Can't wait!

[SHS`]

The money goes on everything except the most important part of the project... the devs. Dang, they are really doing it for the community.

I would rate the server which allows the community to exist at all as pretty important.

[paulblackgsx]

I could care less if they make 1000s of dollars. Good for them. I'm guessing they don't, and that's a shame. But at the end of the day, I don't have to click on anything to download the software... so that makes it FREE. If I can get it for free, they can do whatever they want.

[mastermike707]

I think this is an interesting topic, I want to do the math and see how much they are really getting. Please Note: I am not claiming that my math has the right numbers and/or where the money is going. I am sure that phpBB has a lot of bills to pay.

Ok, lets say they get 10 million page views a day, and that 0.01% of ads are clicked on.

10,000,000 X 0.0001 = 1,000
$this->bbcode_size('9', '(Decimal place moved back 2 zeros because when you multiply, you must convert it to a decimal.)')
Now lets say they get 1 cent for every click.
1000 X $0.01 = $10

So they are probably making around $10 a day. Not $50+.

[dvduval]

The click thru rate may not be all that high, but I'd be willing to bet they make at least $500/day on Google Adsense, but $1000 seems more realistic. One thing that was not mentioned was the Text Link Ads on many pages. For a PR 9 site, one text link can easily go for $2000/month...and I'm counting 15 links (just on the homepage). We might also mention that the developers are probably getting no shortage of side jobs, because of their esteemed position.

So Google Adsense + Text Link Ads = $50,000+/month

Surely, this is not far from the amount raised by the other leading provider of (paid) forum software, yet the development schedule is quite different, and the attitude about the schedule is quite different as well, even thought the profit models are relatively similar.

Clearly, better leadership and organization is needed.

[cyberCrank]

If they are making this much money then phpBB should be free

[w3neo]

Are you people drunk or stupid... how many of you have google ads? I have served millions of them and have been paid a couple hundred dollars. This doesnt even cover bandwidth, scale it up and all you do is lose more money. The phpBB group is fortunate to have supporters that donate hosting but even still they are most likely not making any money at all from the google ads other than a little perk from time to time which they would so richly deserve.

Personally I wish the devs would quit their day jobs and devote their time to phpBB and SELL it at a reasonable price, $20 for the package and $10 a year for updates and support. This would eliminate the me too because it is free gimmee gimmee gimmee crowd and turn this elagant piece of code into a money machine for those that deserve it.

w3

[dvduval]

Are you people drunk or stupid

Actually I am sitting here having a glass of wine.
Don't be fooled...with the kind of activity phpbb.com gets, they make a ton on adsense. I know because I also profit.

My point is that if there is so much profit (somewhere in the neighborhood of 50K/month), why can't they better manage their releases?

[w3neo]

Ahha... so you are claiming drunk but I suspect the latter. If these three or four people who put this together were making 50k a month they would be making it thier full time job.

Kudos once again to the devs for such a fine coding masterpiece and my apologies to any of them who might read this thread.

w3

[dvduval]

It's unfortunate that criticism is so frowned upon here. That may be the source of much of the problem itself. I don't how much each person makes, but I'm confident 50K is coming out of the phpbb site. You can see here where PR 9 links are selling for $2400 each:
http://reports.linkmgmt.com/buyer/prsearch.pl?pr=9" target="_blank
And I believe there are 15 outbound links on the phpbb site. Keep in mind these are not single links, but sitewide in most cases, which would be much more valuable than $2400 each.

It it makes you feel better, call me drunk AND stupid, as I am willing to accept criticism.

[psoTFX]

I'll give you a hint ... way way way way way way off. Based on current "income" it would take well over two years to make the large sum mentioned in this topic.

Let me reiterate ... the income "made" by phpBB is considered a perk, a thank you to team members (that's after any necessary purchases to maintain the sites ... phpbb.com's server wasn't cheap ). It typically amounts to a sum great enough to enable them to buy a few CD's/games/whatever every few months. Anyone thinking we're "raking it in" are wildly overestimating the situation! And anyone believing we could all "quit our jobs" and live on said income .... LOL ... don't know about you guys but I prefer to eat regularly and have a roof over my head!