XF 2.3 ?
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Mr Lucky
Well-known member
I'm not saying otherwise.
Felipo Antonoff
Member
I think maybe you didn't understand the idea and concept of OpenSource + Cloud + Consulting, I recommend researching more deeply about it.What claims! So tomorrow I'm going to the shops near my house and I'll tell them; starting tomorrow you should go Open Source. I fear, that they might call, not the police but the ambulance to take me away.
It is clearly not suitable for physical stores, but for code projects, and I believe that the OpenSource + Cloud, Apps and Consulting model is the future.
The idea I suggested was precisely to help in the development of Xenforo, the more known and used it becomes, the more professionals can help and also increases the volume of users, with that it moves more Plugins/Apps/Extensions, including Xenforo already has natively extensions such as Gallery, Advanced Search and others, these the idea is clearly to remain paid, only the Core of Xenforo would be OpenSource, thus probably solving the development issue, as it would increase the team that could contribute with the code.
But these are just ideas, I just know that the way it is today needs to improve commercially speaking, at least that's the view, we don't know if it's really active, launch forecasts and other details.
And for other colleagues, an OpenSource + Cloud project does not need to leave the OpenSource version limited/capped lol, as they are different customer profiles, who uses the Cloud version is not the same user as the self-hosted one. Not to mention that they forget that there is a Plugins Marketplace and official Extensions. But I agree that limiting resources and leaving specific resources only in the Cloud would be a big mistake, the same mistake made by Gitlab that ends up forcing people to sign too much if they want all the resources, so it's something that has to be well thought of and preferably keeping it the same, just changing that instead of a paid license, it would be free and open on Github or Gitlab for more contributors and greater community participation in the Xenforo Core.
Felipo Antonoff
Member
Taking advantage of this topic, how many developers work on Xenforo today? Is everything going well with the project and planning to last another 5, 10, 20 years?
What I think many are in doubt about is this, because when we create a community even more with a paid system, it is the continuity of it, Xenforo has a history and has proven to be mature and stable over decades.
I also think that everything is changeable, if a model isn't working right now, it needs to be adapted, but I consider the idea of focusing only on the Cloud to be one of the biggest mistakes, as it narrows the Product/service too much. Many do not understand that they are completely different profiles, I am the profile that I usually prefer to host, as I can audit the code, make adjustments, install plugins, choose the Cloud, etc. base resources suit you.
I've been working for more than 10 years with Apps/Plugins for Opencart and we've always gone through changes and we also have a small and efficient team, today the market is indeed more difficult, even because there is competition with billionaire companies and everyone wants to enter this market when see the success of others, but the profile of our customers is completely different, they are for more serious companies, who like freedom, transparency, quality and being able to add new features easily, in addition to the database and the Store being of course really theirs.
Now we have competitors playing with prices, I also don't think this is the way to go, as it loses focus on quality, but I believe that adaptation is needed, so much so that we are going to reformulate mainly the price of renewals, because if no customer renews the Support and Update /Download, there is no reason to dedicate X hours or weeks to updating a Product, since probably no one will use it except new customers, we have to dedicate our efforts where it will deliver the greatest value to customers and the company.
The trend nowadays I believe is more focus on recurrence, but projects that have open source code, whether paid or not, I think they need to find a hybrid model and that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to create a 100% free version of Opencart and who knows in the future a Cloud of it with all our plugins/apps.
As those who compete only in the Cloud limit the customer profile too much, a serious company/customer rarely wants to be 100% tied to another company, they want to have options A or B, if a Cloud service starts to get bad, whether in terms of uptime, performance, support , adding new features or another detail, also having an OpenSource or self-hosted version with open source code gives the company the option to migrate in the future if desired, an example we are analyzing the use of Zammad for Help Desk, I have no problem in use the rented/Cloud even more to test for a few months, but if you want for whatever reason, we can install it in our Cloud, that is, we are not 100% tied to the company and it delivers more transparency, freedom and value, same thing it happens to Xenforo, I only bought a License and its official extensions, because the source code is open and we can use it in our Cloud, so if I had gone first to the Cloud version, it wouldn't have been a problem if one day you change your mind.
In Brazil we even had absurd cases like Xtech and Rakuten that suddenly discontinued their services, leaving thousands of stores in the lurch, something that would never happen if it were a free or paid OpenSource project, because it would be in the Cloud at the customers or they could before it. shut down the services install the self-hosted version on your Clouds.
