Is Best BBS for sale yet?

[Str0ud]

I was researching BBS products that were more SE friendly than the one I currently own (WebBoard) when low and behold I find that Brett was considering selling this fine specimen at one time. Is that still in the works? I'd love some info on this subject before I go spending The Man's money or doing a lot of tweaking to WB.

[sun818]

I don't think it is for sale unless you got a big budget. I think you'll do better taking an existing forum package and having it customized to be search engine and admin friendly. I hear there is a lot of behind-the-scenes customizations that make this a forum moderator's dream. :)

[Jenstar]

This was something Brett said in one of his speeches at the conference, that there are finally plans for it to be released. Not sure when though.

[Str0ud]

Thanks,
I must have still been stumbling bleary eyed to the Hilton looking like an extra in a Romero film when Brett was going over that one ;)

[rogerd]

As far as I know, there's no release date. Brett announced (during the final keynote session a the Las Vegas conference) that he was looking for Perl programmers. Presumably, as rock-solid as BestBBS is for WebmasterWorld, there would be some prep work needed to make it flexible enough for widespread commercial use. Stuff like installation scripts & documentation, troubleshooting options, etc. aren't needed for a single installation but are commercial necessities. We all keep hoping for a post to appear: "Beta Testers Needed for BestBBS". :) If you need to convert your forum soon, though, you may want to check some of the packages on the market now. With some tweaking, they can be made fairly SE-friendly.

[Str0ud]

rogerd,
I already own WebBoard but haven't looked into what it is going to take to tweak it. I've talked to a lot of folks that use and love PHPBB so I'm looking at that one as well. From your experience, should I ditch WebBoard before I spend too much time on it?

[grelmar]

My two bits:

This is among the nicest BBS software out there, and the only one I've seen that is significantly better enough for it to be worth paying for as opposed to the open source packages out there.

In fact, I hope that BestBBS stays a closed source package for its release, to prevent the kind of endless development cycle that has plagued other perl BBSes, like YaBB, whose Service Pack 2, scheduled for release for over a year, is starting to look like so much wishful thinking and vaporware.

Side note: A killer app for BestBBS would be a feature to import the databases from other BBS packages, like YaBB, phpBB, VBulletin, etc. If you were able to do that "out of the box" with BestBBS, it would give a significant edge over much of the competition.

IMHO

[dvduval]

With the continued delay of release, I'm a little leary that updates and patches will also be slow. And you definitely count on needing patches once the source becomes known to more people. I'll have a "wait and see" attitude when it comes out.

[AhmedF]

This board is excellent except for one oh so sticky point: search.

Its like you go from 2004 all the way back to 1997.

[skunker]

Personally, i hate this forum software. It's too much like reading a book with no pictures...a bible. If you think your audience will like that, then this would be a good forum software to have. Then again, I don't know about the levels of custimization you can do...

And that search feature....ouch.

Other than that, this is one instince where the interior outweighs the exterior.

[brakthepoet]

I wouldn't count what we see here as what BestBBS will look like when it's released commercially. The current look and function has more to do with what Brett wants for Webmasterworld than it does with the full capabilities of BestBBS.

Brett from August 2002 [webmasterworld.com], msg # 2:

Information is what you came here for, it's what you stay for. Features and gimmicks? I've got dozens upon dozens of features built into the software that have not been (and won't be) turned on. Signatures, karma system, Upload Files, html posts, Images in posts, Polls, Ignore/twit lists, ThreadRank (shh-top secret) moding system, calendar system, who's online, chat, threaded/unthreaded, plugins, ad system in 3 flavors - etc etc...on and on.

I put them in there for a potential commercial system and some folks want that stuff on their forum. I don't want them here because it's just noise - it's just noise. Your messages are what we are here for, and that's what we focus on.

edited to change date

[skunker]

Point taken. Thanks for the clarification!