Phorum

Infobox Software
name = Phorum
developer = Phorum Development Team
latest_release_version = 5.2.8
latest_release_date = release date|2008|07|29
platform = PHP
genre = Forum software
license = Phorum License (BSD like)
website = [http://www.phorum.org/ www.phorum.org]

Phorum is an open source message board system written in PHP.

History

In April 1998, Brian Moon developed three scripts that would meet the basic needs of [http://dealmac.com/ deal-mac.com] . With 30 days of testing, the code was prepared enough to put into production. It was named WebThreads, though this name was later found to collide with another, similar product. The name Phorum came from combining "PHP" and "forum". It was released under the GPL, though it would later be changed to the Phorum license, a BSD style license.

As dealmac.com grew, the demands for the software grew. Brian had already begun writing Phorum 2.0. However, upon a review of the code, 2.0 was clearly not able to scale to dealmac.com's needs. This led to dealmac.com hiring Brian Moon to create what would become Phorum 3.0. The site owners were very open to open source. Initially, Phorum 3 was developed primarily by Brian Moon with some help from Jason Birch of [http://www.barnonedrinks.com/ Bar-None Drinks] .

In 2000, [http://www.langille.org/ Dan Langille] joined the Phorum team and has concentrated on maintaining the PostgreSQL code.

In 2001, Thomas Seifert of [http://www.mysnip.de MySnip.de] came on board, contributing an internal user system in Phorum. Previously, Phorum had relied on external user systems for user management.

Version 4 was never realized due to several problems with the direction of the code. Brian and Thomas instead started version 5, which was focused on speed and extensibility. This release made the product comparable to other offerings.

In September 2005, Maurice Makaay of [http://www.gitaar.net Gitaar.net] joined the Phorum team, contributing an easier to use message posting system and code for improving the Phorum module system. The Phorum module system provides a very flexable solution for implementing extra features and a lot of new features have been implemented as easy to install and use modules.

Phorum 5.2.x is the current stable branch as of this writing. Many changes were made to 5.2 versus 5.1 including a new template and the addition of a documented API for developing other applications for use with Phorum. The

In recent history, Phorum has been installed on websites such as [http://forums.mysql.com/ MySQL.com forums] .

See also

* Comparison of Internet forum software

External links

* http://www.phorum.org/