MyBB Community Forums

Hi all,

I absolutely love MyBB from all I have learned so far, and am amazed at the quality and attention to detail that I am experiencing while using it, so this is not criticism in any way, rather my anxious quest to try and answer the question to what extent unpleasant surprises might wait for us with 2.0, if any.

I am about to finally decide whether to use MyBB for a forum for around 20.000 people, and am very much leaning towards doing it. The only worry I still have is:

MyBB 2.0 will be a rewrite. From this, I expect more hickups than from a "normal" new version. This probably applies more to plugins than to MyBB itself.

I am asking myself:

How likely is it that when 2.0 is released, I could face bugs and problems so serious that I may be forced to move to a different forum software - and then may have to do that with thousands and thousands of users, which, depending on the severity of the problems, could potentially put my whole community at risk?

Don't get me wrong: I have a lot of trust in the people behind MyBB. But we all have seen other large software solutions going down in flames before, and I have to consider this to be a possibility at least.

So, my two questions are:

1. What is your take on this?

2. What exactly would you suggest to do, and what to avoid, in order to minimise my risk of getting in trouble in case 2.0 should have any more serious problems? (Note that I am in no way suggesting or even expecting that there will be serious problems, I am merely dealing with a de facto possibility here!)

3. Are there any plugins, or types of plugins, that you think I should avoid because they are more likely to "break" when 2.0 is released?

4. If I should want - no, need, want is never going to happen - to change to, say, phpbb when 2.0 is released: How hard is that process going to be, and can I rely on it being feasible without serious problems?

That's it really. I am hoping that this will result in an objective discussion of my questions; I am not intending to start a heated debate about anything, just trying to gauge what the nearish future will hold with MyBB 2.0, to decide whether or not I should use MyBB for a new forum right now.

THANKS!

Matt

As MyBB 2.0 will be a complete rewrite, all plugins will need to be rewritten. We'll be supporting the 1.x series for years to come. Tomm said himself we'll still probably be supporting it as far ahead as 2015.

We won't force anyone to upgrade to 2.0, but we will make the transition from 1.x to 2.x as easy as possible. Any worth-while plugins will most likely be rewritten by either the authors or other members of the community. If plugins are what you're worrying about then if you did switch to phpBB you'd loose the current data for the plugins.

MyBB 2.0 is still in the early development stages, but you can be sure we won't just release it and say "Good luck".

Hi again,

wow, that was a very fast answer, thanks heaps!

I would never have assumed that you would do anything carelessly whatsoever, hope I did not sound like that. I have a lot of trust in the MyBB team. I'm probably a very picky user of software and am looking into possible problems further down the road more than most others do, that's all. I don't expect any problems with 2.0, I'm just checking out what I can do to minimise my exposure to such problems if they should ever arise.

It is great to know that you will be supporting 1.x for a while after 2.0 comes out. That gives users choice, very much appreciated, and I know how much work that means.

One question about this: Do you think using 1.x for, say, a year after 2.0 comes out would mean increased security risks in any way?

I am only going through a worst case scenario with the pure intent to protect my community. If something seriously goes wrong, there comes a point where solely saving my community might be more important than loosing plugin data.

Of course I would never want to switch away from MyBB!

All the best for all the work you do. I have a feeling me and MyBB is going to be a long lasting friendship.

Cheers,

Matt

(2012-02-04, 08:43 AM)Mariku Wrote: [ -> ]One question about this: Do you think using 1.x for, say, a year after 2.0 comes out would mean increased security risks in any way?

We at MyBB take security very seriously. Security releases for 1.x will be deployed for the time that we still support it. I wouldn't say there's an increased chance of security risks, but as long as you keep up to date with the latest releases from the series (E.g. MyBB 1.6.6, 1.6.7, 1.6.8, etc..) you should be fine. For high risk vulnerabilities we've been know to release patches within as little as two hours of us being notified.

Thanks Nathan, great to hear. Really looking forward to working more with MyBB!

Cheers,

Matt