It's time for a decision...

[TomXP411]

Greetings Commandos.

A mysterious figure appears in front of you.

“The time has come,” he says. “A momentous decision is at hand.”

Our hosting and software licensing bill is coming due on June 1, and we have to decide which path to take. Do we renew Invision or switch to an open source forum software?  This forum is currently running on the Invision Community software. While this software is pretty great, it’s also commercially licensed, and that license does not transfer. So the new board has to purchase a new license in the community's name. This means the next year's operating costs will be $750-800. Or we can switch to open source software, such as phpBB. We will still have a hosting bill to pay, but that's expected to be less than $200. (Since we will purchase it in the community's name, we will not have to pay for a new license again, even if the board members change.)

So we have to make a choice: If we keep the current software, there's less work but more cost. If we switch, there's a lot more work: we have to convert the forum database, create a new phpBB theme (this board had a lot of customization), and make some major updates to the "Try me" tool.

The deadline is June 1, and so we need to start work on March 1 if we intend to perform a database conversion and perform the UI work. (We also would love some help from someone with pro-level HTML,CSS, JS, and PHP skills.)

Again, our choices are: 

• 
  Acquire a new Invision license, costing $800 to operate for the next year and about $300 per year after that.
  


• 
  Switch to phpBB and lower our costs: around $200 a year, for web hosting, domain name registration, and some other administrative costs. 
  

The second question is a way to gauge financial support so we can decide whether we even can proceed. 

Finally: the Commander X16 community has been a fantastic place to grow and learn. The board wants to thank you all for the time and energy you've put in to making this a great community, and we hope this continues to be a great place for the future of the Commander  X16 computer and its fans. 

 

[stupid-genius]

What is the value in paying for forum software when free, open-source software is readily available?  The $800 price tag seems awfully steep; I can't imagine the quality of the software being better by any amount, let alone by $800's worth.  (though, admittedly I have only ever admin'd a Discourse instance and neither of the options being considered)

[JimmyDansbo]

On 2/25/2022 at 8:40 PM, stupid-genius said:

What is the value in paying for forum software

The forum is already running just fine on the software. In order to switch to free, open-source software, a lot of work is needed to migrate.

 

[Edmond D]

On 2/24/2022 at 2:40 PM, TomXP411 said:

the Commander X16 community has been a fantastic place to grow and learn.

I believe that forum has allowed the community to be successful. The Invision platform is perhaps the best forum software I've used. 

On 2/25/2022 at 11:43 AM, JimmyDansbo said:

The forum is already running just fine on the software. In order to switch to free, open-source software, a lot of work is needed to migrate.

Switching to a "free" platform that requires developer time to customize and also has a maintenance aspect is not really free. Consider your own wages and work that out to an hourly rate. At $800, how many hours would that buy? Would this be enough time to even start with a migration and customization? What's the estimates on the programmer hours to do the switch?  While you may have the skill to do a migration, would you rather spend the time on it or working on something that runs on the X16?

When I joined the community I started to read every post. I'll admit that some material I skimmed over, as it didn't interest me at the time (and I can (currently) go back.) After finishing all the posts here, I considered diving Ito the previous forum, but the interface was a barrier. ( I can't even find it now!) I'm not sure of the quality or usefulness of those old posts since I haven't read them at any length. That jump presented a knowledge break, another one might do the same.

Finally, there is a huge amount of knowledge in the forum. Most of it will be useful in the future, some of it became obsolete as design and decisions were made. I'd hate to loose it. Ideally the forum would be mined for relevant information which would be covered into documentation. I see great value in this task. Perhaps we should start doing this now? 

 

[StephenHorn]

On 2/25/2022 at 3:38 PM, Edmond D said:

I believe that forum has allowed the community to be successful. The Invision platform is perhaps the best forum software I've used. 



Switching to a "free" platform that requires developer time to customize and also has a maintenance aspect is not really free. Consider your own wages and work that out to an hourly rate. At $800, how many hours would that buy? Would this be enough time to even start with a migration and customization? What's the estimates on the programmer hours to do the switch?  While you may have the skill to do a migration, would you rather spend the time on it or working on something that runs on the X16?



