I’ve been hesitant on posting this… because once I do, that makes it “final” and I’ve been secretly hoping that something would change, but it hasn’t…
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably have seen my recent tweet about FFCC’s vBulletin License expiring.
This post is going to expand on that.
I’ll not be renewing or upgrading to vBulletin 4 on this particular license. I have no reason too. The vBulletin 4 product is not up to par with the standards I’m requiring to be run on that site, and I simply do not have the time to learn everything about it. Therefore, I had to sit and make a decision on what I’m going to do about FFCC’s Forum.
I’ve been on the fence about the [FFCC] board for several months now. I’ve flip flopped from converting to IPB (even being offered a license by Mike), to upgrading to vB4, and everywhere in between.
When vBulletin 4 Gold was released, a lot of bugs were fixed and I was confident that the product was finally, despite going through a bass ackwards beta process, looking up… I was wrong.
Then, the license expired, and it finally clicked on the direction I want to go in regards to FFCC.
FFCC will continue to run vBulletin 3.8.4, however I’ll be maintaining the software myself. If there is a bug in the software, it will be fixed by me, rather than the developers. I’ll also be rewriting several components, as well as plugins I’m currently using, to not only provide tighter integration, but because taking the products out of the plugin system and adding them to the core will make them more efficient.
Since my license is expired, I can no longer upgrade, therefore I can freely modify the actual source code without worrying about losing those modifications. Which also means I can expand on the current feature set… such as Reputation which is the first feature to receive my touch.
I’ve begun work on rewriting Reputation to allow users to give out reputations for any content, rather than just posts. So far, I’ve successfully implemented my concept for Posts, using the content type flag as a way to perform permission checks as well as a way to determine what data needs to be selected before performing the actual rep giving. The code for repping posts that comes with vBulletin has simply been ported to work with my new system, and any functions (functions_reputation.php) pertaining to Reputation have been reworked to simply pass on to the new system, so I don’t have to find everywhere these functions are being implemented.
I’m looking forward to expanding it further, then putting it live on my board.
In closing I just want to say, that I do not blame the current development staff for vB4’s state, nor do I blame the Support Staff.
Kevin, Darren, Edwin, Andrew, Freddie, Michael, Andy, David, and Sophie are all very talented at what they do. And Steve, Wayne, Colin, eva, Jake, Trevor, and Zachery are equally as talented. And I hope that, one day, I’ll be able to look into upgrading to the vB4 series again… but right now, I just can’t do that. Whether it’s due to the shareholders, or the Management, I just can’t support something that is shipped as a “Production Deployment Ready” product way before it should be labelled as such.
Love and care is required first and foremost when working in Software Development, and the direction that vBulletin is currently heading tells me that the powers, that are in charge of its direction, do not possess either… and I really hope that, in the future, they prove me wrong.
Tags: FFCC, internet brands, vbulletin
Excellent post. And one I completely agree with. I publically voiced my vote of confidence for them a little while ago, when I was sick of the constant negativity – I’d hoped that my faith in them would be worth while… but the more I see of the “gold” product, the more disappointed and dejected I become
Here’s something interesting, straight from the horses mouth, so to speak.
http://www.bbrisco.com/2010/01/sense-and-respond-to-max.html
This is all fine and dandy, and something I personally advocate. All software vendors should investigate ways to increase productivity and maximize output.
But, one thing to remember, is that software development is a balance between Development Speed and Development Efficiency.
You cannot increase one, without decreasing the other.
If you increase Development Speed, than Efficiency is going to decrease because there isn’t enough time to fully test the code like you’re supposed too.
If you increase Development Efficiency, than Speed is going to decrease because you’re spending more time coding and testing the code before each release.
If the balance between Speed and Efficiency is leaning, then it will show and it will have an adverse effect on your product.
Right now, vBulletin is leaning to the Speed side of the balance, which is adversely affecting the Efficiency of Development and which in turn affects the quality of the Brand, Software, as well as the Credibility of the company as a whole.