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[Arantor]

I’m not sure *you* use each and every single feature on offer either, but I’ll grant that you did answer my question. It’s not a useful or particularly helpful answer - it certainly doesn’t give me enough to work on to ever fix the problem, but it was technically what I asked for.

 

[Tracy]

I’m not sure *you* use each and every single feature on offer either, but I’ll grant that you did answer my question. It’s not a useful or particularly helpful answer - it certainly doesn’t give me enough to work on to ever fix the problem, but it was technically what I asked for.

Feel free to visit the site.. .you will see on my "main" one they are all (other than blogs, which I'm evaluating) in actual use., that way you don't have to be based upon your "feelers".. which simply puts paid to your statement. Hell, living in my philosophy... it's ALL available to be viewed by guests... so you don't even have to join to see it.
Granted.. I'm creating the content.. but guess what.. they are STILL in actual use for what they were designed (and extended) for.
The fact is... your "free" paid scripts (and their add-ons) will most likely NEVER be able to compete with the paid providers... the very nature of the user itself puts proof to that...those that tend to use free scripts trend to not want to be out any money, they prefer to get their "shit" for free. It is the RARE developer that will create the equivalent of any add-on I linked you to and give it to a user from free.

For the current "free" environ.... I'd have to point folks to SMF.. but as I said, I'm looking (even though it is a "play" domain for my second site) at going to a paid script for it. I simply haven't decided with path to pursue.

 

[Arantor]

OK, lesson learned, don’t even bother because it’ll never be anything other than second class.

On that note, have a good rest of your life.

 

[Tracy]

OK, lesson learned, don’t even bother because it’ll never be anything other than second class.

Do you want to argue with economics 101? The plain simple unvarnished truth is that the majority of people who are going to develop items like this are going to target making money. You many not want to acknowledge that.. but sometimes reality bites one in the ass.
Now, care to tell us where that money is most likely to lay? From a user of a free script who is most likely hosted on a low-end shared hosting provider (and wants to expend as little as possible) or from the user of a a paid script that is either SaaS or hosting on a higher end shared provider or VPS/dedi and is willing to pay for what they want (note, I did not say need).
You can try to "argue" all you want... but it's simply one argument you can't win. The developer who will offer (for free) the level of code equivalent to those that do it for payment are in the realm of finding hens teeth.
I realize you may tend to live in the land of "what I wish for what was"... but others of us live in the land of "what is".

 

[joelr]

So let me ask you this: would you also rule out phpBB, MyBB and SMF when ruling out ElkArte and Wedge? If not, why not? They also don’t meet your criteria for market conditions.

I consider phpBB, MyBB, and SMF to be much more satisfactory.

With that said, what's the market you would want to target or support?

 

[joelr]

OK, lesson learned, don’t even bother because it’ll never be anything other than second class.

On that note, have a good rest of your life.

I'm confused by this statement. Just because those projects are no longer updated doesn't mean your project needs to befall the same fate, right?

I'm almost certain that if you can offer a product that is highly comparable to paid products, you'll have a great audience. People always prefer free. Why use paid WinRAR when 7zip is just as good?