What's a good open source forum?

[dragos240]

Ohai,

What's the best open source forum? Please don't recommend phpbb, as the security of it worries me.

[RiceMonster]

Don't tell me you're going to host a web forum on a netbook

[dragos240]

I did before. With SMF, but I'm not 100% sure that's open source.

[Viva]

There is nothing wrong with PhpBB, some of the biggest forums on the internet use it. SMF is good too, although it is not Free software.

[AllRadioisDead]

I think mybb is open source now.

[pat23_2007]

http://punbb.informer.com/

PunBB?

[kevin11951]

MyBB is always my choice... It functions alot like vbulletin (the software this forum is based on), and is very simple to manage.

[Greg]

1) PHPBB has seen great security increases since the 3 version. It should remain a possibility- don't eliminate it for that reason. It does, however, require more work for a more standard BB- for instance, there's no AJAX by default.
2) SMF is indeed open source, but is under their own license. SMF 2.0 RC2 came out recently, and has some nice features. The built in mod browser from their online repository is a cool feature, for instance. My biggest hate on SMF is that so many themes are very, very ugly. For a while I had never seen a good one, but they are out there- just rare. If you want a good theme, it requires a bit of digging, or doing it yourself.
3) MyBB is GNU/GPL, but there have been some disputes over some premium (closed source) plugins and they've been considering a move to a lesser license, such as the LGPL. MyBB is indeed vBulletin-like and many really love it. However, like vB it's a bit on the slow side (not noticable always, though).

There are others out there- check out forummatrix for software comparisons.

[Bachstelze]

I did before. With SMF, but I'm not 100% sure that's open source.

Nope.

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/opensource.php


However you may not:

1. Modify the copyright notice displayed.
2. Redistribute the forum/software itself, without written permission.


PhpBB is my personal favourite.

[coldReactive]

OvBB:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OvBB

You'll want to check the discussion page for some modifications that were made.

[hoppipolla]

MyBB is my solid favourite :)

(I tried out loads and settled on MyBB with barely any hesitation! It does have a few bits and pieces that aren't perfect but for the most part it's pretty cool!)