[dot] KDE Launches User Forums

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1223822418/

From: Sebastian Kuegler <sebas at kde.org>
Dept: chit-chat
Date: Sunday 12/Oct/2008, @07:40

KDE Launches User Forums
========================

   The KDE Community today launches the new KDE Forum
[http://forum.kde.org]. The new forum uses the bulletin board software
MyBB [http://www.mybboard.net/] offering users, developers and people
interested in KDE a place to help each other, discuss KDE-related topics
and exchange ideas. The KDE Forum complements KDE's UserBase
[http://userbase.kde.org], the home for KDE users as a valuable support
resource.



                               THE FORUMS

     The forum offers a number of categories

    * Forum lists announcement and has a section for
      providing feedback about the forum.
    * In News Releases you can discuss the latest and
      greatest KDE news, and even follow commits to the KDE codebase in
      real time.
    * The largest category is for Users, different KDE
      apps and modules are covered in the sub-forums here.
    * The Operating Systems category gives those
      seeking to discuss platform-specific issues a place to post to.
    * Want to get feedback about your code? Need to get more detailed
      explanations of a certain topic? The  Developers
      section is there for you.
    * The Other Languages has pointers to local KDE
      Forums. These forums are not part of the "KDE Forums" proper,
      but nevertheless a place you might find answers to your questions
      and like-minded people.

     The KDE Forums admins have set the structure up as a starting
point. Sub-communities or interesting parties can request their own
subforum. The KDE Forum team is working on integrating the new KDE Forum
with KDE's existing infrastructure by means of IRC bots that can
announce new threads and posts on IRC channels, by briding forum posts
to mailinglist messages and by offering RSS feeds.



                          MYBB RELEASED AS GPL

     In collaboration with KDE, the developers behind MyBB have decided
to release [http://community.mybboard.net/thread-38942.html] their forum
software under the terms of the GPL Version 3. Chris Boulton, project
manager at the MyBB Group said "The KDE forum guys have come to us with
the wish to use our forum software. In this process, we needed to clear
out our licensing to make it easier for the KDE community to make use of
MyBB. As a result of that, we have now released the MyBB forum under the
terms of the GPL. This was very well-received by the community around
MyBB". Entirely in the spirit of Free Software, the KDE Forum team has
already contributed a number of plugins for MyBB, supporting the
decision taken by the MyBB team.

     Rob la Lau, initiator and administrator of the KDE Forum adds
"We've chosen MyBB as it stands out head and shoulders above other
candidates we have considered to adopt for the new KDE Forums. We know
that a good piece of software makes a lot of difference to the user,
after all we want to create a nice place for everybody to chat about KDE
and related questions."

     Sebastian Kügler, member of the KDE e.V. Board of Directors
explains where the new KDE Forum fits into KDE communication
infrastructure, "We've come to believe that mailinglist don't cut it for
all users. KDE becoming increasingly widely used should also offer  a
place for those that aren't familiar with the use of e-mail for such
discussions. The new KDE Forum complements KDE's new end-user knowledge
base Userbase that was launched last month. At the same time, we're
really happy to see that after our request the MyBB team has decided to
release their forum software under the terms of the GPL".

     So get your account and join the discussion now.