phpBB2 conversion to SMF

**vern** · 02-02-2005, 07:58 PM

I have recently converted the old forum to SMF. SMF development is a lot more active than phpBB and support for phpBB will soon end as well as phpBB itself while it's developers concentrate on Olympus. SMF has a lot more features and everything should work the same way. Yay! If you encounter any problems, please message me or e-mail me at vw@ribbed.us. I particularly like the the karma feature where users can "applaud" other users who give good help.

**$dbpasswd** · 03-23-2005, 02:50 AM

Vern, did you really make a phpBB2 upgrade conversion to SMF or did you just freshly install this forum? I visited SMF's website and there seems to be no mention of phpBB conversion to SMF.

**vern** · 03-23-2005, 12:49 PM

Yes it was an upgrade. The install of SMF itself was fresh ... but the database was converted. Have a look at their downloads section, then go to converters. There is a converter from almost every popular forum software to SMF.

**arman** · 08-14-2005, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by vern

SMF development is a lot more active than phpBB and support for phpBB will soon end as well as phpBB itself while it's developers concentrate on Olympus. SMF has a lot more features and everything should work the same way.

That's what you think... :wink:

We find more exploits in SMF than a latest version of phpBB. Maybe during you post it, you're using 2.0.13.
The latest version of phpBB now is 2.0.17 and the project is still very active w/ hundreds of support forums all over the net.

SMF is also not exactly "free" (to get latest version you have to pay).

**vern** · 09-26-2005, 01:40 AM

I was talking about critical exploits. I have yet to see an SMF board getting owned. The current major version of phpBB has been around so long, they have no excuse to have any bugs.

The latest version is 2.0.17 ... the only reason for the version increase is security fixes ... nothing else. It does have the mods though, but what is important is vanilla phpBB without mods. Vanilla phpBB has essentially remained the same for a long long time.

Can you download it for free? Then it is free. Can you redistribute a modified copy of SMF? No. That is reasonable. For this forum's purpose, that is irrelevant. Can you redistribute your mods? Certainly. If I ever decide to write a mod, I will certainly provide it under GPL. That is what is important. The fact that SMF has commercial backing is a strength, not a weakness. It's nice to know that things are not going to hell when developers get tired of the project.

I have nothing against phpBB. phpBB is just not the best option for us, or in my opinion, most forums who are just starting out because there are many other options out there.