[Roy]

We are getting closer to the release of PHPBB3 now and hopefully this is the last testing fase for it, i myself expect PHPBB3 to be released sometime in late April early to mid May but like i said it depends on if there is any further tests needed.

You can read the full story at HERE

[admin (no pm's please)]

So nearing the end of beta testing and then on to release candidates by which time the upgrade path will be supported. The upgrade from 2->3 is available for the first time but is not guaranteed as compatible with the first release candidate.
Pretty large list of bugs as well in the change logs.

My bet for an actual release would be June, but Roy is following this closer than me.

You might well ask why I am not following it that closely? and the reasoning is simple, we know will be able to offer phpbb3 having tested it on an earlier beta. All the forums management systems are in fact now in possession of a switch that would make them create phpbb3 forums.

But we can do little else until the final release is made, at which point we will start reimplementing phpbb3 with the aim of having it on release here about a month later. I figure a month is long enough any serious cracks to show and for early adopters to suffer the pain

[Roy]

I think your right Admin, lets look at what will happen.

1st PHPBB is the biggest forum software out so millions of people are out there waiting for the release of PHPBB3, why well many people are saying its going to be better than Invision Boards which will be nice if its true, and might even be able to compete against VBulliten which i'm not really a big fan of due to them over charging for what is really nothing special, but i hope PHPBB3 does turn out to be as good as everyone hopes.

2nd well as i saw when PHPBB3 was in stage 1 of beta testing there was several hosts offering them and i created one for testing resons anyway now when you look for a PHPBB3 host you will see that there is only one and for obviouse reasons i can't give you a link but i did test there forum out and all i think is its a PHPBB2 forum with hacks to make it look like a PHPBB3 forum.

3rd so PHPBB3 is released and most if not all the hosts see this as a time to cash in on all the people looking to create one, think of America, remember your history lessons, it was known as the land of dreams due to all the money you could make and all the land you could own etc, well thats what all these hosts will be doing all fighting saying they offer the best forums with all these mods pre installed.

4th after a short while thousands of people will have a PHPBB3 forum and some perhaps will not find any problems but some where there will be something that slipped through and all these hosts that have tryed to takew advatage of this land of dreams will be bombarded with questions about there problems.

So i say rather than MFF offering PHPBB3 forums straight away it would be better if our own tests was done, i mean there's a few people who have forums that they will never use again and rather than waiting for them to get nuked they could be used for upgrading to PHPBB3 where tests could take place to make sure all went well, after a few weeks or months MFF would be able to offer much better PHPBB3 forums as the staff will not only have got to know them inside and out but also will be able to relax knowing most of the known issues that everyone else on other hosts is experiencing have been sorted out or are close to been sorted out.

I have about 3 forums which when PHPBB3 is released i will upgrade 1 to it and then use that as a test site then after a few weeks when most if not all the bugs that have been spotted would have been sorted out, i would upgrade the next to see if these problems still exsist or not and if any new ones can be found that might of slipped past.

[admin (no pm's please)]

Well our phpbb3 system is geared to allowing people to tets drive their forum in phpbb3 before going fully over to it. e.g. they can see a version of their forum in phpbb3 whilst keeping their working forum.

[CodyT07]

[admin (no pm's please)]

[Roy]