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Richard
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[Archived] XMB Announcement
I would like to take some of your time to explain some upcoming changes in the XMB software and the ownership of the XMB brand.
Since we (Aventure) moved into our new offices in the middle of last year, we had set aside a huge amount of time to work on the XMB software, by
releasing faster, more frequent XMB updates. Unfortunately other areas of the business progressed faster, and over the last 7 months we haven’t had
the time we expected, and development of XMB maintained a slow level of development.
Over the last few weeks we have been discussing the future of XMB with iEntry, a company based in the United States, who currently develop other open
source software, and have around 40 full time staff.
Our plans for the future include the ‘hand over’ of the XMB brand to iEntry (away from Aventure), so that full time developers can work on the XMB
project, and expand it’s capabilities dramatically over the next few months.
What changes can you expect?
Aventure Media and iEntry are dedicated to making the change over as simple as possible, without affecting the smooth operation of the website, forums
and the current release schedule for 1.9.6.
Is XMB closing?
Absolutely not. The XMB site is not closing now, or the future..
Will users be charged for using XMB?
No. XMB will remain free and open source for the future.
Are existing staff being asked to leave?
No. Existing volunteers will remain the same position.
Who are iEntry..
iEntry is located in Kentucky, United States, and is
dedicated to continuing to develop XMB as open source.
I'm not happy...
This topic is dedicated to the upcoming changes, and we want you to specifically state what your unhappy about, my colleagues from Aventure Media, and
the iEntry team want to address any concerns you have.
We have discussed every option about the future of XMB, and I have absolutely no negative beliefs about how the XMB project will develop. If you are
worried or have concerns, we want to know, let us address them and fix them to the best of our ability.
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TannerJ
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I think this is a good opportunity for XMB to develop under new leadership. Perhaps with a new team heading up the project, we can at least make an
effort to reunite a very much torn community. I really hope that this can be made an opportunity for those in the community with differences to put
them aside, and put the focus back on what's important- supporting XMB and contributing to the project and the community.
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Train
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Perhaps Aventure would like to explain why the XMB Group wasn't involved in this conversation or decision now.
I'm waiting...
Train - Michael Ian Fraker
Ex-XMB Management
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justjames
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From what I have noticed over the years is a fragmentation of folks associated with XMB.
I hope these changes brings us closer together and I hope we become more organized.
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ndrake
iEntry Staff
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Location: Lexington, KY USA
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RE: XMB changes
Hello All,
My name is Nathaniel Drake I am the Director of Business Development with iEntry Inc.
Thank you Richard for this good post introducing iEntry.
First I would like to say that the XMB Project Will continue with Your help.
Who is iEntry Inc.?
iEntry Inc. is owned by Rich Ord a pioneer in the email newsletter/online E-Business & IT focused news industry. We have a large network of B2B
websites and html email newsletters. We are located in Lexington KY USA and have around 40 employees currently and are growing fast.
Our Goals for this forum project:
iEntry is 110% committed to using and supporting open source software and fully understand that with open source projects Each and Every contributor's
opinion's and time are important and are the Key to success of that project. We plan to put real resources behind this and have an in house iEntry
programmer to help with the direction of this project which will mainly be derived from the Volunteers opinion's as to what is needed.
We have/are asking Richard and All others that have contributed too and believe in this project to stay on and help as much as possible as this is the
only way we can reach the end goal.
The end goal we see for XMB is to have it become the most widely used forum software on the Internet because of all the great features, security,
themes etc.. as well as the promotion iEntry will do.
We will work hard to gain everyones full trust as things go forward.
Please feel free to contact me about any matter on this project.
I look forward to working with and getting to know many of you better.
--
Thanks and Have a Great Day!
Nathaniel
---
Nathaniel Drake
Director of Business Development
nathaniel@iEntry.com
iEntry, Inc.
2549 Richmond Road, Second Floor
Lexington, KY 40509
Phone: (859) 514-2720
Fax: (859) 219-9065
http://www.ientry.com
"Targeted Information for Business & Technology"
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justjames
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Nathaniel,
Looking forward to interacting with the group. Best wishes as we all move forward.
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LANLocked
iEntry Liaison
Posts: 167
Registered: 3-13-2007
Location: Lexington, Ky.
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Mood: Good. Real good.
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Hello Everyone! I would like to take a moment to introduce myself.
