phpBB

The open source Web forum application, phpBB, is available in a new version. phpBB 3.0.6 introduces not only bug fixes and stability improvements but also some major new features.

We are very pleased to announce the availability of the phpBB "Fast and Furrious" 3.0.6 package. This release fixes numerous bugs, introduces some major features, as well as improves stability and performance. Furthermore, the internal updater has been updated to detect and solve most conflicts, resulting in a reduction of necessary manual interaction by administrators.

Please note that we urge you to update. phpBB 3.0.6 fixes bugs being quite important for a smooth operation of your forums. With this release our support team will only give support for phpBB 3.0.6, updates to phpBB 3.0.6 and conversions to phpBB 3.0.6. Submissions to our trackers for older versions will not be accepted, please make sure you update/upgrade before you submit a bug report.

Some of the new features that have been implemented in phpBB 3.0.6 include:

• Better spam control using improved captcha options and backported 3.2 captcha plugins:
  • Classic and GD CAPTCHA
  • reCaptcha
  • Q&A CAPTCHA
  • 3D Wave
    

Development of the SMFforum Integration module for Drupal is no longer.  Amy Stephen over at OpenSourceCommunity.org pointed out on her blog that the module's project  leader, "vb", pulled the module due to licensing disagreements with SMF LLC.  Amy references vb's original post at the Drupal forum, but she has a lot more to say.  Amy's an active participant in the Joomla! community, a community which had their own issues with a bridge between Joomla! and SMF.

According to vb's post, an email sent by Michael "Oldiesmann" Eshom, Project Manager, Simple Machines LLC stated that:

The problem isn't with the smfforum.module file or the packages distributed on drupal.org. The problem is with the "smf_api_subs.php" file that you're distributing as part of the smf api package - it contains modified versions of several SMF functions, and you did not ask for permission to use this code or distribute it.

It appears that Simple Machines LLC doesn't have so much of a problem with bridging SMF and Drupal as much as they have issues with their own code being used without proper permission.  The Simple Machines License clearly states that "Any Distribution of a Modified Package or derivative requires express written consent from Simple Machines LLC."  No word on whether Simple Machines LLC would endorse the use of their code if permission is asked.

The Joomla! community just completed migrating their forum from SMF over to phpBB3. Brad Baker posted some of the details on Joomla.org's use of phpBB3 for their forum. In part, some of the move to phpBB stemmed from Joomla.org's discomfort from bridging GPL applications with non-GPL applications. Baker answers the question in his own way.

Once again, another open source project has dropped Concurrent Versions System (CVS) for Subversion (SVN). Both CVS and SVN are open source version control systems used mainly by developers involved in various software projects. This time the project is phpBB, a forum application.

Thanks to a post at OpenSourceCommunity.org, I came across a conversion tool to allow you to import the SMF 1.1 database into a phpBB 3 site. Information about the conversion tool can be found in a forum post at phpbb.com. By the way, the script is still in beta, meaning that it works but you might find some bugs since it is not fully tested.

Steven Peck, associated with the Drupal project, wrote about an article he came across regarding a comparison of the vBulletin forum and Drupal's forum. The article is titled, Goodbye vBulletin, Part 1: Reasons to Switch. The author of the article writes:

The aim of this article is not to poke holes, or say ‘vBulletin sucks’, but to provide constructive criticism of a successful product, proving that vBulletin is not always the best choice. In places the article compares vBulletin to Drupal, this is the platform The Webmaster Forums will be switching to and represents many of the things vBulletin should—in our humble opinion—aspire to.

Mr. Peck's reaction to the article (and my emphasis in bold):

Now this was a interesting. A well written article on why one site is switching over to use Drupal's built in forum rather then continue to use vbulletin.

In other words, Peck and many of us that pay attention to how the forum applications stack up against CMS native forums don't see too many articles like this. It is rare to see someone using a standard forum application such as vBulletin, SMF, or phpBB switch over to Drupal primarily for its forum functionality.

The official release of phpBB3 is almost near with the first release candidate now available. The following is a partial list of features that are new in this version phpBB that did not exist in 2.0.x.

• Attachments - Attachments in posts and Personal Mail, Automatic image thumbnails,Display attachments inline
• Unlimited Subforums - Create unlimited subforums, Display active topics of all subforums
• Custom BBCodes - Create your own BBCodes, Add buttons to posting screen
• Custom Profile Fields - Add new fields on user profiles, Display them at registration, Display them on the profile view

As we mentioned earlier, phpBB.com was down due to drive failures on their RAID system.  Late Sunday evening, phpBB.com not only brought their site back online, but also redesigned their site.  An announcement was posted in phpBB's forum explaining the details.

I noticed on my way to bed that the phpBB.com site was down.  As of early Sunday, March 18th, a notice at phpBB says that they had a RAID failure due to two bad drives (looks like they're using a RAID 5 configuration).  Either way, they don't plan on being up for a few days.

Beta 4 for phpBB 3.0 has been released. This time around users of the forum application will find that it also contains something new, an update path.

With this beta an update path is provided, though being not fully supported. We decided to give away the proposed update package to let it properly test and fix any remaining issues encountered before using this as the primary method of updating. This means that you should test the update and report any bugs or issues you notice, but not depend on a successful update - you should still not use this beta in a live environment and you should always be able to completely remove your installation to perform a fresh install.