Open Sourcing boards.ie

DeVore

Theres tons I want to do with boards but I just dont have the time/talent...

Would people be interested in starting a group who could have access to the code (its all open source already) and help make small alterations (for example, replacing post count with Karma on the left).

Anyone think this could fly?

DeV.

Hobbes

Got my vote and I'm game for it.

Who here has experience on Open source projects? I'm only starting to study on it.

ecksor

I say it's better to start from scratch than try and hack UBB (even if the license allows that).

Evil Phil

I've already replied to this on another thread but I'm very interested, I think it's a great idea. I've been looking for a reason to learn perl properly and I do development on my own time so I could give it 5 or 6 hours a week no probs. If it happens count me in!

DeVore

Well, I'm not sure I want to throw out all our work to date and start again XOR.

All I want for the moment is to put the Karma count where the post count is...

Can anyone enlighten me regarding the legality of using the UBB code for a base to tweak?

Surely if people are releasing things like the Stars hack and the Karma hack, there must be some flexibility??

DeV.

Enygma

Sounds Cool! You could definetely count me in. Probably wouldn't have much time to devote to it but I'm fairly sure I'd be able to help out here and there.

Aren't there issues with the license tho?

Why not set up a CVS on SourceForge?

As for starting from scratch, a board like this is a pretty big project. Maybe we could have two projects, one for modifying the current setup and another for a complete rewrite. Prolly cause too many problems that...

Enygma

Putting Karma where the post count is should be simple. Just rob the code from the profile page that grabs the karma and put it on the thread page. Easy peasy.

dahamsta

http://infopop.com/services_sign-up/services_sign-up-licenseagree.html

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
SOFTWARE MODIFICATION RESTRICTIONS

License holders may alter or modify this software, at their own risk, of course, but only for their own use. They may also hire others to modify their own copy of the code, as long as the code is not transferred to or retained by the individual who is hired (unless he/she is also a license holder).

Although license holders may modify the code for their use, modified code may NOT be resold or distributed, without express written permission from Infopop™. This prohibition applies to both altered Infopop™ code and any new code developed by license holders specifically for use with the Ultimate Bulletin Board™.
</font>

I'm not sure whether creating a bazaar around boards.ie would be covered under the licence (problems with distribution and access to the code?). You should probably consult with Infopop before you do it.

As to changing, vBulletin is far more fully-featured, but you would probably run into the same problems. If you really want to do this, you should probably go with something released under the GPL, or a BSD-style licence. Or you could write something yourselves of course, but that would be illogical.

HTH,
adam

Zee Dude

Give me shout if want some help, I have experience with most of the stuff you want to do, I might not have as much time as some others.

kayos

Funny you say this as I am currently working on a boards system using asp/xml and a MS SQL backend. I would agree with starting from anew as we could build in features we want and get rid of anything not needed. Hell if it was good enough we could sell it to help out Boards.ie.

kayos

---

When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

ecksor

Kayos, the idea of selling it for commercial use to provide boards with a bit of cash was one of the reasons I wanted to start from scratch also.

asp/SQL7 wouldn't have been my first choice, but I've worked with it quite a bit, and so have a lot of others around here, so it could be a good choice on that basis alone ...

DeVore

The problem with SQL 7 is the cost and control-over-the-box needed to set it up...

I like ASP tho...

However the amount of coding needed to get something like that up and running.... phew!

DeV.

wintermute

I was involved in a very similar project a few years ago. I would think that starting from scratch is the only way to go. It may seem like a large task but with proper project managment it could be broken down into very manageable sections.

I may not have much free time but please count me in.

kayos

Dev I agree with you about the cost involved with SQL Server but the wya I have it done is all based on ODBC so all I would have to do is port the DB over to you're prefered RDBMS and the asp would stay working. As for the coding for the ASP there is not to much involved at all the display is just a couple of functions to pull the xml up then just merge that with some xsl and viola. But I suppose things like the IP logging would take a while. I'm currently porting my system over to access for a friend of mines site. If you do want to go ahead with this I'll help out as much as I can with any VB/DB work.

kayos

---

When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

Enygma

Don't suppose there'd be anyone interested in doing this in Java? I know there's a lot more ASP-heads in here, but Java is really cool for this kind of thing. Good learning XP too.

Saves on cost also, use any DB, use Tomcat/JServ.

Hows about a vote?

(No flames *please*!)

Keeks

I'm game aswell but don't know it i have the time/talent either for the project. Like hobbes i'm only just getting into open source programming aswell. You could set up a private form on the communites board for the select few that you choose but be careful who u choose and what motives they have.

The idea of release the boards code to a larger developer base can only make boards.ie grow larger and faster and will help making improvements quicker and better. The only thing is that I see you have to do is to develop a set of guidelines that the open source group will have to follow. I know you hate rules but as i see it if you don't you will have a lot of ppl pulling in different directions. It is not like its the same as writing other open src projects where ppl are working towards a defined goal eg. as in writing emulators. It is afterall a website and ppl here will have different design views and will want to make changes to suit there own design styles. Its what happens it you get ppl who haven't worked on ope src project b4.