My name is Jay Fougere and I am the IT manager of iEntry, the company that has taken over XMB.
While iEntry has taken over ownership of the site, we are dedicated to the principles behind Free and Open Source Software. Most of our business runs
on FLOSS and we see this as our opportunity to give back to the community.
We are committed to seeing XMB thrive, now and in the future. Currently the site is on a dual-xeon server located on our rack in Herndon, Va (10min
outside of Washington DC) on a 500Mb pipe. Should we need to upgrade bandwidth and/or hardware we are dedicated to doing so.
Other than some minor site design changes, we have no plans to change the existing infrastructure that all of you have built here. Without the XMB
community, this site and the XMB software are not worth anything 
In closing, I would like to reiterate what Richard said -- we want to hear any questions/concerns/suggestions you may have regarding this
switchover.
Thank you all and I look forward to working closely with you in the future
PS. My door is always open -- if you need anything do not be afraid to U2U me, post, or even email me:
fougerej@ientry.com
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vanderaj
XMB Contributor
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As an ex-Developer of XMB (primarily responsible for getting 1.9.1 out the door and many hundreds of security fixes), I am surprised that the "brand"
of an open source project is an item that can be sold to others, particularly as the vast majority of the work involved in building that brand is by
those who have never been paid for it (nor desired it to be paid).
Richard, I wish more of the community could have participated in this decision. I think the lack of consultation with the most to lose (or gain) will
further fracture the community. I have been contacted by many of the current and soon to be ex-developers here and they're all unhappy about it,
enough to fork the project yet again. This is a truly negative result of the lack of consultation with those who truly count: those who create XMB.
They don't do it for Aventure, they do it for the community. Not profit sharing with them is a huge mistake, and it will bite the new company with a
huge outflux of talent.
Despite this, I thank Aventure Media for their support (providing dedicated hosting for the project) and CVS trees etc over the last few years. I wish
the new company "acquiring" XMB all the best, but I think they may have bought a poisoned chalice through no fault of their own.
Andrew
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ndrake
iEntry Staff
Posts: 19
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Location: Lexington, KY USA
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Hi,
To Huhnteufel and justjames: I am a very good Team builder will help oversee things personally to ensure that everyone gets a say as much as possible
and is working together.
To answer Roxas: I understand some may feel like they were kept in the dark about this but I assure you that the folks at Aventure had other options
but after several phone calls and assurances that iEntry will not only contuine the project but will provide resources to really take it to the next
level so they were really looking out for you the whole time.
We really need your support going forward and it will be unlimited in a lot of ways what we can do together on this.
Thanks,
Nathaniel
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Richard
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| Quote: | Originally posted by vanderaj
As an ex-Developer of XMB (primarily responsible for getting 1.9.1 out the door and many hundreds of security fixes), I am surprised that the "brand"
of an open source project is an item that can be sold to others, particularly as the vast majority of the work involved in building that brand is by
those who have never been paid for it (nor desired it to be paid).
Richard, I wish more of the community could have participated in this decision. I think the lack of consultation with the most to lose (or gain) will
further fracture the community. I have been contacted by many of the current and soon to be ex-developers here and they're all unhappy about it,
enough to fork the project yet again. This is a truly negative result of the lack of consultation with those who truly count: those who create XMB.
They don't do it for Aventure, they do it for the community. Not profit sharing with them is a huge mistake, and it will bite the new company with a
huge outflux of talent.
Despite this, I thank Aventure Media for their support (providing dedicated hosting for the project) and CVS trees etc over the last few years. I wish
the new company "acquiring" XMB all the best, but I think they may have bought a poisoned chalice through no fault of their own.
Andrew |
Hi Folks,
Thanks for the comments and questions so far.
For vanderaj
As with any management team, the XMB developers and Aventure made a decision in terms of what was best for the XMB community and software. I can
assure anyone who may have negative feelings about the change in ownership, will be highly suprised in the coming months on how much XMB can
progress.
We appreciate your support, and hope you will continue to monitor the fantastic updates we have in store for you, the whole of the Aventure team will
remain focused on helping iEntry develop XMB in the future.
Richard
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Train
XMB Contributor
Posts: 5748
Registered: 7-15-2004
Location: I? Oh...uh....
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| Quote: | Originally posted by ndrake
To answer Roxas: I understand some may feel like they were kept in the dark about this but I assure you that the folks at Aventure had other options
but after several phone calls and assurances that iEntry will not only contuine the project but will provide resources to really take it to the next
level so they were really looking out for you the whole time. |
I appreciate your reply and reassurance Nathan, thank you very much.
