phpBB3 development

[evilmonkey]

There are lots of people posting thanks and Good Luck posts to Paul, and let me join them. I want to thank Paul for all the sweat and blood he put into phpbb 2 and Olympus, it is very much appreciated by most people in the community. Unfortunatly, the the ones that don't appreciate the hard work are the most vocal, so I understand your...less than polite comments on the forum and your blog.

My question to the rest of the team is what happens now? Will you be taking more developers, or will you make-do with the manpower you've got? I'm sure (from reading the forums) that many people are ready and willing (and I'm sure some of those people even have the skills) to help with phpBB. What I'm saying is, this is a great project. It is the most popular BB solution on the internet, and it's free. Right now, it's current, but without active development, it will fade into oblivion. I never really understood why phpBB development was so closed off in the first place. The driving force behind open source is that the community can contribute, and by not following this, this project became stalled.

I only want to know one more thing (and if I can't get an answer, than so be it): why did Paul quit?

This was written without meaning offense to anyone, it was meant to be purely inqusitive.

[wlx]

I am puzzled about the same question(s), and thank Paul for the contribution to the phpBB project.

[wGEric]

For those that want to contribute, we are having some coding projects that you can join.

As to exactly why Paul left, that is up to him to say if he wants to. I will say that posts like this are a real drag. We know there are problems and we hate these problems just as much as the community does. We don't need everyone and their dogs telling us we are doing it wrong.

[xkevinx]

Thank's Paul for everything. I think the reason why phpbb is as great as it is right now because it was a closed dev team. They knew exactly how to make things right . I just hope he will stop by once in a while. And I'm sure he will stay in contact Acyd for awhile at least.

I may be only 16 but it would be really hard for me to give something up like this. Even if I had to deal with everything.

Everything that has happened at deviantart an now this.. Seems to be allot of management problems latley everywhere.

Fare well. I' will with the project 200%

[gweilo8888]

I only want to know one more thing (and if I can't get an answer, than so be it): why did Paul quit?

He's already said. Look at his most recent post on these forums:

"I'm bored silly now with the community mentality ... I gave months, heck 2+ years of my life to keep this project going ... for an ungrateful bunch of whining users and lack of leadership from the top"

All focus seems to have been shifted from working on Olympus to auditing the current release of phpBB for security flaws. My guess is that this was prompted by the raft of security flaws that have been found and exploited, which are causing web hosts to treat phpBB differently.

For example, a host I have been using for a very long time just did something I've never seen them do before - they contacted all members by email, advising them that if they used phpBB, they had two weeks to get their installations patched to the current version, upon which time the host would be deleting any installations that hadn't been patched. I've heard of other hosts banning phpBB altogether. There's little point working on Olympus if, by the time it is released, phpBB has such a bad reputation that many hosts won't even allow Olympus to be installed.

[evilmonkey]

That's a big disappointment, especialy since it can happen to any bb solution. Be that as it may, I hope phpBB doesn't get abandoned altogether.

[mbant]

I will say that posts like this are a real drag.

I can understand posts like this aren't really what the doctor ordered. Still, I believe the sheer size of the phpBB community burdens you (i.e. the whole team) with at least some responsibility towards it, even if there are so many 'whining users' (which certainly is true).

It's not only the release of olympus (frankly, I really can't understand all this fuss about olympus not being released), but phpBB does not only need a huge community to live on but also a team behind it, support etc. And even if I don't care when olympus gets released, active development is important, too - not only to prevent bit rot, but also to keep phpBB at the current web technology standards.

I think evilmonkey's question is absolutely justified: What happens now? Are there enough people left to keep phpBB going?

[Acyd Burn]

If you look at our about page at http://www.phpbb.com" target="_blank you will see that the teams are well sized, the only thing lacking currently is the amount of people within the development team. But too much people within this team is not good either (i would say a team of 4-6 people is ok).

[CoreIssue]

Too many couch quarterbacks. Let the people who know what is going on and how to do it do it.

Yeeesh! I run into this in the areas where I am a specialist. And get so blasted irritated when people who don't have a clue or have half a clue want to tell me how it can be done better or faster.

Well, if it could then why isn't it? Why do they gripe and harp but wait for me to do it?

Leave these guys alone! Don't take their joy and sense of purpose from them!

[evilmonkey]

If you look at our about page at http://www.phpbb.com" target="_blank you will see that the teams are well sized, the only thing lacking currently is the amount of people within the development team. But too much people within this team is not good either (i would say a team of 4-6 people is ok).

It's good to hear the two cents of the project leader. Again, I'm not here to whine about the release of Olympus, phpBB 2.0.x has been good to me for the last four years, and continues to work like a charm.

Meik, what you said is exactly what I said. The core development team is lacking people. I'm not suggestion to take 100 developers, or open it up to anyone and everyone, but one to three more dedicated people is just what the doctor ordered. Paul said that some people only worked on phpBB because it helped thier careers, then left. I don't see a problem with that, the result stays the same: people make thier contribution, great software sees the light of day, if the developer is lucky, he gets a pay increase, and everyone walks away happy. The point I'm making is the phpBB team can use a few more developers, so if a person has the skill and the will to work with the project, why not let them?

Paul also mentioned a "lack of leadership from the top". Whatever happenned to James? I kind of assumed the lead developer was the "top".