins, but this is exactly the reason why I got annoyed by MyBB. It just doesn't feel right if you constantly have to rely on third-party software every time you notice a feature/function missing in the core code. Furthermore, by end of this year WBB4 will be released and by looking at the preview pictures and information so far provided it's going to be a lot like XenForo and probably won't cost more than 50€. So it's really tempting and I need to know if it is worth it to buy a XenForo license at this point in time.

That's all :)

Edit: Almost forgot, it seems there is some kind of an issue with uploading avatar images in png format as I got an error stating that the image is too large and cannot be larger than 40kb every time I try to upload a png image. With gif and jpg no problems at all.
 
1) The issues are still ongoing. The chances of IB winning it are slim to none on technicalities, however the longer it goes on the more of a drain on XenForo's resources it is financially. As for what would happen to XenForo the company, one would assume if they lost they would have to close down. My personal opinion is that XenForo will triumph eventually.

2) You can enter localhost as your domain. When you are ready to go live, just update it to your live URL. you are allowed to change it as often as you want, however you may only have one live (publicly accessable) forum per license and one test forum which if on the internet must be password protected.

3) You can thank the EC for that. Sorry, nothing XF can do here for you.

4) 10,15 and 20

5) Nobody knows at the current moment in time. 1.2 is being worked on and we hope will be here sometime in the next 3 months.
 
On your own server you have control over the attachments, their size, and types.
You can grant png more if needed. The limit is however determined by the hosting account's settings.
 
1) Lawsuit thread:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/california-case-update.10037/

There is a similar thread on vbulletin.com but it's in a private forum. I have followed both threads for the last 18 months. Let's see if I can summarize...

vB claims the XF founders hacked their computers, stole code and secret dev plans and incorporated them into XF, and conspired with former and current employees. vB seeks to have the courts award them ownership of the XF IP, and they claim up to $12 million in damages. Public opinion of this lawsuit has been hugely against vB. There is a David v Goliath sentiment to all of this. It is also a popular opinion that vB's claims have no evidence to support them and that their strategy is one of legal delay in order to engage XF in litigation for as long as possible to drain their money. The lawsuit has been going for 18 months and has yet to go to trial. vB is currently seeking permission from the court to file a third amended complaint (to add more accusations for a third time). XF is fighting this. The courts decision on the third amended complain will be given at the end of May I believe. I have no idea when the trial will be. XF's lawyers intend to ask the court for summary judgment in their favor due to lack of evidence. Summary judgment was to be requested last Fall when the trial was scheduled to begin, but then vB filed the second amended complaint shortly before the trial date thereby extending the process. No trial date is set as of right now. The second amended complaint 6 months ago added more defendants to the case, some of which have yet to be served by vB, so it's anyone's best guess as to when the trial will be.

This is just my summary of the lawsuit based on reading the threads and legal documents over the last 18 months.

2) I don't think XF has any kind of rigid activation when you install. At least I have never encountered it. The URL in your license info is more for record keeping purposes, not activation. I have done many localhost installs without any issues or special consideration.

4) On my test forum the index, forum view, and thread view pages all use 11 queries. You can reduce this number by implementing a cache:

http://xenforo.com/help/cache/

5) Here is a dev update:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/development-update.25726/

And as you said, there are third party addons.

Edit: Almost forgot, it seems there is some kind of an issue with uploading avatar images in png format as I got an error stating that the image is too large and cannot be larger than 40kb every time I try to upload a png image. With gif and jpg no problems at all.

PNG is allowed. The file must be too big. The max filesize can be controlled with group permissions in XF.
 
1) I heard that XenForo has legal issues going for a long time with Internet Brands. I don't know the details but am I right with the assumtion that those issues are still not solved? How are the chances that Internet Brands will win this battle and what would happen to XenForo
When it comes down to it, no one here can guess the outcome of the litigation.
If you have some money to spare, it's worth investigating XenForo on your own.
 
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3) The regular price of a XenForo license is $140. I am from europe and from my understanding I have to pay additional $28 VAT? How can this be? XenForo is a UK based company, so I don't get why european customers have to pay 20% more for a european product than US customers. It's bad enough already that almost anything in europe is more expensive than in the US.

If you are in European Union you need to pay. If you live in a European country which isn't part of the European Union, you don't need to pay the VAT.
 
Thanks guys. That pretty much answered my questions :)

PNG is allowed. The file must be too big. The max filesize can be controlled with group permissions in XF.

The original png file I was trying to upload was 38kb large.
-> Error message. File too large. Only 40kb allowed

I reduced the file size to ~30kb.
-> Error message. File too large. Only 40kb allowed

I reduced the file size yet again to 18kb.
-> Error message. File too large. Only 40kb allowed.

I converted the original 38kb image to gif.
-> Success

I converted the original 38kb image to jpg.
-> Success

So there must be something wrong here, no?
 
It's not a bug. It's just that when uploading, the size on the server isn't necessarily the same size as it was on your computer.
If it says that 40kb are allowed and someone can't even use an 18kb image, I would certainly call that a bug. Users expect the specified file size maximum to be accurate. Also only png files are affected, so there must be something wrong.
 
On your own server, you can simply change it to 2 MB and not have this problem with those small files.
The demo simply has a default value.
 
I have never actually heard of that kind of thing happening before. What I think would be happening is some things are compressed that the PHP library unpacks?

If it can't be changed then I can't really see a fix for it. You simply can't trust the file size the browser tells the server it is, you have to test it yourself from the server.
 
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