As I have said in a U2U just sent moments ago to you, I will continue modification development for XMB, and maybe more-so in the future.
Currently I need to secure my own interests and resources for the time.
As you can understand however, the methods of this sale are rather unique, and do not reflect how the entire team may feel. All in all though, thanks
for being direct, that's exactly what we need here.
Train - Michael Ian Fraker
Ex-XMB Management
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John Briggs
XMB Contributor
Posts: 2691
Registered: 2-12-2002
Location: Illinois
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Mood: Great
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I am glad to see things a proper public stance. I have been apart of this community from it's inception and have hoped to see it grow. best wishes to
all and I look forward to seeing it's growth. To richard and all involved, the best of success to you all. To the community, I say simply give it a
chance and embrace it. Good things are coming and you should be apart of it.
Regards, John Briggs
Retired XMB Contributor
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justjames
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Registered: 2-28-2003
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I can say there is much work to be done in bringing XMB to the forefront of the pack. I've stuck by XMB since '03 but have recently been looking at
other options for our large board. Nothing against XMB at all. Other forums out there have more ease of use/mod installs that we are looking at.
In defense of XMB, what we have looked at we passed on to folks here to see if we can get hacks written to improve the existing software.
As a long time user/installer of XMB I am curious as to the future of development and continuity of the folks behind the XMB scenes as well as the
developer community.
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Richard
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In the next few days we will be launching an IRC chat for anyone interested in speaking to the Aventure/iEntry team regarding future development and
ofcourse the change in ownership.
We will also be releasing dedicated sub-forums for user requests for future changes in the XMB software.
Thanks again for the comments so far!
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LANLocked
iEntry Liaison
Posts: 167
Registered: 3-13-2007
Location: Lexington, Ky.
Member Is Offline
Mood: Good. Real good.
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| Quote: | Originally posted by vanderaj
As an ex-Developer of XMB (primarily responsible for getting 1.9.1 out the door and many hundreds of security fixes), I am surprised that the "brand"
of an open source project is an item that can be sold to others, particularly as the vast majority of the work involved in building that brand is by
those who have never been paid for it (nor desired it to be paid).
Richard, I wish more of the community could have participated in this decision. I think the lack of consultation with the most to lose (or gain) will
further fracture the community. I have been contacted by many of the current and soon to be ex-developers here and they're all unhappy about it,
enough to fork the project yet again. This is a truly negative result of the lack of consultation with those who truly count: those who create XMB.
They don't do it for Aventure, they do it for the community. Not profit sharing with them is a huge mistake, and it will bite the new company with a
huge outflux of talent.
Despite this, I thank Aventure Media for their support (providing dedicated hosting for the project) and CVS trees etc over the last few years. I wish
the new company "acquiring" XMB all the best, but I think they may have bought a poisoned chalice through no fault of their own.
Andrew |
Andrew;
iEntry did not enter into this arrangement with the intention of "gutting" the XMB project. We are fully committed to maintaining this community in a
professional and open manner.
As I had mentioned earlier, our company primarily runs on Free and Open Source Software. We believe in the spirit of OSS and felt that taking an
active role in this project would be the best way we could give back to that community.
My goal at this point would be to meet all of the current developers of XMB and see where the community wants this project to go. I would really hate
to see a fork, especially this early in the transition; before we have been given any kind of chance to work with the community here and address the
issues that you may have.
I have heard mention of a fragmented community. What is it that needs to be done to unite the community again, as that seems to be more of a priority
at this point than addressing development issues.
I would like people to be excited about XMB. I want the staff to feel appreciated. I suspect I want many of the same things that you do.
Lastly, I am sincere when I say my door is always open. If you have issues, please contact me. I will do everything in my power to make things right.
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ndrake
iEntry Staff
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Location: Lexington, KY USA
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Hi vanderaj,
I am sorry you are upset and understand you need to be able to vent your feeling.
I more importantly understand that if it were not for the very Talented and Hard working people like yourself Andrew and other as well XMB would never
have become what it is today.
Please give me a chance to prove that we want to help take it to the next level of development and distribution.
I give you my word that I will make sure and find ways for everyone that works on this to get due credit for all their contributions.
