Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

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Dogs and things
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Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

I'd like to read and discuss about what the retirement means for you and what your plans for the future are.

Personally I'm pretty affected by this unexpectedly quick change of the phpBB-world as I know it.

I have spent many hours to turn my board into exactly what I want and find fits my community. I don´t want to drop all of this and start all over again and for the moment I don´t intend to switch to phpBB3.

In the first place because phpBB3 as it comes is far too modded and complex to use for my community. We have visitors that are hardly able to figure out how to use a plain phpBB2 and many of them will get lost in the jungle phpBB3 offers to them. Of course, they can learn how to use it but most likely many of them will not make the effort and leave.

I have always taken much care in making/keeping my board as easy to use as possible, despite the fact that it's quite modified. I even dare to say that it's easier to use now as when it started as a plain phpBB2 with subSilver. And that's with all the MODs in place.

Secondly, with phpBB2 I know what I've got and as we say in Spain, it' s better to stick with a bad friend then getting to know a new bad friend.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by MakePB »

Unfortunately big thread from yesterday from view of members about phpBB2 retirement has been close.
I would like to repeat again that i have personally difficult with fact that mods coded for old board are not compatible with new one including style.
That is main reason for many of us why not to upgrade and why we want that security patched gonna to be released longer.

Personally i run some of crucial mods on my board without i can not imagine my board (like sandodo group mods paypal).

2 important factors are:

- Incompatibility (There is not any way to integrate old mod where many of them are crucial for us)
- style and design that give board some kind of unique char.


Finally i'm afraid that over 4-5 years when new phpBB4.x come out same thing will happen with phpBB3.x!?
Upgrading without possibility of integrating old mod is thumbs down.
Imagine that with every new version of OS all software programers need to rewrite their program to be compatible with new version?
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Erik Frèrejean »

MakePB wrote:I would like to repeat again that i have personally difficult with fact that mods coded for old board are not compatible with new one including style.
That's just something that happens when you do a complete rewrite of the core.
MakePB wrote:Personally i run some of crucial mods on my board without i can not imagine my board (like sandodo group mods paypal).
I don't know that mod, but HoL is developing a paypal mod, which is really good and already Beta.
MakePB wrote:Imagine that with every new version of OS all software programers need to rewrite their program to be compatible with new version?
Well if they would do a complete core rewrite (win 2000 -> win xp), most software will break. This can't be stopped an must be done when you want to move forward with your product.
If the phpBB team wanted to prevent the breaking of mods and styles we still be running a phpBB1 core at the moment (thank god they didn't :mrgreen:). Because the same thing happened when phpBB2.x got released.

I don't know why, but I have the idea that this threat will and the same way as the other threat about this issue.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by ric323 »

So long as it remains "intelligent discussion", and not name calling, I think you are pretty safe. :)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Raimon »

MakePB wrote:
Fortunately OS programers think about their customers and that;s way you can still run old software, drivers etc... without be afraid that with every new OS you will lose everything what you got with your old OS.
With phpBB you do not have such a choice. Or stick with older release and everything what you have or switch over to new version and lose everything what you have. Choice is yours. :shock:
No!, not again a discussion about the decision on 2.0.x of the phpBB teams :|
And phpBB think just fine about their customers , there is still support right?
I only say one thing and after that i I'm the silence in me.
You can use phpBB 2.0.x , i don't no why not but you don't get support for it.
The same thing is for some OS , you can not buy windows 3.11 anymore, hmm why not, because its old and it don't (probably) work anymore on new systems , vista works just fine to that.
The same is for 2.0.x and 3.0.x

And you don't lose anything, only the MODs ands styles, but phpBB.com have some cool forums for that, did you know that those forums called ; 3.0.x Modifications Forums and 3.0.x Styles Forums on those forums you can get al the help how to port, update your style/mod to 3.0.x , come on meet the new world :D

So come on new discuss what you are going to do, and not about the decision of phpBB.com please
Sorry but i use phpBB 2.0.x al most for +2 years not anymore, and i don't regret of that decision, off cource its a advance system new, so you a little playing with phpBB3 is needed, and there is also a cool guide.
I believe the permission is the hardest thing for the 2.0.x users that want to use 3.0.x.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

Yes please, try to avoid starting again about the decision, let's try and stick to talking about what that decision means for us.