What I think many are in doubt about is this, because when we create a community even more with a paid system, it is the continuity of it, Xenforo has a history and has proven to be mature and stable over decades.
I also think that everything is changeable, if a model isn't working right now, it needs to be adapted, but I consider the idea of focusing only on the Cloud to be one of the biggest mistakes, as it narrows the Product/service too much. Many do not understand that they are completely different profiles, I am the profile that I usually prefer to host, as I can audit the code, make adjustments, install plugins, choose the Cloud, etc. base resources suit you.
I've been working for more than 10 years with Apps/Plugins for Opencart and we've always gone through changes and we also have a small and efficient team, today the market is indeed more difficult, even because there is competition with billionaire companies and everyone wants to enter this market when see the success of others, but the profile of our customers is completely different, they are for more serious companies, who like freedom, transparency, quality and being able to add new features easily, in addition to the database and the Store being of course really theirs.
Now we have competitors playing with prices, I also don't think this is the way to go, as it loses focus on quality, but I believe that adaptation is needed, so much so that we are going to reformulate mainly the price of renewals, because if no customer renews the Support and Update /Download, there is no reason to dedicate X hours or weeks to updating a Product, since probably no one will use it except new customers, we have to dedicate our efforts where it will deliver the greatest value to customers and the company.
The trend nowadays I believe is more focus on recurrence, but projects that have open source code, whether paid or not, I think they need to find a hybrid model and that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to create a 100% free version of Opencart and who knows in the future a Cloud of it with all our plugins/apps.
As those who compete only in the Cloud limit the customer profile too much, a serious company/customer rarely wants to be 100% tied to another company, they want to have options A or B, if a Cloud service starts to get bad, whether in terms of uptime, performance, support , adding new features or another detail, also having an OpenSource or self-hosted version with open source code gives the company the option to migrate in the future if desired, an example we are analyzing the use of Zammad for Help Desk, I have no problem in use the rented/Cloud even more to test for a few months, but if you want for whatever reason, we can install it in our Cloud, that is, we are not 100% tied to the company and it delivers more transparency, freedom and value, same thing it happens to Xenforo, I only bought a License and its official extensions, because the source code is open and we can use it in our Cloud, so if I had gone first to the Cloud version, it wouldn't have been a problem if one day you change your mind.
In Brazil we even had absurd cases like Xtech and Rakuten that suddenly discontinued their services, leaving thousands of stores in the lurch, something that would never happen if it were a free or paid OpenSource project, because it would be in the Cloud at the customers or they could before it. shut down the services install the self-hosted version on your Clouds.
ŽivaAkcija
Well-known member
andybond
Well-known member
As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
digitalpoint
Well-known member
It's because not all sites are the same. So something that would benefit site A doesn't necessarily benefit site B... and great, we have options to install things that are specific to certain sites. Personally, I think "forum" functionality should be removed from XenForo's core and instead have it be an addon (actually, I'm serious there). I spend more time removing forum functionality from my sites. If it were an optional addon like Media Gallery, that would be great (no functionality would be lost either).
I think the way Ubiquiti has done it with their hardware is great... The hardware can be different things to different people... you have the core operating system of the hardware, and then 6 first-party Applications that can be installed depending on what you need it to do (like "Forum" could be a first-party addon you optionally install):
Xenforo has twice the market share of vBulletin
Asides from original domains, XFCloud domains are here: *.community.forum See: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:.community.forum @Brogan are there other subdomains or extensions exclusively used for XFC? Not really how spiders work (it finds stuff on it's own). If you have to go down a...
xenforo.com
Maybe just me, but personally, I think making XenForo's "guts" as solid and extensible as can be is the best route vs trying to do every possible thing for everyone out of the box. It makes sense to make certain functionality installable because not everyone wants everything (even functionality built by XenForo is done that way [Resource Manager, Media Gallery, Enhanced Search]). I'm thankful XenForo has gone the route of extensibility vs. everything being core because then we'd have things like RM and MG forced upon every installation. I'm sure lots of sites would like blog functionality or a more advanced "CMS" functionality, but none that I have... so hopefully those are done as addons vs. core if the functionality shows up.
As far as third-party addons, some will be good, some will be bad... but at least XenForo has built the underlying core to make them a viable thing. Imagine if WordPress users were telling the WordPress core developers that they want all the WordPress plugins out there to be rolled into a default installation of WordPress. You would have close to an infinite number of settings and things to maintain, with most of the functionality not being used by most sites. More than anything, XenForo is a platform/framework that is incredibly extensible.