Thanks,
Nathaniel
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Train
XMB Contributor
Posts: 5748
Registered: 7-15-2004
Location: I? Oh...uh....
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Mood: Songless
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| Quote: | Originally posted by ndrake
Please give me a chance to prove that we want to help take it to the next level of development and distribution.
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Everyone deserves one Nathan.
| Quote: |
I give you my word that I will make sure and find ways for everyone that works on this to get due credit for all their contributions.
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That's what I'm waiting to see!
I have high hopes that you guys can help make me interested again!
Train - Michael Ian Fraker
Ex-XMB Management
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dave
iEntry Staff
Posts: 1
Registered: 3-13-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Hi folks,
My name is Dave, and I'm another admin/programmer here at iEntry. All of us are really thrilled to be part of the XMB team, and our company is
absolutely committed to the continued success of the XMB forum software. Please feel free to contact me anytime via email or u2u.
Dave Hensley
System Administrator/Web Programmer
iEntry, Inc.
2549 Richmond Road, Second Floor
Lexington, KY 40509
Phone: (859) 514-2720
Fax: (859) 219-9065
http://www.ientry.com
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John Briggs
XMB Contributor
Posts: 2691
Registered: 2-12-2002
Location: Illinois
Member Is Offline
Mood: Great
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If I may inject some thought on what the community needs then here it is.
1. Proper management
2. Proper communication with the community and fellow staff
3. Be open minded and available to ideas, suggestions and discuss them before shooting people down (within fairness to development of course. Not all
things can be deliberated that way)
4. Keep development open and clearly communicated to the community. Knowledge is power and the more the community knows the more it progresses and
assists you the team and developers.
5. layout a road map for development.
6. Develop within a time frame that is suitable with the communication for the community. In other words, many commitments have been made but not met
due to various reasons.
People in this community are very viable and ready and willing to help and support all the above if it can come to light.
Retired XMB Contributor
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vanderaj
XMB Contributor
Posts: 1021
Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Columbia, MD, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Furry
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iEntry staff,
The best bet is to let time heal old wounds, but it's also important to note that XMB development has not stopped, it just moved. What would have
eventually become (in my mind) XMB 2.0 is at http://www.ultimabb.com/
Personally, I wouldn't be using XMB 1.9.x source as it's getting a bit old. It has been fixed for security issues, but it hasn't advanced as much as I
would have liked.
What is there today is actually much closer to XMB 1.10 would have been if we'd taken a fair amount of time to polish it.
A complete re-write of the old internals was on the cards for XMB 2.0. The UltimaBB lead dev is currently doing this with Code Ignitor as the
framework to add Ajax and modern underpinnings. He could certainly use some help, if he'll have it, or if John is willing to give up some control or
merge in some way. I don't speak for John and I don't know what he has in mind.
I suggest you touch base with John Briggs (project lead at UltimaBB), Martijn (their lead dev) and myself (as I'm interested under the right
circumstances), and a fair number of others already here to work out if there's something that can be done to bring the much improved code back
in-house. It's under the GPL, so with the right (C) notices, you could simply adopt it, but I think it would be best if it came with the best wishes
of the project itself.
UltimaBB is no longer my project. After leaving UltimaBB, I started GaiaBB with UltimaBB Beta 3 as my base as I need UltimaBB to be finished as I
have a large forum which depends on it.
The missing bits for UltimaBB to be released properly is a good installer and upgrade utility, and plenty of QA. It is far more scalable, secure and
feature rich than XMB 1.9.6 whilst still being an easy upgrade from XMB. Beta 3 - if finished - would make a fine XMB 1.10 and leave plenty of time
and resources to allow for a complete re-write or more substantial update to bring around XMB 2.0. Martijn has started over from scratch with Code
Ignitor as realistically, XMB's (and to a lesser extent, UltimaBB's) innards are old and creaky.
Or even if that's the right thing to do. Taking 1.9.6 to where UltimaBB is today will take a fair amount of time, but maybe that's what you want to
do. That's up to the devs here and what they have in mind. I'm just throwing it out there as I think it could bootstrap this change in a really
positive way and reduce the forks by one.
However, if the desire at XMB is to start over or work only with existing XMB code, you need to consider who is leaving and who is staying. I will let
those folks who have contacted me over the last week or so to announce themselves. I was surprised to be approached by so many current developers
after so many years on the outer, but I will be happiest if the XMB community can retain their services in one form or another.
Andrew
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