One thing I really do find very positive about phpBB3 is prosilver. The template system on phpBB2 was/is a very ancient mess and I'm sure it's possible to turn prosilver into an acceptable copy of the current style a board's using. As a matter of fact that's what I'm working on at the moment. It's not easy, not at all, and less so because I'm not tecnical and have only very simple understanding of html and css but I love to handle those things and like to learn more about it. What's better to learn then doing things with it and I believe a phpBB template is a very good learning subject as it's quite complicated matter compared to a plain website layout.

The lack of substitutes for the MODs i'm using on my actual board is different matter, I don´t know anything about coding so don´t see a way of writing f.i a Keep Unread Flags for phpBB3, and so on, I have many MODs I don´t want to do without and I don´t want to have a single MOD on my board that I haven´t chosen myself.

Just out of curiosity, a question for those that have switched to phpBB3:

How did your users respond to the change, did you have many complaints about the complexity, etc.?
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by KevC »

Dogs and things wrote:Just out of curiosity, a question for those that have switched to phpBB3:

How did your users respond to the change, did you have many complaints about the complexity, etc.?
Nope. As with anything new it takes a few days for people to get used to it but the overwhelming reaction has been very very good for me (2 'busy' boards converted so far). I set up a topic where people could post questions on how to do things and I managed to point everyone in the right directions.

As for MODs, there are requests being fulfilled all the time as people get used to the new coding. If you need specific MODs I'd be inclined to get the requests posted and hopefully someone will take up the challenge.

For phpBB2 boards still running in 8 months time I really don't think the issue will be as big as people are making out. We've had only one security updated (needed) in the last 18 months so the code looks pretty stable to me.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

Hello Kevin,

What's the user-level of those two boards, phpBB usage tecnically speaking. Many of my users have a hard time figuring out how to register. :)

I feel the same about the security issues, by now most holes seem to be covered. But it doesn´t feel as safe of course, with security support one feels safer then without it.

My guess is that most people that like to screw up phpBB boards will be focusing on phpBB3, sort of like they be upgrading too. This would mean that new security threats for phpBB2 are less likely to be discovered as less people are looking for them.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by KevC »

Dogs and things wrote:What's the user-level of those two boards, phpBB usage tecnically speaking. Many of my users have a hard time figuring out how to register.
They're not tech boards at all. Just regular people. As long as yoou can point them the right way it's not a problem. Speaking of registration, 3x is even easier than 2x because you only have to add your name, password and email address on the reg page. If they want to add other info to their profile they can do that after registration in the user control panel.
Dogs and things wrote:My guess is that most people that like to screw up phpBB boards will be focusing on phpBB3, sort of like they be upgrading too. This would mean that new security threats for phpBB2 are less likely to be discovered as less people are looking for them.
Yep I think you're right. They always go after the commonest platforms. As 2x is pretty much a closed door they'll start looking at 3x. Also don't forget that the vast majority of hacks that we see are from people running very out of date boards (many versions behind) or they're not phpBB related at all. A good number of hosts need to be more responsible too. An apparently hacked phpBB board is often the consequence of a vulnerability elsewhere on the server.

At the end of the day I think people who are happy with 2x will carry on for a good while yet, and they shouldn't have any worries about doing so. There's lots of time for more MODs to be made and for people to install 3x locally or on a separate database/URL for them to try out and see if it's right for them (yet). One of my boards I moved when RC5 was out as I was gagging for the new features like post approval and topic alerts. The other one I only moved a couple of weeks ago as it was fine on 2x but we wanted to add subforums to tidy some areas up. As long as people properly assess what they need and how they can use it I'm sure the transition will be fine.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

Kevin Clark wrote:They're not tech boards at all. Just regular people. As long as you can point them the right way it's not a problem.
That's good to read. ;) Allthough I'd like to read more experiences.
Kevin Clark wrote:Speaking of registration, 3x is even easier than 2x because you only have to add your name, password and email address on the reg page. If they want to add other info to their profile they can do that after registration in the user control panel.

That's what I have on my stone-age board too. :P
Kevin Clark wrote:There's lots of time for more MODs to be made and for people to install 3x locally or on a separate database/URL for them to try out and see if it's right for them (yet).
That's what I am doing, checking everything out locally and waiting to see what is going on and will happen at the MOD front.

