Thanks for the heads up. I was seriously thinking of switching to SMF from phpBB because of security. It also reportedly works well with Mambo. But now I'll sit on phpBB for a while. After the Miro thing I am tired of licensing in fighting.

SMF forever. GPL is evil. This is a smart move by them to keep them away from the open source zealots and allows them more control.

Think and think hard about the hypocrisies involved in what they are doing. First they would not have a project at all if the previous YaBB had had the same licensing.

Secondly, the whole point to open source is to allow others to pick up the flag when something fails or the project just dies. This cannot be done under the present licensing.

Thirdly, they have effectively killed any source of help because no developer in his or her right mind will contribute to a project where their code suddenly belongs to the project originator. this means any plug ins or useful hacks will not be explored or they will be slowed in development.

If they want complete control then they should go commercial and offer a proper commercial license for a minimum fee. Or more appropriately they should be dual licensing so if they decide to stop development or go completely commercial they do not leave people high and dry. Possibly come right out and say authorativly that they are only giving away the product until they go commercial.

Promising that something will "always be free" without the backing guarantee of a legal policy is just so much rhetoric. They are misleading their users and giving them a false sense of security. Just who are they protecting with such a policy? Not me, not you, they are only being selfish with something they were given out of the samaritanship of open source. Nothing in this type of licensing says that support or even the software itself will be any better.

I do not and will not ever agree with "fence riders" like SMF and now Skyportal and hope that this does not become the new trend of the web. This is "gray area" licensing and should be denounced and avoided by all that see OSS as a good thing. If they think the GPL is bad then they also have a choice of BSD or MIT licensing any of which would guarantee that they are actually returning something to the OSS community.

Hivemindz Magazine - Editor

As point 1 on this page located on the simple machines website states:
http://www.simplemachines.org/about/values.php

"We will provide our software to the public for free. A full and complete version of any software title developed by this project will be available to everyone without any cost, be it monetary or otherwise."

I think someone, owes someone else an apology

I suggest you take a good look at the following pages:

http://www.simplemachines.org/sitetest/about/whyfree.php
http://www.simplemachines.org/sitetest/about/opensource.php

The first one explains why SMF will always be free, and the second one explains why the developers chose not to distribute it under the GPL or another OSI-endorsed license.

Take a good look at both http://www.simplemachines.org/sitetest/about/opensource.php and http://www.simplemachines.org/sitetest/about/whyfree.php.

SMF has had numerous people convert from phpBB who seem to have absolutely no problem with the license.

There are several things that are wrong with the way SMF is handled as I have explained. The links to those pages where they at making their license seem to be a benefit to the community are only excuses.

Why should they care about what happens to something that is free? If they are concerned with people making money from GPL or BSD software then they should either go commercial and protect it or just not distribute it at all. They say because they want to see people get credit. I don't know how to respond to this. It seems to me that gettin credit for your work should be easy.

They definately are not helping the open source community nor are they giving anything back that I can see. To prove otherwise would mean showing just how because giving away free software is not helping open source unless the software is under an open source license. So far I have yet to find an OSS license that matches the SMF disclaimer. Is their return to open source in the way of donations? I have not seen any evidence of it but I welcome anyone from SMF to provide information on this.

I also find it strange that those that have gotten written permission, like Godaddy and others, to redistribute the software are all commercial. Is there something going on in the background here? Are they selling the redistribution rights? If so why not come right out and say so?

I have tried twice to get redistribution rights and have been turned down without explaination. Would anyone else care to give it a try? Tell them that you are a private person that wants to redistribute the software without a fee and will not put it up for commercial resale. I am very interested in the outcome of such a transaction.

While they would like you to believe their distribution is open source it is not. I remain agnostic on this, I will not believe something that has no evidenciary proof. But since this is mostly free world, people are free to choose. If you choose to go with SMF then that is okay by me. But if you ask for my recommendation for a forum then SMF will not be on the list because of its licensing.

Hivemindz Magazine - Editor

SMF is partially commercial now I see. This page has changed from an offer to a defined amount. But it is still strange to me that they are charging for support by volunteers.

Hivemindz Magazine - Editor

Charter Membership is a form of donations to the project. As a special thanks Charter Members are given priority support and some other advantages, I'd hardly call that commercial...

I suggest you take a good look at these pages:

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/whyfree.php - Why SMF will always be free.

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/opensource.php - Why the developers chose not to go with an OSI-accredited license.