Simplify footer notice in prosilver

[KnocksX]

One thing that has always ticked me off about commercial forum packages is the extensive copyright warnings they force on users in the footer. The current vBulletin notice reads "Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.0 Copyright © 2012 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved." The Xenforo one reads "Forum software by XenForo™ ©2010-2012 XenForo Ltd." I think we would all agree this is excessive. If you look at great open-source brands like WordPress, their footer messages are quite simple and frankly a lot more effective. The purpose of the notice is to spread the word about the brand, not annoy users with legalese (which is useless, by the way). It might make sense for Internet Brands, the owner of vBulletin, who is notorious for policing unlicensed copies of their forum, forcing the hosts to take sites down etc, but it's not something we do. We therefore don't need the paranoia in the footer like the other forums have.

Even big companies who used to put ridiculously long messages have gotten rid of them. Microsoft's footer used to say "© 1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved." Now it just says "© 2012 Microsoft". NBC, a company with billions of dollars worth of IP just has "©NBCUniversal Media, LLC," and ABC doesn't have anything at all.

I think phpBB should do away with the copyright notice and retain just "Powered by phpBB". It serves the purpose and sends all the right messages in three simple words. Please chime in.

August 10 edit: Changed topic title to reflect Pony99CA's comments from another RFC. The proposal is to simplify the footer notice by eliminating the copyright notice

[DavidIQ]

So you want to do away with 4 words? The current copyright has already been simplified from when 3.0 first came out and is much shorter.

[KnocksX]

Yes, from a branding perspective, 4 words stretch a long way, especially when they serve no purpose other than follow an old tradition.

[DavidIQ]

Did you consider that maybe it's not just "tradition" and that it might be a way to protect the brand name and/or copyright of the originating software?

[KnocksX]

It's a tradition.

As for protecting the brand, filing UDRPs against the scammers that own phpbb.net and phpbb.org would go a much longer way than having extra words in the footer.

[callumacrae]

I think "Powered by phpBB" is clearer than what we have now, +1

[Pony99CA]

The credit notice is easy to change (or remove) if you don't like it, so -1 here. Now that support is available to those who remove the copyright, this is far less important then before.

That said, if somebody decides to do it, I would suggest making the credit text an ACP field on my suggested Legal Settings page.

UPDATE: I just wrote a Legal Settings Page RFC.

Steve

[keith10456]

I don't think the current phpBB notice is extensively long. No need to change it in my opinion.

[tbackoff]

I agree. I think "Powered by phpBB" is simple enough, gets the message out, and hey - it still likes back to our site.

This could probably be done for the 3.0.x line (I believe it was changed in 3.0.8, so why not once more?).

[MichaelC]

Did you consider that maybe it's not just "tradition" and that it might be a way to protect the brand name and/or copyright of the originating software?

+1