I know it is in the behind the scenes programming (cgi/perl) that you want ppl for but it is just a thought.

kayos

I honestly dont see any cost saving in using Java over ASP. The reason I say this is as far as I know boards.ie is on a IIS server so asp support is there the only cost is the RDBMS but ASP can use any db as long as it has a ODBC driver (these drivers are free unlike some JDBC drivers aint that right phobos!!!). To be honest I dont mind what its done in but I dont think saying Java will be cheaper is a valid reason. BTW this is not a flame I'm just ripping your post apart

kayos

---

When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

Enygma

Yah fair enough, I was just thinking that you've got more options with Java, i.e. you're not stuck to anything. Therefore you can host on a Linux server (free) use Apache Tomcat (free) and use MySQL or Postgres (both free). But if boards.ie is on IIS then ASP is definetely the way to go.

I've been writing something similar in Java recently. I'll lob the code up here when it's ready (lost a whole bunch of code last week, disk got mangled).

Lord Khan

I'm Game for it ... I've been doing a lot of work on Ikonboard and porting some of them over the UBB in the past.

Personally I think tweak the UBB code ...

Regi ... afaik you can do what the hell you like to the code but it must always be called UBB and have the Infopop Copyright on the bottom.

best idea is to have test board to run the ideas off.

ecksor

I've been doing a little bit lately with servlets, tomcat, postgresql and the webmacro framework. I like

regi

I think a total redevelopment isn't practical for boards at this moment in time - I don't think any of the promoters can commit that level of time at the present.

However, we'd certainly like to see a test.boards system in place where we can develop new features and tweaks for boards. I'm in the process of creating this, and I'm talking to Infopop about our licence and what we can and cannot do with it.

Evil Phil

I was thinking more of tweaks and new features than a complete re-write. If it aint broken then don't fix it. I know the Admins do this free and on their own time so I'm sure the help is needed.

Ronin

Excellent idea.

replacing the whole board in one go isn't going to work, Regi's idea of a test board imho is the way to go.

It shouldn't be too hard to recode the board to do various things.

I'd certainly be interested in helping although what help I'd be is another q.

let me know if you want test.boards.ie setup or someit and I'll edit the zone file for boards.ie

Ro

moist

/me picks a random passing bandwaggon and jumps on it...

Yeah, I'd be interested in getting my hands dirty in somthing like this.

I think starting from scratch would be a nice idea, although that does involve a lot of work.
However it could always be a long term project

On the other hand you might be able to find somthing else out there under a gnu/bsd licence.
Such as (for instance) PHP-Nuke which is under the GPL.
Granted moving to another system like this would be akward, but it might just pay off in the end

(Edited for utter lack of UBB skillz)


[This message has been edited by moist (edited 03-07-2001).]

Gavin

I was thinking a bit about this last night and reckon that both approaches can be taken.

Have a test.boards.ie which can be used for on going development and testing of UBB.

However, at the same time, have another group writing from scratch a new system. I reckon that Java is the best bet, because as yee say, it is very portable. As is php certainly, but if yee want to sell this, then java might be more robust and better designed for handling different scenarios.

I have a lot of experience with php some with java, not much with jsp but reckon that I could easily enough learn it as i go along. Perhaps get a group going, then pick out a few experienced coders. These people can get together, make a good modular design, and delegate out bits of coding to various others. Anybody can code really, the trick is getting a good design and the not so good programmers can then just follow this design.

Also possible seperate this group into the designer and the coders as well, as regards web design. ( layout etc.. )

Gav

[edit] Apologies, I just saw a post up above with this idea already [/edit]


[This message has been edited by Verb (edited 03-07-2001).]

kayos

Hmmm splitting up into teams is the best thing to do alright. Personnaly I dont know Java/PHP as I'm a electronics muppet and currently a VB/SQL muppet but my design skills are good and my DB skills are l33t so any way I can help let me know.

kayos

---

When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

DeVore

Ok, so we have a certain consensus (we've agreed not to agree ).

Dan and I are going to look into a few things and generally sort something out on the "tweak the **** outta UBB" front.

I'm more then happy to advise on the "build a better mousetrap" front but I would be lying to say I have loads of time to invest into it. Of course, anything we can do to help in the way of hosting/sw access, we'll do.

Stay tuned basically!

DeV.

Ronin

Hmm after talking to regi on irc he was saying that its all mostly cgi/perl so if we are going to continue along the line of using what we have an tweaking it then you all better become perl experts

using phpnuke be a bad idea as its known to have security issues, you'd be better off writing it yourself, be pretty simple actually to write a board in php/mysql../me sees something else to do while in work..

anyhow test.boards.ie is now pointing to the boards ip so time to add another vhost to iis.

