Question re online bulletin board software
I work for an organization that uses older software in order to let members log in and leave posts, respond to each others questions, upload files, etc. It's government- oriented, and password-secured.
The software is anicent -- it's an O'Reilley product that is I belive pre-2000. I suggested that some funding be used to update it, and I was told that it would cost 7000 dollars for a license for new software to be used on our own servers.
WIth all the packages out there that use PHP to allow message boards to be installed, and which are free, this price quote strikes me as outlandish.
Am I missing something here? Is ther bulletin board software that has that kind of a license fee attached? if so, how does it improve on free pacakges?
Any insight would be apprecated. Thanks.
wb
Greg K posted this at 03:45 — 13th July 2006.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
What is the name of the software you are running currently?
-Greg
grubbytaupe posted this at 06:06 — 13th July 2006.
They have: 2 posts
Joined: Jul 2006
WebBoard. Formerly owned by O'Reilley, but since sold. I see now that a single year license for the current vers. can still run into thousands of $$... but still, 7k seems high for our purposes. And what is the advantage over the free packages I see I can get by hosting with bluehost.com? I.e. PHPbb2 or smf?
thanks.
wb
Megan posted this at 12:25 — 13th July 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
$7,000???? That makes me laugh out loud. I believe the vBulletin lisence is something like $160 or $85/year. And that's probably the most expensive one on the market. Even if they were including server costs it wouldn't be near $7,000.
You could also look into phpBB, which is free, and Invision which has a free and a pro version. There are others but those are the most common (which means that it's easier to get support, more skins and plugins are available, and they'll probably be around for a lot longer).
Megan
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blue27 posted this at 01:39 — 15th July 2006.
They have: 20 posts
Joined: Apr 2003
Vbulletin is nowhere near the most expensive on the market but they are widely considered to be the best.
If you want to go free stay away from phpbb. Far too many security flaws. SMF, simple machines forums is a far superior product. Just as good as VB imhp.
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