Re: Anyone familiar with "aspforums"?

["Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>]

Steven Owens wrote:

 But what bugs me is that assumed
>causal relationship - "because it is freeware there is no support
>available."  In fact, the lack of support is probably not at all
>related to the fact that it's free software.  Now I'm afraid I have to
>go off on a rant (not directed at you personally, of course) about the
>myth of technical support being available (let alone better) for
>commercial software.

Not taking it as directed at me. And I agree with you. In the case of aspforums, though, they are upfront about announcing that they are not offering support for it. They do provide a discussion forum, but nobody with expertise participates.



[much snipped]
>
>     Finally with the source available, somebody who knows programming
>can crack open the code and figure out what's going on if there's a
>bug in mission-critical software.  This is not always a "last resort",
>either, sometimes it's the *first* thing I check!  And while having to
>publish the source doesn't guarantee cleaner and more understandable
>code, it certainly encourages it.
>

Actually, the code is so clean and readable that I am reasonably certain there are no bugs to fix. It is well documented internally, and the user documentation provided on the site is more thorough than most. I assumed from the beginning that the problem is something I'm doing wrong, and I was just looking for someone to help me figure out what it is. If I thought the software were buggy, I would have continued to seek out more options.


>     If you're interested in finding some forum software for your
>site, I suggest you surf over to http://thinkofit.com/webconf/index.htm 
>read up on the different options. 

I'm pretty sure that's where I found this one. It really does meet all my requirements, once I get it implemented right. And all of the other packages I looked at--whether commercial or free software--left something to be desired: wrong platform, inflexible options, beta release, requirement for visible branding and link to their site, ... 

Anyway, Steve, thanks for your comments.

Dick

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