The State of this Forum

[trivaya]

Originally posted by FireFly
[B]
Well with a speech like that I just had to try your ultimate software, right?

Well, first off... OpenBB should not have been mentioned in this thread.. This was honest criticism and agreement with Freddie's point that many hackers do not take pride in their hacks, from two developers.

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Cute errors, love that. Someone forgot to set error_reporting()...?

You will get similar erros running vB in E_ALL

Apparently you require register_globals to be turned On, which is a pointless requirement since you can emulate register_globals On (being an extraordinary programmer I'm sure you've heard of extract()). However, users that have it turned Off will never be able to see that requirement since they can't get to step 2, pal.

Emulate being the key word there. I can think of 5 different ways that range from extract to the infamous foreach() tricks.. All any of them do is circumvent the security of register_globals... Using your logic, why even bother having register_globals? Shouldn't even be an option, the hell with security, just leave it on. Don't get me wrong, Chen... as I said on our own forums in reply to your post, OpenBB has the same issue as vB does (and then some) - however, I believe in user awareness, and I'm not going to mislead people into thinking they have security they don't. So, if they don't have register_globals, they don't use it.. period. I'm obviously not on a quest to financial success.. and I'd rather send a few people away until the new version is released, which is done the proper way, than "emulate" a false sense of security.

How come this wonderful script didn't create the database itself, even though I gave it the root user information? Very user friendly indeed.

lol you're *really* reaching now. very few users have mysql root access, and 80+% do everything via a control panel... furthermore, last I knew, vB didn't even generate the sql details file for you, you had to edit it yourself, before proceeding with the installation.

I will be the first to admit OpenBB needs a lot of work... Through a year of various coders in the mix, a complete release of the development team.. it's not exactly where it should be... which is why a new product is being developed from scratch, using the latest technologies. I personally never claimed OpenBB was superior to vBulletin as a whole... but there are definite faults, just as you pointed out in OpenBB (though, I would like to point out, openbb doesn't cost $160(?) either) There are somewhere around 6(?) queries on the index alone to generate statistics (on-the-fly, might I add)... Storing statistics in a seperate table is far more efficient than generating them on the fly, and could cut the index of vB down by half. Don't get me wrong, vB was very innovative, and back in the day (yes I was, and technically still am a vB license holder.. before my obb days), from a coding standpoint, it was the hottest thing since sliced bread. Those days have long passed (as they have for obb as well)... the coding is outdated, slow, lacks efficiency, and doesn't make use of the latest technology. That's what vB3 is for... and I hope it's everything it claims to be, because we ALL have a lot of catching up to do imo.

Anyways, this has turned into a vB vs. OpenBB debate, and the issue at hand here was the hacking community. Given the number of users you have here, I think you're doing a good job... but I still take issue, if not as a vB licenseholder, then as an advocate of the idea of "community support".. I take issue with people like afterlab who come around to showboat their "creations", generate traffic to their own sites, and play "dangle the candy in front of the kids." It's unnecessary, and if memory serves, there's a section of this forum dedicated to just that thing... it's a shame that showoffs feel the need to get an ego boost at other's expense. The question of skill was brought in when commercialization of hacks was discussed. As I said, I too was a vB user, and I've seen the hacks produced.. and I will maintain that 80% are not worthy of being sold. That's not only because of skill, but if you look at some of these hacks, you know people can do better... as freddie said, it's an issue of pride. People already paid more than they should for vB itself, the whole point of a hacks "community" is to provide others with resources. 'Hackers' shouldn't be creating hacks with the intent to profit, at least not publicly. No, people shouldn't "waste their time" for free, but if one thinks of it like that, they really shouldn't be here anyways.

At any rate, that's my .02, and I apologize this turned into something it shouldn't have.

Regards.

Edit: As for the "ripping" - there is no stolen code, and I believe you're referring to the tutorial? If that's the case, I was not aware it was from vB, and it has been removed. I suggest such issues be taken up with Anthony.