This is not meant to be trolling or anything but ever since Kier's return to the site and the long message he post(While desired, it was vague) it seems like the atmosphere on the site is less than friendly vs what it was originally. I wonder has anyone noticed that it feels a bit different, less engaging as it did just a few weeks back.
People are getting anxious about the future of XenForo as the developers have not really been engaging much with the community.
Why did Kier vanish in the first place? Was it to do with the court case? I hope things get back on track soon because XenForo is awesome and clearly the best forum software around at the moment.
Kier was gone for personal reasons, and we should accept that. I agree that the atmosphere was a bit tense before his reply, and now it's even more tense. However, I think Kier will be back soon, and upon his return we will indeed see xenforo back to its normal state of awesomeness
By all that's holy. It's the 4th admin forum i see with the same thread. Come on guys, let's create some unique ones, not copy-paste same thing in every forum. It gets annoying seeing the same thread in 30 minutes
Bottom line is none of us know much! The community seems fine - except that ANY community which loses it's leaders and founders (with no one replacing them) is going to spin around for awhile. Imagine if, back when, Steve Jobs and Woz disappeared from the scene out in the bay area! We all have our suspicions. If I had to place bets, they are negotiating to partner with someone who has some money and power so they can rest easy about the expenses and lawsuit and get on with this amazing piece of software. That's, of course, an optimistic view! The chances of them continuing without outside backing and financing seems small...but none of that should really matter to us "civilians". From a business perspective, partners should be lining up (I like to work out numbers in my head, and they work out very well for XF). So we have to hope someone there has a business head. I suspect we will all find out in the next couple of months... Back to the community - without some additional mods or the XF team getting back on there regularly, it will be hard to contain it. Still, it is quite dynamic!
At times we all have personal troubles that prevent us from being online and active as we usually are, Kier and any other software developer are no exception. There are real life things that you can't predict or control as I know very well. The only thing you can do to help is to continue to support XenForo even more than before.
To be honest I would be the same way if people kept saying the software is dead when clearly the lawsuit is taking up every cent they earn and all their time. People seem to forget that developers have lives just like them, and have life issues just like anyone else. I do hope that Kier sorts out his complications, and this lawsuit comes to an obvious realization that the team has not broken any laws soon.
I think we can only speak from personal experience. I have three kids and too many MAJOR life events to list here (many major surgeries in the family for one thing) over the past 17 years since I started my web site, and I have never been offline for more than a week or 10 days. That's in 17 years... In the last decade I doubt if it has even been 4 days. As far as "you being the same way", don't forget that any such actions work 100% against the sale and promotion of the software....so I certainly would not spite myself OR my users or community by staying away from a site or my own products. Hey - no one knows. It's just a bit suspect when "personal issues" seems to tie in exactly with "business issues".... We can all understand personal issues. But the other is tougher - it usually means we aren't being told the whole truth, for whatever reason. Not that a company has to do that...many don't. But very small companies that are trading on the reputations of one founder......the rules can be different. Let me throw a crazy guess out there......VB settles with and buys XF and markets it as their "slimmer" package.... Hey, when you don't know what is really going it....it could be anything.
I highly doubt Kier and the rest of the ex-vb team would want to rejoin that team after leaving. Especially givin up their flagship of a product to vb just for money. I'm sure that's what vbulletin would love, but in reality I don't see it coming.
Agreed, When a company drags you through court it would leave more than a sour taste in your mouth. Considering XenForo is seen by many as a better solution than vBulletin and is coded completely different than vBulletin I really do not see how it could be used as a lighter version. XenForo is an entirely different product than vBulletin and would have to be treated as such, but again that would not happen. A few of us XenForo users know why Kier has been inactive and trust me it is not for any reasons that have been stated in this thread. I'm not going to say why because it is Kier's personal business and it is up to him if he want's to post the information on a public forum. That being said, Kier has been making a few posts lately and is back.
Well, since you know you can tell all of us! I understand the sentiments of not wanting to succumb - and I have certainly never had to do so myself, but often - in the end - business is about reason and practicality. I'd rather have 25% of 2 million dollars a year than 100% of a break-even. One thing for sure - XF is cool stuff and it has the potential to be very profitable...a good life for the team and maybe for others (investors). It's just a matter of getting over a few humps, some which may be personal and others which may be more business and practical. Nothing any of us can do...except renew (which I did, 9 months early) to try to help the cash flow. Heck, who ever thought Oracle would own Java?
As I said, it's Kier's personal life and it is not my place to go around telling his personal business on public forums. Though, I can assure you it isn't anything XenForo related and is a very genuine and understandable reason for his recent absence. He is back now and is in the process of moving his 7million+ post forum over to XF. Which is a good sign, as if there was any uncertaintity about the future of XenForo he would most obviously not be moving his personal forum over to the software. We should take that as a good sign. I have complete faith that XenForo is strong enough to break through all this crap.
