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  1. #51
    Join Date
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    Looks like this topic has legs
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  2. #52

    Re: CEO Invision Power Board, Matt Mecham Is a Goddam THIEF!

    Originally posted by Click [*]In Matt's defence he states that the code was merely borrowed; that he credited the writers. (He also requested that they edit the article in his favor)[*]A member cited that since the code falls under the GPU, then IPB must remain free.[*]No response from Matt.[/list]
    The 'worst' bit is that it isn't quite that innocent I don't believe, Matt claimed he would answer any questions regarding the GPL code in IPB, I asked the one question he presumably doesn't want to answer, he definately viewed this to my knowledge as his profile shows him as being online for some time after I posted - and then all of a sudden the topic is locked with no explanation.

    So Matt, as you've presumably requested that the other topic is locked after claiming you will answer questions, or scared sitepoint into closing the topic - would you care to answer my question here? I just want to see what your answer is regarding this as you don't seem to be disputing that IPB contains GPL code. Post included below:

    ---

    So you won't mind answering my question in the post above yours then?

    "It appears that yet again you've admitted that you knowingly included GPL code in IPB - which makes the release need to be GPL does it not, by the terms of the same GPL?"

    You may be interested in point 2 b of the GPL that you read when you took phpMyAdmin code and modified it for your own use:
    "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
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  3. #53
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    I have posted on IPB as you have requested... 30 seconds has gone by and its still there.

    he definately viewed this to my knowledge as his profile shows him as being online for some time after I posted
    Not necessarily true. Depending on how the board measures online time, he might not have been viewing the board (cookie expiration time etc.) Even if he was viewing the board, it doesn't mean he viewed the thread...
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  4. #54
    Not necessarily true. Depending on how the board measures online time, he might not have been viewing the board (cookie expiration time etc.) Even if he was viewing the board, it doesn't mean he viewed the thread...
    Yes I agree and of course I can't say for sure, although I'm fairly certain the only thread of interest to him is the one I'm talking about, and there were 27 minutes between me posting and the last visited time in his profile.
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  5. #55
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    Update on the thread at IPB; it was deleted, but a moderator sent me a private message telling me and suggesting I contact Matt himself, which is perfectly acceptable.
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  6. #56
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
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    Originally posted by esh
    quite belligerent aren't we?
    Actually, I don't know what the hell i'm talking about.

    I'm just cutting and pasting what the owners of vB paid to post, lol.
    Click Writes Good Articles!
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  7. #57
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
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    Originally posted by ataylor
    Update on the thread at IPB; it was deleted, but a moderator sent me a private message telling me and suggesting I contact Matt himself, which is perfectly acceptable.
    not to mention I saw you posted it in the Pre-sales area

    "Please note that this forum is for pre-sale inquiries only. Technical support questions and other non-sales related questions will be removed."
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  8. #58
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    How would you go about reporting this to the GPU? I think its something that defiantly should be investigated in case some of the codes were taken.
    Kerry Jones
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  9. #59
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
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    Originally posted by ataylor
    Update on the thread at IPB; it was deleted, but a moderator sent me a private message telling me and suggesting I contact Matt himself, which is perfectly acceptable.
    I think they do this, because they don't want customers to see their ways. Because once inside the community, can IPS ban their paid customers?

    Either that, or their prepping to sell. Which makes perfect sense from both a programmers and corporate standpoint:

    • Dress up the product.
    • Sell it.
    • Write another script.
    • Rinse & Repeat.



    We should all inquire at IPS, at once and see what happens.
    Click Writes Good Articles!
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  10. #60
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Originally posted by esh
    not to mention I saw you posted it in the Pre-sales area

    "Please note that this forum is for pre-sale inquiries only. Technical support questions and other non-sales related questions will be removed."
    Where else was I to post it? Nearly every other forum is locked out to regular members apart from the Community Chat forum, which is even more off topic.
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  11. #61
    I'd advise against flooding their forums with questions they will obviously want to delete, I for one don't want to come across as one of the 'I'm angry this isn't free anymore' gang (as I've been telling everyone IPB isn't/won't be free for the last year even though IPS have made those of us saying this out to be crazy communist linux users with conspiracy theories) - I just want an answer to my question.

    And frankly we can see from the sitepoint thread that if things get silly IPS can easily get threads closed etc - I'd prefer to at least stay mature about this and not give any reason for Matt to do anything other than answer the important questions at hand.

    And incase you've forgotten the question Matt:

    "It appears that yet again you've admitted that you knowingly included GPL code in IPB - which makes the release need to be GPL does it not, by the terms of the same GPL?"

    You may be interested in point 2 b of the GPL that you read when you took phpMyAdmin code and modified it for your own use:
    "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
    Signature edited. Please see Forum Guidelines for more information.
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  12. #62
    With regards to running a 'free' site - I understand. My site is free and I answer questions freely when I can. People can donate to it to support me and I hope that they will.

    In the past I tried to solicit more donations to make some income but it really didn't work out. I didn't blame the people - I realized that it was my initial design that caused people to think that they could get free answers to any problem under the sun.

    As a result some people posted negative things. I didn't delete their posts unless they were overly rude. Instead I was able to describe where the site was at when I made it, how I realized that once it got popular (more then I ever thought it would) it took fully half of my day to answer questions and then mentioned that if people wanted a priority response then they should donate.

    In any event, I explained my situation to them and by and large they understood.

    I find a pretty big contrast between what Matt and Invision Board did when I compare it to myself. I owned up to not thinking out the design issue of my site, explained why and then offered a way for people to get priority response.

    Not once did I say that I was obligated to give them something for nothing - the spirit of the site was free help and that people could donate if they wanted to help support it. Because of that it was always under my control with regards to how much free help I could give.

