vBulletin Suite vs. vBulletin

[Black Tiger]

That won't end the sturm und drang.
Terms are something else as license agreements.
In Dutch we say Algemene Voorwaarden and Licentie. They are quite different things.
Terms are the terms on which support and thins are delivered. A License agreement determs what the license contains and that is a contract which can't be changed ad any time like terms can.

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by TWood

Thanks for that, and the article in your link. I've been wondering about those so-called 'enterprise' level products and whether I should be considering them for an upcoming project. You actually got a price for Jive, which is a feat since their site is mostly an endless loop of marketing superlatives. Now I see why.

I bought licenses for both vBulletin and IPB so I could test them out. It turns out that vBulletin has a critical feature that I need, so that's the route we'll take. Happy it can take on the task.

In my license agreement there's a line that says:



That really should end all this sturm und drang.

There's a lot of discussion on why people aren't taking that line seriously. Something to do with laws in certain regions, there's a lot more information on the vBulletin.com licensed customer forum.

As for any experience with Jive or Lithium... not positive. For Jive, it's got a reputation (well deservedly) of being way behind the curve in terms of features and forum design. For Lithium... it's got stuff like security issues and what not, considering I've seen forums using it have to block words like '.cgi' and '.pl' because the HTML allowed format was causing problems. And how easy it was to screw up the page with some sneaky HTML posting...

Originally Posted by Black Tiger

@Cheat-Master30: I think you have to go and have a look again.
UBB threads has a bit different pricing.
Standard license 199 dollar
Silver (5 year updates) 499
Lifetime 725 lifetime updates for free!

But this does only proves that UBB is expensive, as it always has been.

Mybb - Free
Phpfusion - Free
PhpBB (with good support) - Free
And if we go and have a look at commercial forums you smartly let out the new owners of Jelsoft, being IB.
And an IB forum license costs..... correct... 149 dollar!

So vBulletin is not the most expensive, but it certainly is also not cheap software.
And Wolfstream never said vBulletin was expensive, he said it was not cheap and he is correct.

The point I was making though is that it's cheaper compared to a lot of competitors, and more expensive compared to others. Your mileage may vary on how 'cheap' vBulletin is considered for you, but it's not exactly some highly priced product, and Invision aren't their only competitors.

But you must agree that they should know better then do a major change (building a suite now) without proper communication way in advance, about what it's going to be and how people who bought the addons already, get compensated. That's a lack of communications which is now (together with the sudden price rais last year without proper communication in advance) damaging their name at this point.
Count that to the fact that people get fired or major contributors like Mike and Kier leaving, you will have users that get afraid that Jelsoft is sliding down hill.

And that's the problem, and the bigger problem is dat Jelsoft does not give any reaction, making people think their thoughts and maybe rumours are true. People get worried.

Jelsoft has never really been a greatly 'here's our roadmap for the next [time period]' company. It's not like Internet Brands is making the communication worse, more likely slowly improving a communication problem that's been going for years. I never heard anyone was fired either, everyone who's gave a reason gave it as a voluntary leaving, or in the case of Floris, part voluntary and part health problems related.

[edytwinky]

Will the current version of blogs work with vb 4.0?

[R1lover]

no ...........................

[Black Tiger]

The point I was making though is that it's cheaper compared to a lot of competitors

I don't think you can talk about competitors in this case, because their prices and probably also their company goals are in a complete other league then vBulletin.
Probably most of us did not even hear of those other company's. Obviously with idiot prices as a couple of thousand dollars. They get maybe only big company users with that, if any.
You can't compare that with vBulletin, which is more in the league of UBB threads, IB and the free ones.

Jelsoft has never really been a greatly 'here's our roadmap for the next [time period]' company.

Obviously because there was no need, they obeyed their license agreements and nothing much (policy and pricing related) changed until IB stepped in. But they did communicate in time about things that did matter. Or in any case react to rumours, to take worries away buy customers which they don't do now.

And it might al be voluntary leaving (sorry to hear about Floris health), but they don't leave al voluntary for nothing all of a sudden and all together.
Where's smoke there's fire somewhere is a well known Dutch saying. They must dislike a lot of things also but are probably bound to "don't communicate about the company" contracts.

I'm a fan of vBulletin, but now I'm worried at least. And already stated arguments about what was going on the last years, the pricing and the leaving of key members, closing the announcement discussion forum (making customers mouthdead) and the lack of communication doens't do any good.

We again have to hope that things will come out ok and this will be the last of the big changes. Instead of there is decent communication, because you know as good as I do that they exactly know what will be the case, what wil happen, what versions and which costs.

