Tag: xenforo

So, since my last post on the subject of XenForo, very little has changed.  Everyone has been left wondering what exactly is going on behind the scenes at XenForo Limited.

I posted on their August Update discussion thread (as you might have guessed) and frankly I thought that my question about XenForo was reasonable.  My question was:

Would someone be willing to identify the cumulative number of hours that have been expended altering/amending/improving/patching/etc the codebase since the last announcement on 19 June 2012. Personally I’d sleep better having some proof that things are being worked on even if there is no scheduled time frame for a release.

Now on Wednesday this week it will be a fortnight since I posted that question and as of now it has not been answered.

Unsurprisingly the current moderators of the XenForo community were left with little option but to close the discussion thread as it degenerated swiftly.  Personally I did not find the moderators themselves particularly helpful because whilst I understand the logic behind telling people how they should interpret things at the end of the day that makes everything on the XenForo community hearsay.

I sincerely doubt that we are going to see anything back from XenForo Limited any time soon, in fact I predict that we will hear nothing whatsoever until they post a “September Update” or similar.

Personally I cannot see the problem with answering the question that I posed, many other projects freely allow people to draw down information and statistics on the amount of programming being done.  For an example you can take a look at the entry for Mozilla Firefox on Ohloh.net which notes that there have been 2525 commits in the period 09 August 2012 to 08 September 2012.

Is the current set of circumstances really so bad that XenForo Limited has to take this xenophobic approach to their own customers?

I thought I would try being a bit more imaginative with the title this post, not sure if I have succeeded.

So, rubbish humour to one side for now, XenForo Limited has released an update for August 2012 about what is happening on their end.

Frankly it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Whilst I’m sure that there is an awful lot that is happening behind the scenes which is affecting the development process, e.g. the often referenced personal issues of the developers, this blanket of silence that has appeared is absolutely awful.  It really just isn’t good enough to leave everyone hanging around waiting to see what happens next whilst paying their hard-earned money for the privilege.

Doubtless there is a limit on what can and cannot be revealed given the ongoing legal issues that have arisen around the product and the developers, however saying nothing at all does nothing to still the waters.  In fact I think that their latest post has only served to stir up the questions around what will happen to XenForo.

All this said, it will be a real shame if XenForo cannot manage to pick itself up after being taken to the canvas by the owners of vBulletin, since the software shows a fresh and innovative approach to hosting communities online which will be sorely missed if it disappears.