TPerry
Well-known member
Then you'd be happy with IPS or Wotlab... as that's their basic design philosophy... you have the core... then you subscribe to additional FIRST party add-ons (Forum, Pages, Blog, etc) ... and that's where they and XF seem to differ... the first party add-ons offered are limited from XF where there are wider options available first party elsewhere..
I have no issues with those functions being first party additions.... what I have issues with is many functions/features that competitors already include IN their first party offerings are still lacking in XF except via 3rd party.
Suzanne O
Well-known member
I'm looking forward to when this is released.
I honestly think that whatever Chris D and his crew throw at us is going to be good.
Don't care what it is they've put in there but it'll be fully customisable and great for us to use.
Whilst we wait for this to drop, you guys who are saying that wordpress is better, go and snoop around that platforum.
What i'm doing is setting up a vbulletin 5 forum.
I'm checking out all the new things in it. just in case anything from that platform software is being used here.
I honestly think that whatever Chris D and his crew throw at us is going to be good.
Don't care what it is they've put in there but it'll be fully customisable and great for us to use.
Whilst we wait for this to drop, you guys who are saying that wordpress is better, go and snoop around that platforum.
What i'm doing is setting up a vbulletin 5 forum.
I'm checking out all the new things in it. just in case anything from that platform software is being used here.
digitalpoint
Well-known member
Well first-party addons don't necessarily need to be a subscription model (maybe some are like Resource Manager or Media Gallery, and some aren't like Forums [if that was an addon]). It's been years since I looked at IPS or Wotlab, but a few years ago their guts were not up to par for addon development imo. I made a plugin for 4 or 5 different platforms, and skipped both of them because it was too much work to do the same thing vs. others (maybe that's changed recently, but I wasn't impressed back then).
Ya, in my perfect world XenForo would code everything I want and I could just pay them for a license. But realistically, even if they had 100 developers you still have a finite number of resources to build things. And being a business, you have to pick which make sense as far as being able to at least recoup the development costs.
Also, an addon being first-party or third-party really doesn't make much of a difference. While XenForo developers are great, they also aren't necessarily doing things that equally proficient developers can't do. Would I take an addon purely because it was made by someone who's an employee of XenForo, Ltd. vs. one that might be better/more suited to what I actually need by a great third-party developer? No. For sake of argument, if I became an employee of XenForo, Ltd., would my addons suddenly become better or different? No.
TPerry
Well-known member
We aren't talking that it would necessarily make them "better"... but think "stable for availability". Odds of XF dropping an existing add-on is not high... odds of a 3rd party developer leaving the scene is much higher.
digitalpoint
Well-known member
Agreed, but the reason comes back to it being a business and it's a bit of a catch-22. A lot of addons that third-parties offer make no sense to come from XenForo because they wouldn't recoup the development costs (and if they were profitable, the addon developers that make them wouldn't disappear).
For sake of argument, let's say the top 100 XenForo addons were somehow first-party addons. There would still be a process where some get out of date or just get culled/dropped because it no longer makes business sense to maintain them. If you look at some of the first-party addons (from XenForo, Ltd. employees), a fair number have become "Unmaintained" because it no longer makes sense to do so (mostly things for older versions of XF):
Resources by XenForo
xenforo.com
That being said, your concern about addons going defunct is certainly valid (first-party or third-party). I ended up taking the approach that I really can't be relying on others to build exactly what I need (it's probably not going to be exactly what I need and ya... maybe they die or stop maintaining). XF1 addon list for one of my sites ended up being everything coded in-house except for Enhanced Search):
and it's unfortunately become the same thing for XF2:
I'd even go so far as to turn everything I ever coded over to XenForo, Ltd. for free if they would take over development and maintenance of everything for me. But even then it wouldn't make business sense for them... so we are left with addon developers that aren't trying to make a living making stuff... the upside is there's more addons available, the downside is since they aren't viable from a business standpoint, maybe they won't be around forever.
Shuya
Active member
Never seen anyone on forums in general to be as responsive and helpful as yourself. So, you definitely have my vote on the matter
digitalpoint
Well-known member
Well, long gone are the days where I work for money. I only work for equity now (which mainly means me building my own stuff). I also don’t work particularly well in teams. Additionally, I’d need to finish my own projects first, which is around 5-7 years of work backlog I have. So ya, there’s all that…Never seen anyone on forums in general to be as responsive and helpful as yourself. So, you definitely have my vote on the matter
Wanji
Active member
I want to believe that.
duderuud
Well-known member
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