Interview - Jeff Lewis of YaBB SE

The Future

Are there any future plans to charge for support for YaBB SE, or even the YaBB SE script itself?

No, there are currently no plans to charge. The Perl version of YaBB charged for priority support, and other systems do charge for some support, but we have no plans to do that. And we'll always offer free support on the forums.

As for charging for the script itself, no: it'll always remain free. We offer our script under the GPL, unlike some other systems these days.

Recently, Ibforums came out with their first stable release, and have a Perl API system that allows Webmasters and script developers to implement certain features of the script. PhpBB has had support for several databases and different languages for a long time now. Does YaBB SE plan to offer support for more databases and languages in the future, and something like an API or your own unique feature?

A few months back we offered a SSI.php file (and I see Ibforums has one now as well) that allowed users to implement parts of the forum on their site. For example, they could add login boxes, recent posts etc etc.

SE has had full language support since it came out, as does the Perl YaBB. I think we had support for 11 languages last time I checked. Users can select their particular language, so they don't need to reply on whichever has been set by their administrators.

As for databases, we have something now for SE 2 that will allow multiple database types (so far we have MS SQL, mySQL, PostegresSQl, and ODBC).

Buy-Outs, Mergers, and More

Were you ever approached by anyone wanting to buy YaBB SE rights, or have you approached any other script product to buy or merge with them?

The thought never crossed our minds when Matt headed Ikonboard. Matt and I discussed a few other things but we never made it past initial discussions -- and even then, the talks we had were pretty much nothing. That was at the beginning, and later on I did approach Matt to ask him about it. At the time, there was no action on YaBB, and there were a few internal things going on, which I just wanted out of my hair.

Matt basically wanted to take the YaBB users, and the YaBB team would maintain Ikonboard 2 (the Ikonboard team was working on iB 3 at the time). That was what killed the deal -- the YaBB team didn't want to have to maintain an older product.

If it were up to me, a couple of the forum packages that are available today would merge. There's so much talent on these teams, and so many good ideas -- combined, they could really come up with something great. But, sadly, everyone has egos and they all want the credit.

We have been approached by two companies who wanted to buy the rights to YaBB SE, but we never even listened to offers. YaBB (Perl) also received several requests, including two very serious offers. I signed confidentiality agreements in both instances and though I'm still bound by those, I'll try to explain both.

The first was a company that offered something in the way of forums already. They were fairly serious: figures were exchanged, future paths were discussed, and this one seemed like it was going to happen. But talks fell apart when they failed to grasp the concept of our license.

The second was a company that wanted to get into programming and offer forums. Though we progressed fairly deeply into discussions, internal issues at YaBB held this deal up.

Where do you see YaBB SE in the future? Are there any major enhancements to the script in the works at the moment?

We see YaBB SE as being one of 5 main forum applications out there. Currently there are three really big ones, and YaBB's still fighting to erase some of the "bad press" it received earlier in its lifetime. The fate it suffered was that suffered by all the other Perl-based boards.

So SE will continue to plug away at rebuilding YaBB. SE 2 is currently being written, with a strong emphasis on performance, and it's already showing major improvements. While that's our main focus for SE 2, we're also adding more functionality, some of which hasn't been seen in forums yet.

There is a notion amongst commercial script usrs that free scripts aren't worth installing, as they don't generate assets to benefit the people who work on the project in which the software is applied. Commercial scripts like VBulletin or UBB are thought by many to have been around a longer, and not have suffered any major casualties because of lack of support.

While it is true that the majority of free scripts will fall away and fade out, you get a certain group that will stay around, and have managed to grab a decent audience. phpBB, YaBB, and Ikonboard are all examples of these kinds of products -- and they aren't going anywhere any time soon. The same people that said these forums would vanish two years ago, are now watching the forums proliferate all the time.

People, and I'd venture to say the majority of North Americans fit into this group, go by the philosophy of "You get what you pay for". In business, we fight daily with employers to look at things like PHP and MySQL in our work. Our employers want to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for solutions that can easily be attained with open source software and technologies.

I always use open source programs and, for some shareware, I also support the authors themselves. This kind of feedback encourages developers to keep going -- it's an extra 'reward', and it's different to the developer's own acknowledgement that they love helping people, and doing what they're doing. I don't think these motivations are going to change.