    Contrast that to Matt and you have a person that always said that the product would be free. If I had done that I would have kept giving out free advice as I was obligated to. That's called Integrity.

    Now if I went through and deleted all the posts from 'free loaders' and tried to force everyone into a paid session I wouldn't feel right with that. I can however live peacfully knowing that I explained my situation to people and that for the most part they understand.

    I don't have to delete posts that question my tactics as they are above scrutinty. Not so in the case of Invision Board.

    The whole issue is really based on one thing. The business model was deceptive from the outset and we can now see what their true objectives were all along. If there was no deception on their part they would not have to hide all the posts Matt and others at the company made about it being free etc.

    Quite simply, if a company or a person has to hide something then there is something wrong and they are concerned that people will find out about it. The best way to approach a business re-design would be to come out and apologize for the mistakes that were made.

    Saying (for years) that Invision Board will always be free and then waking up one morning and deleting all reference to that and shifting it over to a totally paid model is not right. Nor is the manner that they switched everything over to a paid service. It's a lot more then just a lie that they are trying to make disappear - it's the way the entire process was done. By changing the user accounts on the forums so that people could no longer post, by deleting any post that questions the company's policy change and by delting all records of the previous policies shows real corruption and also an enormous lack of integrity.

    We all realize that people need to make money. The difference is in the way they do it. Some people do this unscrupulously and some do it with integrity.

    Matt Meachum and Invision Board seem to have chosen to do it deceptively and the deception is growing exponentially until they had to remove all records of their previous policy. That policy, by the way, is the one that most people based their decision on when researching what forum to use. So yes, they lied and they are compounding that lie every day.

    They will have to because they have now based their core business model on a lie. I really feel it's only a matter of time before they contact Google and ask them to destroy the cache of their site that so clearly indicates the error in their ways. That way they can hide the truth more effectively.

    If there was no lie or intent of deception they would not have to destroy all records of their previous business practices. Quite simply if they are shredding the evidence then there is something they don't want people to know or find out about. People that have been using Invision Board extensively already know what it is because we have all seen it first hand and watched the progression of the company to a Microsoft based model. It seems code was not the only thing Matt borrowed.....
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  13. #63
    Good thing I got a copy before they killed the links to the trial versions.
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  14. #64
    Originally posted by Kerry Jones I hope from this incidence that phpBB will recruit some better php programmers and design a piece of software that would trash matts software.
    I take issue with that. There is no-one I would rather see developing phpBB than the current developers
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  15. #65
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    Louisiana
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    Since Invision board is now proven to be held under the GPL, I am now going to distribute it freely, as it was meant to be.
    Bayouspace Hosting
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  16. #66
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    UK
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    Invision Power Board 2 is not held under GPL. Distribute it and you will break the licence and the law.

    So therefor we can all say pixehost distributes warez.
    Linux System Admin & Support.
    E-mail/MSN : carlgm@gmail.com
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  17. #67
    Originally posted by tehtech
    Invision Power Board 2 is not held under GPL. Distribute it and you will break the licence and the law.

    So therefor we can all say pixehost distributes warez.
    This is why we need Matt to reply to the question he obviously doesn't want to answer. He's admitted that IPB has GPL code within it, both in comments in the source of IPB and in his comments in the thread at sitepoint that is now closed.

    So Matt, do we get a reply yet?
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  18. #68
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    Actually I wouldn't be surprized if IPB 2.0 has GPL code in it since its based off the orginal 1.0 coding. This would mean IPB 1.x - 1.3.x is under the GNU/GPL?
    Kerry Jones
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  19. #69
    Join Date
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    Location
    Louisiana
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    *snicker*

    Click, it probably won't last long, lol

    http://forums.invisionpower.com/inde...owtopic=149978

    I wonder if the admins there are having a hard time deleting all those posts.
    Bayouspace Hosting
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  20. #70
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    Location
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    I do not distribute Warez. I distribute GPL products, which invision board is one. What's he gonna do, take me to court and expose his own theft?

    I saw the code, I saw the post where Matt admitted he took the code, I know it's stolen. Unless Matt responds with some sort of rebuttal, it is open-source, therefore I could add my own code, remove the license agreement and distribute it.
    Last edited by bayouhost_tonya; 09-30-2004 at 05:16 PM.
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  21. #71
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Lincoln, UK
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    At the end of the day I feel sorry for all those users who were told there would remain a free version, who now either have to spend out or convert to a different board - I hope most convert.

    Matt said there would remain a free version, he has gone against this and shown that when he says something, he can't he held accountable for it as it was in the past.
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  22. #72
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    chica go go
    Posts
    11,876
    It's good software, They even gave you the opportunity to purchase it for a discounted rate for a 12 days before it went completely commercial.

    PhpBB uses lots of resouces, and lacks features, vBulletin 3 is ugly, and uses a ton of resources.

    i bought the license, i'm happy with it.
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  23. #73
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Lincoln, UK
    Posts
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    Good software supported by untrustworty staff?

    This was a huge change of policy, turning their back on their free community. Was there ever a mention that the policy would change and they would stab the users in the back?

    I wouldn't have a problem if they were clear about this with advanced warning. Explained how, when and why.
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  24. #74
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    chica go go
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    Show me one person who has been ripped off in a commercial transaction by the IPB staff.

    They are allowing the people who were using the software prior to going completely commercial to continue using the software. Those people just don't have access to future updates.

    Most of the time when a security hole is found, documentation on what code to change to close that hole is also provided. You'll just have to update the code by hand.
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  25. #75
    Changing the code or providing security updates for IPB breaks their license agreement does it not?

    Also if you'll notice my post a few pages back, their terms clearly state that they can change the terms at any time, and that as IPB is now pay-only they can contact you whenever they wish and you must destroy all copies of the product within 48 hours.
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