PHPBB4 died?

[Danielx64]

And what happen to 2.1?

[EXreaction]

There never was a 2.1, they used to use a different version scheme (2.0, 2.2, 2.4, etc)

[DarkBeing]

Correct me if I am wrong. At that time phpbb followed a different version numbering. 2.1 was the development branch of what was supposed to be 2.2 but was released after 5 years as version 3.0.

[DarkBeing]

It's not the same situation as 2.2.

When 2.0 came around, the developers wanted to make a new version 2.2 with feature additions on top of 2.0. In the process, so much code was changed that almost nothing resembled 2.0 anymore and it was decided to make it version 3.0 instead of 2.2 (also, the primary developer for 2.0 left part way through the way to 2.2; Acydburn took over development and helped bring us 3.0).

Now, yes, a lot has been added/changed since 3.0 in 3.1, but it's very similar on many levels (especially the UI) that we're keeping it 3.1 instead of increasing the version number to 4.0.

It still feels the same. 3.0 was released more or less by Acydburn himself after 5 years. Here we are 5 years later and it feels we are getting nowhere. The after the release of version 3.0 discussed (promised) speeding up of the development process seems to have slowed down. Not trying to insult the team with this, just saying how it appears for someone who is watching the progress of phpbb from outside.

[Mess]

It makes no sense to complain about the current state of phpBB if your not contributing.

The only way to speed up development is by contributing and/or somehow attracting more developers. If anything, making these threads will only make developers care less or make them move on. It would do that for me anyway.
Why spend your free time on a project where very few seem to understand or appreciates your efforts...

The development team is moving the right way. Making contributing easier and changing the release cycles to be more frequent.

[EXreaction]

Correct me if I am wrong. At that time phpbb followed a different version numbering. 2.1 was the development branch of what was supposed to be 2.2 but was released after 5 years as version 3.0.

That is correct, 2.1 was an internal number for the development version.

[DarkBeing]

It makes no sense to complain about the current state of phpBB if your not contributing.

The only way to speed up development is by contributing and/or somehow attracting more developers. If anything, making these threads will only make developers care less or make them move on. It would do that for me anyway.
Why spend your free time on a project where very few seem to understand or appreciates your efforts...

The development team is moving the right way. Making contributing easier and changing the release cycles to be more frequent.

You seem to have a very funny understanding of the word "contributing". The last time I checked this software was for everyone and not only coders. In that sense, I consider it also contributing to a project by saying your opinion. Especially if you think that something is not going the right direction. In my opinion, that is also what a project needs to be able to move forward, besides writing code.

We are talking about the next release of phpbb and not version 3.0.X for which regular updates are coming. This is a nice thing, but we were discussing the fact that because of the amount of rewrites and additions the release of the next version seems to be more and more delayed. Phpbb 3.0 was released after 5 years and the next version of phpbb (being it 3.1 or renamed to 4.0) is almost past the 5 years mark too. I know, I know it is free software and everyone uses their free time to contribute.

And no offense, but if you can not take "negative" feedback and transform it to something useful, than your in the wrong field and should move on. I am pretty sure the developers of phpbb can handle any kind of feedback (which is contributing to the project in my opinion) and make something out of it.

Peace,
Sven

[EXreaction]

Both of you are correct, 3.1 is taking significantly longer than it should have, but also, we simply do not have the resources on the development team necessary for significantly faster development. There are currently very few developers on the team and all of us are extremely busy with everything we have going on--school, work, life in general. phpBB is something we enjoy working on in the time we have, but it doesn't pay our bills or help us get good grades. We realize there are issues with the release cycle we've had and we're working on changing that, however we still have our limitations of being a volunteer organization--especially so since we're distributed around the world and can't physically work together on problems.

[Danielx64]

Both of you are correct, 3.1 is taking significantly longer than it should have, but also, we simply do not have the resources on the development team necessary for significantly faster development. There are currently very few developers on the team and all of us are extremely busy with everything we have going on--school, work, life in general. phpBB is something we enjoy working on in the time we have, but it doesn't pay our bills or help us get good grades. We realize there are issues with the release cycle we've had and we're working on changing that, however we still have our limitations of being a volunteer organization--especially so since we're distributed around the world and can't physically work together on problems.

Would having a few more QA people on the team be any help? I wouldn't want to be part of the developers as php is not my best or strongest thing and I felt that I would help out by testing and making sure that bugs are fixed

[EXreaction]

QA is always very helpful. Testing PRs and tickets to ensure the issues are resolved correctly and is a pretty major amount of work sometimes (more thorough testing is always desired, both by more people and in more depth). You do not need to know PHP to test the code, however knowing Git on a basic level is necessary for testing PRs.

I'm going to respond to your other topic with more info: https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... 99&t=44521