What's bugging me pretty much is the fact that the standard version comes so loaden with MODs. Will there ever be a list of MODs added as compared to phpBB2 and a guide on how to uninstall those not wanted?
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by KevC »

Dogs and things wrote:Will there ever be a list of MODs added as compared to phpBB2
Already is
http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

A lot of stuff can be turned on and off. Attachments, sigs, avatars, smilies, birthdays to name but a few off the top of my head. I don't think anything has really been added just for bloating. It's all got its uses but you can choose how much of it you want to use.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by SneakySimian »

A quick word about Microsoft since people can't seem to separate an operating system and a web application even though they have nothing to do with each other directly. As soon as Vista came out, Microsoft started pulling XP. None of this transition time. At one point, the only way to find an XP machine was through an OEM. That you had to special order. I looked yesterday and it looks like Microsoft changed their minds and put XP back out (sort of), but that is certainly not the way it was. phpBB is different. They are giving you over a year to transition. So you want to still compare phpBB, a 0-dollar volunteer organization to Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar business with neck-deep in anti-trust lawsuits because they keep breaking the law? Go ahead, but I for one don't want to keep seeing it here. They have nothing in common.

So back on topic. The retirement doesn't really affect me. I currently don't have any websites up. But if I did, I would want phpBB3 anyway.

For those of you who have phpBB2 highly-modded, I appreciate your trepidation, but I find it really ironic that your complaint is phpBB3 is "too modded for your community" (aside from the fact that phpBB3 doesn't contain any MODs) when you complain you can't move to phpBB3 because your phpBB2 install is too modded to transition to phpBB3. Just pointing out something that I'm sure plenty of others find ironic too.

Nobody is forcing you to move to phpBB3. You can stay on phpBB2. You have almost a year from today to figure out how/if you want to move, and if you don't, you can stay on phpBB2. Unlike Microsoft, phpBB isn't going to force you to upgrade to get the latest functionality. And phpBB certainly isn't going to force you to buy new hardware if/when you do decide to upgrade. Yet another example of how phpBB is better than Microsoft. :)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

For those of you who have phpBB2 highly-modded, I appreciate your trepidation, but I find it really ironic that your complaint is phpBB3 is "too modded for your community" (aside from the fact that phpBB3 doesn't contain any MODs) when you complain you can't move to phpBB3 because your phpBB2 install is too modded to transition to phpBB3. Just pointing out something that I'm sure plenty of others find ironic too.
I'll try to explain this to you,

I don´t mind MODs, but I want to be able to determine which MODs I install and which ones I leave out. I never wanted a prefabbed board, I prefer to built it myself, from a very simple and clean start, like phpBB2 is. As I explained earlier.

Pretty hard to do with a board that comes standard with lots of MODs built-in. Can you please explain why you say phpBB3 has no MODs built-in?

I guess you'll say that standard features aren´t MODs and literally speaking you´d be right, they're not MODs. But that can be arranged by simply replacing the word MODs by the word features, it's to feature loaden for my needs. It doesn´t matter whether I can turn on or off things, I'd prefer not to have my code full of stuff I don´t even want there.

If it weren´t for the fact that I have been running and building my board for some years now I'd start of with phpBB3 too, but I'm not in your position, I do have a website and board running. Lots and lots of hours to build it yes, not something that one drops just like that, it's not the same, starting from scratch at this point in time or having had a board/site up and running for years having invested many hours in making that site/board.

Ah, and I´m on XP. :P
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Jim_UK »

Dogs and things wrote:My guess is that most people that like to screw up phpBB boards will be focusing on phpBB3, sort of like they be upgrading too. This would mean that new security threats for phpBB2 are less likely to be discovered as less people are looking for them.
I tend to disagree on that. I think that once phpBB2 is unsupported as far as security updates are concerned that it will become a certain target at some stage in the future.
Like yourself I have invested a lot of time in my site and will not be moving to phpBB3 for some time. The deciding factor will be:
a) when I have some spare time to devote to rebuilding the site. (have not had any since joining the Team :D )
b) When all the things I have on my site are are available for phpBB3 preferably with some sort of upgrade so that I do not lose 4 years work.

Until that time arrives I shall carry on doing as I do now which is making sure that I have an up to date set of the board files on my PC and that I backup the database on a daily basis.
If hacked I can restore without any more loss that a few posts.

Until that time I do however have phpBB3 running on localhost and it is a conversion of my board - this I am using to try and familiarise myself with phpBB3 inner workings.

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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Jim_UK »

What has just happened to 7 pages of posts?

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