[hotwheels]

Well i just left a post or two at vbulletin.com and i will post one here too. This is a bunch of crap. Vbulletin 4.0 can be purchased seperately. But for those that purchased the vbblog and didn't want the vbulltin project toos crap, you will now be forced to purchase a suite which will consist of vbblog, vbproject tools, and vbCMS. If you want to continue to use your blog with vbulletin, you are going to have to stay with the vbulletin 3.8 and the last vbblog update 2.02.

Although there isn't anything any of us can do about it, it still pisses me off that vbulletin.com's project tools was a failure, the blogs almost a failure, and the cms will really be a failure since most people use vbadvanced or phpportal cms software, and now if i want to continue using the updated versions of vbblog, i have to purchase the suite that is full of garbage. Some that have new sites may benefit from this, but my site has been up for a few years now and i personally can't afford to pay for vbulletin.com's problems over software nobody wants.

Heck, i just paid a 30% rate increase for my vbulletin yearly renewel, which was fine. But i am going to loose my blog system now, do to vbulletins bad business practices.....If people at this point don't believe the suite set up, go to vbulletin.com and read the post on this. They don't even have the decency to make it an announcement. You will just find that your next renewel letter will have a huge increase and the sad announcement that you can no longer use your blog system, unless you pay the blackmail rates...........

And please, don't tell me to calm down......I have every right to be pissed as many of the other user's of vbulletins software. Pure and simple, this is a bunch of crap.

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by Black Tiger

I don't think you can talk about competitors in this case, because their prices and probably also their company goals are in a complete other league then vBulletin.
Probably most of us did not even hear of those other company's. Obviously with idiot prices as a couple of thousand dollars. They get maybe only big company users with that, if any.
You can't compare that with vBulletin, which is more in the league of UBB threads, IB and the free ones.

I don't see how these higher priced pieces of forum software aren't in the same league of vBulletin. Okay, maybe they're in a worst league than vBulletin, but still. Remember though that there's still a lot of examples of forum software in the $200 to $500 range, which is only slightly more than vBulletin and in the same market. phpBB, SMF and MyBB are probably not really that comparable, at least in that one or more of them seems to be very much 'we'll add exactly what we want rather than what users want'. IPB, that's in about the same league as vBulletin though, but to be fair, vB doesn't have to match or beat their prices to be popular.

Obviously because there was no need, they obeyed their license agreements and nothing much (policy and pricing related) changed until IB stepped in. But they did communicate in time about things that did matter. Or in any case react to rumours, to take worries away buy customers which they don't do now.

I don't recall them reacting to rumours much in the past. That might also be because some of the development team left, the support team who's still there can't really comment much on things they themselves probably don't know much about.

And it might al be voluntary leaving (sorry to hear about Floris health), but they don't leave al voluntary for nothing all of a sudden and all together.
Where's smoke there's fire somewhere is a well known Dutch saying. They must dislike a lot of things also but are probably bound to "don't communicate about the company" contracts.

Possibly, but I'd say not to panic, wait for vBulletin 4, try it, and if you don't like it then, it's a good time to switch to whatever competitor, ala IPB 3.

I'm a fan of vBulletin, but now I'm worried at least. And already stated arguments about what was going on the last years, the pricing and the leaving of key members, closing the announcement discussion forum (making customers mouthdead) and the lack of communication doens't do any good.

We again have to hope that things will come out ok and this will be the last of the big changes. Instead of there is decent communication, because you know as good as I do that they exactly know what will be the case, what wil happen, what versions and which costs.

To be fair, the announcement forum closing went with the Licensed Customers forum opening, which is basically the same as announcements discussion but more so. Well at least more so of the complaining, fights and hysteria that would have gone in announcements discussion.

Note: I'll be very honest, I'm hardly ever bothered by this kind of stuff because many, MANY companies I buy products from or generally respect have about the same policy of 'when it's ready' as Jelsoft, and respond about as much to people asking about rumours.

[hotwheels]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

Note: I'll be very honest, I'm hardly ever bothered by this kind of stuff because many, MANY companies I buy products from or generally respect have about the same policy of 'when it's ready' as Jelsoft, and respond about as much to people asking about rumours.

It's not a rumor, http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...=1#post1766328 Read their entire post.

[Black Tiger]

Possibly, but I'd say not to panic, wait for vBulletin 4, try it, and if you don't like it then, it's a good time to switch to whatever competitor, ala IPB 3.

I'm not in panic or whatever, I'm just worried as hell that Jelsoft is going down the drain.
I already said that to me there was no problem if there still would be a vb4 only forum option. I'll just go on with that.
I'm just pissed at the way things are going now, also for people who already have bought the addons. It doesn't matter to me that I don't have them. I'm pissed about how they are handling their clients. And worried about the effects of that.

[Sweeks]

I am not happy with this unless they are able to offer the upgrade to us for a very nice discount. The blog system alone is all we need on our forums and the rest would never be used so a discount for not wanting nor needing them would be good.