PHP Programming Language - Cultural View

vBulletin 345
vBulletin Blog
Now included in the vBulletin Publishing Suite, the vBulletin Blog allows members of a vBulletin community to
create their own blogs. vBulletin Blog 1.0.5 was released to the public on April 8, 2008. With the release of
vBulletin 4.0, the vBulletin Blog became part of the vBulletin Publishing Suite. [12]
vBulletin Project Tools
This host of tools tracks bugs, tasks, etc. throughout the development of a product through its production and
lifetime. vBulletin Project Tools 2.0.0 was released to the public on September 30, 2008. [13] With the release of
vBulletin 4.0, active development of Project Tools has been discontinued. It will become an open source product
distributed through vBulletin.org.
vBulletin 4 release and controversy
July 4, 2007: Jelsoft was acquired by Internet Brands. [14]
January 27, 2009: Ray Morgan was appointed General Manager of Jelsoft. [15]
May 13, 2009: the Administration section of vBulletin.com accidentally became accessible to the public for 13
minutes. Documents and discussions containing a detailed analysis of plans (and expected customer reaction) for
vBulletin 4's new pricing scheme were revealed. [16] A response was posted by Ray Morgan indicating that these
were preliminary discussions and that customers should not make decisions based on leaked documents.
June 19, 2009: Kier Darby, lead developer of vBulletin since early in the development of version 2, leaves the
company [17] , as well as Mike Sullivan (joined Fall 2000) [18] and Scott MacVicar [19] .
July 2009: Peterska2 (Kerry-Anne) and Ashley part company with vBulletin [20] . Jelsoft offices in the UK were
closed shortly thereafter.
August 19, 2009: Alpha testing of vBulletin begins with a selection of licensed customers under a Non-disclosure
Agreement. [21]
October 13, 2009: Ray Morgan announces new vBulletin.com website, new vBulletin licensing structure, and
pricing [22] . This announcement was nearly identical to the May 2009 leaked documents.
Replacing the annual renewal of $60, the new vBulletin Forum license was priced at $195, with the Suite costing
$285. With an announced release cycle of 18–24 months for each point release, this was a cost increase of 200%.
Customers with an inactive license were offered a small discount off the Suite and had less than 3 weeks to upgrade.
Ironically, customers with the smallest investment in the product—Leased License customers—received the most
cost-advantageous deal.
October 23, 2009: The vBulletin.com website is upgraded to the vBulletin 4 software including a new splash page
and FAQ. vBulletin.com is down for an unprecedented 28 hours during this upgrade, with visitors to the site being
redirected to a maintenance message at Internet Brands-owned http:/ / www. best-forum-software. com/ . When the
site returned, it remained sporadically inaccessible due to high loads for several days.
November 12, 2009: vBulletin 4.0 Beta 3 is made available to licensed customers. Previous betas were made
available to the alpha testers [23] . Beta 4 and 5 as well as 2 Release Candidates would follow in quick succession.
December 7, 2009: Ray Morgan retires to the tropics [24] .
December 22, 2009: vBulletin 4.0 Gold is released to the public amid customer concerns that it met a predetermined
release schedule rather than producing a stable product [25] . Substantial display issues in browsers including Safari,
Opera, and Internet Explorer 6 are documented. The Content Management System resulted in over 100 MySQL
queries even in the default configuration.
January 12, 2010: vBulletin 4.0.1 is released with over 200 bug fixes and style tweaks [26] .