As quite a few of you are aware, Infopop has changed its policy allowing modification of any new freeware version UBB's downloaded from its website. I do not know when exactly this took place, but most likely in the last week. You cannot modify in any way the freeware version of UBB, it is for testing purposes only.

Those of you who already have freeware UBB's are still able to modify your files under the old policy, but no-one can modify new downloads, period.

This came about for several reasons... mostly, because the "modifications" found in most freeware databases were apparently code lifted straight from full version UBB software.

I am at least partially at fault for not paying that much attention to the freeware forums. We are making some changes here to address this.

- The freeware forums will be re-opened, but the admins (and freeware moderators) will be monitoring more closely what is happening there.

- The freeware database will remained closed until it is sorted out, the good from the bad. This may take a while, please be patient.

- While we are not the UBB Police (and Infopop has stressed on more than one occasion that they aren't asking us to be the IP), we will not hesitate to delete the threads and user accounts of those who push us on this. Your board will also be reported to Infopop and your ISP.

Thank you for being patient (well, most of you anyways), but I hope you can understand our position and Infopop's right to protect their intellectual property. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Allen Ayres
Admin - ubbdev.com

!!!.. This sucks.. (I'm a freeware hacker, most of you already knew that) I bet all the best hacks are taken from the Licensed version.

There is no way to distinguish a previously hacked freeware to a newly hacked freeware. BAD IDEA!

------------------
Da Wannabe Cannuck

what's your gripe atom?

------------------
-david
<FONT size="1">I stand on my head and watch it all go away.</FONT s>

Well, he is right... not all the freeware 2000d are under that new liscence..... ah well!

------------------
My Site

My Board

<FONT COLOR="#6699cc" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by zanardi on October 02, 2000 at 09:24 PM</font>

the main gripe is very simple.. infopop have closed the stable door after the horse has bolted.. there are lots of perfectly legit horses out there.. but this will soon be forgotten and infopop wont be overkeen to remind folks that up until now it was not just perfectly okay to hack freeware boards.. but it was actively encouraged..

the open ended structure of ubb is the very thing that has made it so popular..

i have done my bit to promote infopop.. over the past year i have been running a ubb board that peeked at over 50000 page hits a night.. site politics forced a move..he he.. i now have a little freeware board.. which i shall keep and continue to "improve"..

my little board..

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mrog100//forums.html

trog

This is a major wrong decision by Infopop. Freeware hacking takes time and effort, a lot of it. It's not something that the average customer is going to do. Most people who have the time to do this are not going to be people who would shell out $200 for a bulletin board (e.g., me). I doubt Infopops sales will go up because of this; if anything they will go down.

------------------
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Garrett Nelson, Webmaster, Cognition
"If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off."

Finally! Thanks garrettnelson. Someone sees it the way I do!

------------------
My Site

My Board

Garret -- It takes alot of time and effort for me to plan to rob a bank...Does that make it alright for me to do that?? That is EXACTLY what freeware hacking is. Infopop doesn't provide the freeware version to be used, it is only for testing to see if UBB would work on your server. I am supirsed it has taken them this long to do anything about it, and they still aren't doing enough.

------------------
Da Wannabe Cannuck

The whole reason this started was that Ted came across a Freeware on which someone had hacked in nearly every feature that was in the licensed.

What do you think YOU would have done in that position? I'd have done the same thing that he did. There's a difference between the honorable code hackers that are just trying to make it better, and the dishonorable ones that just tried to get something for nothing. It's the latter that has caused this decision.

Exactly... when Infopop downloaded 30 freeware "hacks" and found most of them had code lifted verbatim from licensed code, that's when the poopies hit the spinning blade round thing... those who "wrote" those "hacks" did it to the community, not Infopop.

------------------
Allen

- http://www.stand318.com