Oh the irony is delicious... :: raises a glass ::

[Tigratrus]

Once, there was a time long ago... And there was a a new version planned for vBulletin that included a full refactoring to an MVC system. It was a big job, a really big job estimated to take maybe a couple years (IIRC).

Then came IB. And suddenly vB 4.0 was no longer a full refactoring, the changeover was going to be "phased in" which is a horribly painful way to do it, likely to mean a lot of painful upgrades and broken mods.

Here's the irony. By doing such an atrocious job, and setting the *perfect* stage for XF, IB managed to put Mike and Kier in a position to simply start from scratch and build a completely new system from scratch. And Kier just more or less confirmed that XF is indeed fully MFC (http://xenforo.com/community/thread...anged.686/#post-8155).

So.

We went with Joomla! as our site home/CMS, NOT for the CMS itself but because of the fully MVC system upon which that CMS was built upon, as it's a GREAT environment to develop extensions/systems for. IB, by the way they have, *ahem*, screwed the pooch... Appear to have actually speeded up the development timetable for the system (the forum) that is the heart and soul of our site.

And so... IB, I raise a glass (chardonnay, not excellent, but passable) to you. Thank you for sucking so VERY badly that you made my life, and our site's financial future brighter!

To IB!

Long may they reign as the cr@piest of suits!

Note: Please excuse my French, I'm American. And have actually been drinking the toast described above !

 

[Floris]

Shrug, it doesn't change much. I figured out a year ago that version 4 wasn't what my sites needs. And here we were, with XF, something I can consider for my site.

Irony or not, it doesn't change anything for my site. I choose what goes well with my site.

 

[AlexT]

Deleted

 

[Floris]

It's already EOL in my book, maintenance has been a joke. Seeing XenForo announced was a new option for my community's future.

 

[cornishman]

It's already EOL in my book, maintenance has been a joke. Seeing XenForo announced was a new option for my community's future.

Have to agree, all my forums have been using 3.x and the last few maintenance releases seemed like an afterthought!

 

[AlexT]

Deleted

 

[Floris]

But anyway, it doesn't matter. We locked down our upgrade process, and regret going from 3.8.4 to pl1, .5 and we're not going to .6 or .7
This was decided month or so ago. And with XF introduced, we're considering our options.

 

[RickM]

I don't disagree on this. But there is still a difference when a product goes officially EOL or when a company simply treats it as badly as if it was already EOL - from a legal point of view that is. If you run a big board and if you are responsible for security, it can be considered irresponsible running a product that has officially gone EOL, with all the negative legal implications.

Whilst that's true, some of the biggest boards out there still use vB2!

 

[Floren]

Honestly, if IB would of let free hand to the old team, this is probably how the new version would of looked.
In a way, I'm glad things went this way. It will allow Kier and Mike to collect the fruits of their own efforts. I admire their dedication and the fact they sticked together for one year with no job, while working day and night to make their new product happen. It was not easy for them to work every day for hours until 3am, sleep few hours, grab a big cup of coffee, eat some quick lunch and code non-stop for another 15hours... Kier and Mike haven't stopped smiling in the last 3 days. Not because the forums are already busy and full of life but because we all showed them that all the efforts they put into their "baby" were not useless. Almost everyone congratulated the XF team showed their support... that is worth more then money sometimes.

 

[Green Cat]

Nothing ironic about it

 

[Floris]

Not would, could
XF is not vB4-Kier & team's -way.
It's XF, something different.

 

[Grover]

Here's the irony. By doing such an atrocious job, and setting the *perfect* stage for XF, IB managed to put Mike and Kier in a position to simply start from scratch and build a completely new system from scratch. And so... IB, I raise a glass (chardonnay, not excellent, but passable) to you. Thank you for sucking so VERY badly that you made my life, and our site's financial future brighter!

Coincidentally, this exact same thought came into my mind yesterday . In the last years of Jelsoft I saw Invision gaining more attention and introducing features that we had requested (sometimes begged...yes sometimes I recognise a dramaqueen in myself ) for soooo long to vBulletin. It seemed that Jelsoft was loosing their innovative state-of-the-art leader position to Invision. I still wonder: why?! So... in the beginning I thought that Internet Brands was the best thing that could have happened to Jelsoft, because we would finally see some progress with more developers/recources on the team. I was warned by the fact that almost all key developers were leaving and comments from people 'in the know' that this takeover would actually more or less destroy the brand/quality of the product. We all know how it turned out by now.

vBulletin seems so bloated by now (although vB3.8 is still an excellent solid amazing package) and with Internet Brands behind the wheel the quality, trust and supporting community has been going down the drain also. IB is clearly not the best thing at all that happened to vBulletin, but it might proof to have generated the chance for xenForo to see the light and climb to very high heights. I hope for the latter and will do everything I can to promote it, even if I do not use it myself yet.