Ro

moist

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Ronin:
you all better become perl experts
</font>

What a horrific thought

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
using phpnuke be a bad idea as its known to have security issues
</font>

Indeed, thats probably why it came to mind when I was posting
I just meant something like it with a decent license for this sort of application.


[This message has been edited by moist (edited 03-07-2001).]

phaxx

I've has a good deal of experience with perl/cgi, and after a bit of playing about with php, I think perl/cgi is far too awkward, especially for a large project such as this.

I'd be interested in getting involved, and I'd recommend against perl/cgi... it's too... um, I dunno. PHP is far nicer to write/debug, in my opinion.

(I worship include()

Ronin

editing whats already in place shouldn't be too much of an issue. Its just a case of reading the code and looking what it does, then reusing over and over..time to download ubb me thinks and start lookin at the code..

so far suggestions are

1. use what we already have and change it somewhat which would be modifying perl scripts
2. use php which means going from scrath
3. java which reminds me of college and all those silly labs..
4. have 2 groups on working on 1 and another working on a new system.

If it was php it would be better used with apache/tomcat say on a unix server and mysql or postgresql rather then a nt one, purely for ability to control the box.

At this time using what is in existance is the better bet imho. Then think about building either on that or another system from scratch.

On the setting up of two teams, how do you decide who does what and who is assigned to each group. Also with something like this getting loadsa ppl to code stuff tends to mean you've loadsa different styles of code which isn't good. Anyone who's had to read others code and try figure it out will back me up here ..

Coding something like this in php probs take about a few hours to come up with the basic's then you gotta get error checking which again won't take long..but all the extra nice features might take a while..hmm i think i can see me busy in work for the next few days..

/me can see a meeting on the horizon..

Ro

teac!

How do you think projects come about in the real world?
You need a "Project leader", someone who controls decision making (like the chair of a meeting) and delegation of jobs.

Coding standards can be created and agreed upon. Variable and function naming standards, indentation, editors to use (or how to make editors conform to outputting the same format of a page). It isn't hard, however you need someone with experience to organise it all, someone who's worked with teams before and who can organise it. Also someone with time.

The level of difficulty of hacking UBB is going to depend on what exactly you want it to do. Depending on how it's written, you might have serious problems changing pieces around, without changing large pieces of core code. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it might be an idea to look at creating your own BB software. Again, you might want to look at how much "reinventing the wheel" you want to do, BB's have been done to death, there are probably solutions out there that fit your needs, however, if not, I'd say go down this road.

I presume it's not viable to change platform even if you wanted to, so PERL might not be the worst solution. Whatever road you go down, your project leader should have vast experience with the platform and language being used as well as experience with actually co-ordinating a group of people. This means that for different languages/platforms you have different potential project leaders.

Phil.

MindPhuck

I would have some time to help out in this if you want some modifications done.

Evil Phil

I agree with Phil, we can't just start hacking at the code straight away. We need standards, design docs, test scripts and people to implement all of those, and experienced people to take charge.

I've no project managment or offical design work but I've been a senior developer for a number of years now so I can help out with the design and coordinating the coders as well as writing code. As I've said already I can only give 5 or 6 hours a week to this.

Ronin

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by teac!:
How do you think projects come about in the real world?
You need a "Project leader", someone who controls decision making (like the chair of a meeting) and delegation of jobs.

</font>

Thats what I was getting at. I know exactly how "Real world" projects get done, I'm involved in a few big ones at the moment.

Maybe its time for a mailing list rather then a post to the boards cause the tread is going to grow too big if we start any real discussion.
Dev and Regi need to decide what they want to do it. I pointed out some of whats been posted already.

The problem that we have here is that we have various people offering to help and all suggesting different things to do. Someone needs to decide what is going to be done, ie Regi and Dev and Cloud, and then we take it from there.

Ro

Lord Khan

I'm in favour of keeping the current system and tweaking it ... if we started from scratch ... we spend ages just getting the basics like posting editting working ... UBB code while imho is messy gets the job done and perl (don't laugh too hard ronin) is does what we need it too do ... plus by keeping the current system we don't have to lose all the posts and user info either.

like the idea of moving the karma points (horrid system) is not a hack more of a tweak and merely is shuffling a few lines up in the script a bit ... I don't know exactly what your script looks like so can't post exactly what you should do. ...

anyway this will give me something to do in the Lab at UL .

consider it giving back to the community after taking so so much .

Ronin

LK I'm all in favour of using whats already in place, thats what I've been saying above, my saying i'd do someit in php is something that'll i'll do myself while i'm watching things compile in work ..

if it isn't broke don't try fixit. As i said time to become a perl expert ..

Since its code already there it won't be hard to get the code doing whats needed done. as you say just a matter of chaging the lines which out stuff.

Ro

Lord Khan

I agree with you on that using the existing body ... you can use PHP to create a new overlay or what not.

Code is there and works for the best part.