When I joined the community I started to read every post. I'll admit that some material I skimmed over, as it didn't interest me at the time (and I can (currently) go back.) After finishing all the posts here, I considered diving Ito the previous forum, but the interface was a barrier. ( I can't even find it now!) I'm not sure of the quality or usefulness of those old posts since I haven't read them at any length. That jump presented a knowledge break, another one might do the same.



Finally, there is a huge amount of knowledge in the forum. Most of it will be useful in the future, some of it became obsolete as design and decisions were made. I'd hate to loose it. Ideally the forum would be mined for relevant information which would be covered into documentation. I see great value in this task. Perhaps we should start doing this now? 



 

While there are some things I expect would be lost in the transition, I somewhat expect that the forum posts would, in their majority, be preserved.

Things I would expect to be more difficult to translate to phpBB would be the Downloads section, its comments, and its associated bits of metadata. I expect that's also where the bulk of the effort will end up going in order to preserve the site's functionality, but honestly I'm not sure if it'll be possible to preserve the downloads, or how the site will manage downloaded content in the future (to say nothing about "try it now").

And things I expect would not translate to phpBB at all are the individual user "awards" and "achievements", and the "leaderboards". Maybe I'm wrong, maybe these are available in some form via phpBB extensions.

[TomXP411]

On 2/25/2022 at 1:38 PM, Edmond D said:

Finally, there is a huge amount of knowledge in the forum. Most of it will be useful in the future, some of it became obsolete as design and decisions were made. I'd hate to loose it. Ideally the forum would be mined for relevant information which would be covered into documentation. I see great value in this task. Perhaps we should start doing this now? 

The plan is to do a full data conversion and move all the users and content to phpBB. 

On 2/25/2022 at 1:38 PM, Edmond D said:

When I joined the community I started to read every post. I'll admit that some material I skimmed over, as it didn't interest me at the time (and I can (currently) go back.) After finishing all the posts here, I considered diving Ito the previous forum, but the interface was a barrier. ( I can't even find it now!) I'm not sure of the quality or usefulness of those old posts since I haven't read them at any length. That jump presented a knowledge break, another one might do the same.

The old forum (Murray2) is available through the "Wayback machine" here. It was taken down as a complete surprise, and even the moderators had no warning. I assume it had something to do with licensing or web hosting fees. Murray2 was also running Invision, so the interface was basically the same. 

Personally, I prefer phpBB for several reasons, not the least of which is that it's not controlled by a commercial entity that can yank users around. Invision has already changed their licensing terms and raised their prices, and I prefer not to be held captive to a commercial entity. Mostly, I'm annoyed that we can't take over the license. When someone takes over hosting from me, do they then have to spend another $750 to re-license the software? For something that will be used by a community, non-transferable licenses are unacceptable. 

On 2/25/2022 at 1:38 PM, Edmond D said:

At $800, how many hours would that buy? Would this be enough time to even start with a migration and customization? What's the estimates on the programmer hours to do the switch?  While you may have the skill to do a migration, would you rather spend the time on it or working on something that runs on the X16?

Honestly, $800 wouldn't even scratch the surface at my company. I think my time is billed out at more than $200 an hour, and my past data conversion projects have usually been 2 month long projects, working full time. If we were to pay commercial rates, that would mean something like $40,000 - $60,000 for the conversion alone. So it's absolutely not worth it as far as time goes. I do this because I enjoy it and I'm good at it. 

 

[Fenner Machine]

Year 1: $800 vs $200: saving $600

Year 2: $300 vs 200$: saving $100

Year 3: $300 vs $200: saving $100

…….

The first year sees a seemingly large saving of $600.

After that, $100 per year?

The forum works very nicely.

It is possibly the best forum I have participated on.

Hi-Fi, PC, game consoles, musical instruments … this is the nicest one so far.

 

Then TomXP411 says he prefers the alternative?

And he can do it!!! (Or some of it?)

 

Not sure how to vote now…

[BruceMcF]

I can't vote, since I don't have a strong view either way on Invision vs phpBBS, and "undecided" is not given as an option, but I can contribute $10/year.

[TomXP411]

On 2/25/2022 at 3:29 PM, BruceMcF said:

I can't vote, since I don't have a strong view either way on Invision vs phpBBS, and "undecided" is not given as an option, but I can contribute $10/year.

Updated. 

[BruceMcF]

On 2/25/2022 at 6:43 PM, TomXP411 said:

Updated. 

Voted! ?