Roadmap

This is the global roadmap for the UseBB project.

UseBB 1.0 (PHP 4)

UseBB 1.0, written in PHP 4.1+, was released in July 2006. Since our main focus has shifted to UseBB 2 (see below), 1.0 remains under limited development:

security fixes
normal bugs and error fixes
limited changes in funtionality

UseBB 1.0 will not receive any new functionality, except under the form of critical changes (and modifications or ACP modules, which remain officially unsupported).

Support for UseBB 1.0 will continue at least until a yet to be decided number of months after the release of UseBB 2.0.0. PHP Group's PHP 4 support officially ended 2007-12-31 (2008-08-08 for security fixes).

UseBB 2.0 (PHP 5)

The goal of the UseBB 2 project is to replace the current old codebase with a new one written in object oriented PHP 5. It also includes a new development model, website and shift from CVS to Subversion. In short, 2.0 is the first big renovation of the UseBB project in over three years.

Development of the 2.0 codebase started in the summer of 2006 and restarted in September 2007 after analysis and planning changes. A few highlights include (this list is not definitive, changes may occur):

>95% object oriented PHP 5.2
PDO based database layer, with initial support for MySQL, possibly also SQLite
Template parser abstraction (PHP based templates by default)
Database powered session system, supporting IPv6
Flexible subforums instead of categories/forums
Cron (scheduling) system
Extended I18N possibilities: UTF-8, auto-detection, plural forms, RTL support
Plug-in/modules system
Threaded topics
etc.

A complete and definite feature list for 2.0 is not (yet) available at this time.

Accessing the Sources

The sources can be found in our SVN repsoitory at https://usebb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/usebb. To checkout the current trunk for UseBB (2), use:

svn co https://usebb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/usebb/trunk/UseBB

There is also a web interface and commits mailing list available.

Submitting Patches

You are free to submit patches under the GNU GPL 3. Please read the new coding guidelines first, and send your patches to either:

If you wish to continuously help in the development, please contact us!

Releases To Come

We expect the following public releases to occur:

2.0 alpha/beta x: targeted at completing planned functionality
2.0 RC x: targeted at fixing as many bugs as possible
2.0.0: first supported production release
2.0.x: bugfix releases
2.x: continued development of the v2 codebase

A specific time for these releases is not given (WID - When It's Done). Please do not ask for an estimated release date at this time.

Upgrade Path

An upgrade path will be foreseen for UseBB 1 users to migrate to UseBB 2.0 without data loss. However, we cannot yet make sure all character sets can be converted successfully.

Other Changes

Other changes in the UseBB 2 project include:

New project logo and colours
New website (expected with 2.0.0 release)
- Documentation wiki
- API documentation
- Separate bug tracking system
- Resources database (expected in the long term)
New development team organization
Shift from CVS to Subversion (SVN)

More Information

UseBB 2.x discussion forum: Give your ideas and comments on the new system, website, etc.
Feature requests: All feature requests are welcome here.
UseBB-Development mailing list: General and in particular UseBB 2.0 development mailing list.
Development updates blog: Updates on UseBB 2.x development.

The Future

In the future, we hope to continue the development of the 2.0 codebase for 2.x releases. Postponed features for 2.0 will be moved to 2.1 or later versions.

What concerns PHP 6, everything is still rather vague, so we don't comment on this part yet.