Thanks psoTFX

[Zenigata]

Very thanks for the great work in phpbb during these years. We'll miss you.

[Dark_Génova]

Thanks for your work psoTFX, you was one of the greatest contributor, perhaps you ll be back in futur i hope
++

[THE-WITCH-KING]

Good luck for the rest of your life we won't forget your big contribution to phpBB see ya'

[qwerty-1]

I join. It is very a pity. I hope it it will not be reflected in development phpbb.

Finally I took the decision I should’ve taken two or three months ago … I quit phpBB. I’m sure some of you, the idiot brigade will say “Good riddens”. Fine, no problem, you probably have the mentality of a deranged gnat (appologies to the gnat) so your opinion counts for … erm … less than nothing.

No one will ever really know just how much time I contributed to phpBB. For several months it was just me and to a slightly lesser extent John Abela handling the project. Everyone else quietly disappeared, either phpBB had helped their careers and they were off (hum ho), myself and others had written the board they needed and their contributions thusly ended (very annoying) or they’d simply done their bit and moved on (fair enough to that). There were days I’d be on the PC from nine in the morning till the early hours; coding, fixing bugs, helping with support, handling questions, etc. So it’s quietly amusing to see people call my coding skills less than capable … of course they post such comments using software which is still (and probably will be till the next major perhaps minor release) mostly my doing

phpBB I believe came along at just the right time, well, version 2.0 anyway … the alternatives at that stage were vBulletin, an excellent board but at a relatively “high” price, UBB same as vB except for the excellent part and ikonboard, again an excellent board but one which was being banned at an increasing rate due to its performance issues (mainly that it was written in Perl of course). phpBB offered a good all round solution … for free … gratis … nowt … nada. What’s more support was free, extras were free, localisation … yep, free. An entirely free (as in beer …) project. I honestly feel that had phpBB not existed the explosion of community fora would have been considerably lessened.

It had its fair share of problems, yep including security issues … but it’s perfectly correct to say it’s a victim of its success. We’re starting to see the same thing happen with Firefox now … much was said about its inherently superior security model compared to IE. Bounties were put up challenging people to find issues. As its popularity has increased you don’t need bounties … people are more than “willing” to find and exploit issues on a regular basis. You see there are board and other software authors out there that just don’t “get it”. They appear to see themselves as infaliable and play up the “safety” of their boards. Of course they in the meantime gloss over the various releases fixing “potential” problems … they have that luxury. When you’re being used by perhaps 1000 websites there is little to no glory in discovering exploits. However, when you’re powering 100,000 websites it’s a whole different shooting match

I must admit though the most amusing though equally annoying security related debacle involved PHP itself. Someone linked to that team had an interview published where they called projects such as phpBB amateur in terms of the implementations which led to issues. That whole interview was prompted, I believe, by phpBB placing an announcement concerning a serious (very serious) issue that arose with PHP itself. I posted that announcement in the hope of spreading the information far and wide … it achieved that aim. I found it actually somewhat pathetic on this persons part to say such things during that interview. He too failed to grasp the idea we’re all faliable. And guess what, a couple of months later we find a serious issue with a PEAR library. What’s more, a month after that’s fixed the same issue resurfaces! So much for this being a “phpBB unique” problem

Anyway, my time with phpBB is over …

Directs at reflections.

[SamG]

Another "Me too."

Paul, this was long in coming and yet still sad to see. Your contribution to the Web through phpBB is not lost on those of us who manage to see such things in human terms. Thanks for your untold hours and efforts. Thanks for sticking with and maintaining the project as others moved on.

Do keep your blog up, so we can follow along.

Best to you, always,

Sam

[Lastof]

Paul, I'm sad to see that the inconsiderate people have sapped all the enjoyment from this for you to the extent that you can no longer stand it. Good luck, and, I hope that after a break you can get back at those few that will be happy at your departure by returning. Most of us will miss you, and those who won't, don't deserve to anyway.

[th23]

Wow... at this stage a very fast development in the project...

...sad to notice, that's it's not in the progress of the coding...

...anyway Thanks Paul for your great work on this project and the best for your future!

[the_dan]

Indeed, thankyou Paul for your excellent work on the project up till now - Your contributions and personality will be missed.

[tiger2kn5]

That leave what. One Developer now... ohhh my dreams are shattered

[ScionCrow]

That leave what. One Developer now... ohhh my dreams are shattered

Check again: memberlist.php?mode=group&g=6

Now only 3 Developers..