Mike
Well-Known Member
As many of you were aware, the company responsible for developing the forum software we use (XenForo) was in danger of crumbling away to naught. A very frivolous lawsuit was filed by Internet Brands, the company that owns the vBulletin forum software, alleging the developers of XenForo had violated copyright law and had used inside information to leverage XenForo into being.
It quickly became clear the lawsuit was not based on anything other than a whim, but the suit was filed in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, a.k.a. the State of California and the judge was willing to let the attorneys collect their tons of flesh before finally agreeing to settlement talks. The content of those talks will remain sealed, but the good news is that a settlement was reached and development on XenForo has begun anew.
The software has been running well, but many third-party coders had abandoned development of add-ons for the base software. As a result, admins running XenForo were in a bit of a pinch. I sat down and revisited all the possible options to running XenForo and had determined I was going to run XenForo until we got to a security issue that could not be solved by myself or other users of the software. At which point, I was simply going to pull up the stakes and let the forum die away. I didn't much care for that option, but I was really not in favor of going backwards. vBulletin 4.x is simply terrible, vBulletin 5.x is another can of worms and I will never run another Invision site, so long as I live. I looked at the free and open source alternatives and just could not find anything with the level of security I felt necessary for this site.
Now that XenForo is back under its own power again, the problems have all vanished. The so-called prophets who have predicted our doom and demise are going to be sadly disappointed to learn I intend to remain a thorn in their sides for years to come. We are not going anywhere, except forward.
It quickly became clear the lawsuit was not based on anything other than a whim, but the suit was filed in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, a.k.a. the State of California and the judge was willing to let the attorneys collect their tons of flesh before finally agreeing to settlement talks. The content of those talks will remain sealed, but the good news is that a settlement was reached and development on XenForo has begun anew.
The software has been running well, but many third-party coders had abandoned development of add-ons for the base software. As a result, admins running XenForo were in a bit of a pinch. I sat down and revisited all the possible options to running XenForo and had determined I was going to run XenForo until we got to a security issue that could not be solved by myself or other users of the software. At which point, I was simply going to pull up the stakes and let the forum die away. I didn't much care for that option, but I was really not in favor of going backwards. vBulletin 4.x is simply terrible, vBulletin 5.x is another can of worms and I will never run another Invision site, so long as I live. I looked at the free and open source alternatives and just could not find anything with the level of security I felt necessary for this site.
Now that XenForo is back under its own power again, the problems have all vanished. The so-called prophets who have predicted our doom and demise are going to be sadly disappointed to learn I intend to remain a thorn in their sides for years to come. We are not going anywhere, except forward.
Good news indeed!
