[vbresults]

vBulletin 5's beta being released to the public at this point in time is very strange. Of course all of the usual things popped into my head justifying it, but yesterday, something hit me.

As most people will agree, focus seemed to shift from the forum to things like the publishing suite and mobile support. What is strange is that even for being in beta, vBulletin 5 is very basic. If you look at the vB5 response threads, more than frustrated, people are very surprised.

I was reading up on the California Internet Brands/vB vs XenForo lawsuit, and saw that in June, the judge had enough of IB's delay tactics, denied their motion to amend, and started moving towards a trial.

IB losing this lawsuit will of course have a domino effect. This can very simply mean that IB did not expect things to proceed this quickly, and they are moving towards a more vanilla model. This way, when the trial ends and confidence is restored in people to move towards xenForo, IB hopes to impress upon them "we have the same thing".

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Of course the last paragraph is conjecture, but it makes a lot of sense. What do you guys think?