As some of you are undoubtedly aware, recently IPS, Inc, makers of Invision Power Board, pulled the free unlimited trial of IPB from their site. While currently the change doesn't really affect us (we obtained the unlimited version several days before they took it down), it could potentially change our future significantly. Invision Power Board's yearly license fee is $69.95 USD. Currently our anual operating costs are around $315 USD, but a majority of that is broken into monthly payments. As a result, while our current costs are well within our ability to pay, tacking on that major an anual expense would not be easy. And future versions of Invision Power Board will, as currently planned at least, not have a free version beyond a 15 day limited trial. Many other forum communities like us will be similarly affected by this change, and we offer our support to them.

Additionally I personally object to the move. As IPS, inc themselves pointed out back in 2002 "Apache, PHP and mySQL are all free, why should you pay for a bulletin board?". And IPB had gained widespread use for that very reason: it was the best free bulletin board software out there. Their company forums had a certain community feel to them, one which vanished when they redid the forums, at the same time that they yanked the trial off their site. They now have a very corporate, almost inhuman edifice, within which only gaining money seems to matter.

So, now that I've ranted on, I'd like to start an E-petition to request (from IPS, inc) the restoration of the unlimited trial of IPB. Anyone agreeing with this petition simply post something to the effect of "I agree" on this topic. And feel free to discuss your opinions in this topic as well, whether you agree or disagree with the petition.

i think we should all boycott IPS and **EDIT** go on their support forumes and all post about how it should be free, that will teach those hippocrits a lession.

aye... in regards to Nightshift's statement...
im not into the spamming like hell part yet...

No. How about no.

I agree 100%. IPB was the best forum software out there, in my opinion, but im poor and i cant afford to pay for it i absolutely hate phpBB, so i have to stick with my 2.0.0 unlimited trial

And i think you should make it so guests can post to agree... having to register is kind of annoying

The problem with that is the security issue somone floods or spams, not really much we can do to ban them.

makes sense

AYE!. Make it free again matt! if they worried of money issures they can have google ads on the forums and set up a system where if you want to remove them you have to pay like 100 or so, that's what IF does I think and ti works great.

you can ban by ip

Good point, but the vast majority of people don't maintain static IPs...

Now, back to the point with us?

to the power board!!!

true but i dont see any spammers around here, why not just try it and on the first event of spamming just set back?

It can only be set on a sectional basis...so all of chit chat would be open to guest posts...