Will phpBB be...

[[MB]nite2kx]

..free after 3.0 is released?

Invision PB said their board would be free, but now they charge. Will phpBB go this way or remain a free product?

[the_dan]

It will be.
Even if it isn't, then the phpBB3 code as it is would be open source, so people could take that (legally), modify it (or not), and give it away for free entirely legally.

Dan

[olger901]

phpBB 3.0.0 will be free as mentioned before in some thread.

[Magnotta]

phpBB will never be a paid service, because of it's open source liscence. That means that should they decide to start charging, anyone can continue releasing it for free from the current code. On top of that, since phpBB would have to stay liscenced as open source, people could as well buy a version of phpBB and re-release it for free as well. I think the only way phpBB could go fully paid is if they started a completely new board, coded completely from scratch and seperate from the current line, and then released under a non open-source liscence.

[yazerty]

I hope phpbb will be free for ever, for happiness of all his users all over the web.
However if it becomes a paying system, a new board will appear to replace it. (but I don't think it will)
But psoFX seems to say that he will never get out of his mind that phpbb will be free for ever.
So...


excuse me for my english...

[GrindBastard]

There is still no direct connection between "free of charge software" and "free software". The first one has to do with the price of software, the second one with the philosophy behind the software and the permissions granted to its users.

-> http://www.fsf.org/" target="_blank

As phpBB has been released under the GPL so far, any volunteer could pick up the code published under the GPL so far and use it for a new board project, just in case phpBB should ever become payware - which is, however, nothing anyone of us hopes for I guess.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It would be rather dumb to charge for it, because everyone would have CVS copies of it anyways. They could fix the bugs in the CVS themselves (or a seperate distribution that is fixed could be made) and poof, nobody pays for it.

[psoTFX]

Many misconceptions again

Let me start by saying this ... phpBB will never become "commercial", i.e. having paying customers while James (theFinn) and myself remain in control of this project. And recent changes in group structure were, in part, done to ensure this remains the case. There are only two people in phpBB with the authority to alter the licence, alter the basic direction of the project or the source, etc. ... that's James and myself.

With that said ... there are misconceptions about the GPL in this topic I think (stated or not). The copyright holder has the right to change the licence whenever they wish. Of course whatever has been released under the GPL to that point could be forked. However, anything post-licence-change, even "new" sections of source to existing GPL'd code could not be taken ... copyright ultimately supercedes the licence (obviously).

[BioALIEN]

psoTFX I've PMd you a few months ago about this exact question. Thanks for taking the time to answer it here after so long

[Dranor]

With GPL there's a model of business where they don't charge for the product itself but you pay for additional services like installing it, maintenance, integration with third party applications (usually propietary) and still the product is free of charge.. you can do it on your own btw, but sometimes there's no time or knowledge for that

PS: Sorry for my bad english