Buy or lease UBB licence?

[pc]

Did everyone that uses UBB buy or lease? I don't know if mine will be used that much, but I suppose buying the license would be the best option.

Just curious what everyone else did.

Also, I installed the freebie one with no problems. Is the reg version any harder to install? CGI newbie here....

Oops! I can't correct the subject line. I really can spell LICENSE. ;) I'm tired is my excuse, as it was a long night of storms and my 4 year old "supposedly" sleeping in the bed with us. I'm still counting how many bruises I have on my ribs from his fidgeting. ;)
[This message has been edited by pc (edited 06-05-99)]

[pc]

Justin,
Any specific reason you recommend leasing?

[Justin]

Well, I suppose it depends on your intended usage. Here's a rundown of what and why for a couple of different situations - if you:

1) Plan on the site only being around for a year or less, you should lease because it's cheaper.

2) Plan on the site being around for a while AND you like to keep the newest version, you should lease because it's cheaper to renew the lease than to purchase another licence (either way you get upgrades for only one year).

3) Plan on the site being around for a while and you DON'T care about keeping the newest version, then purchase and it's good forever. But, when a new version comes out a year or more later and it has some must-have features, you're stuck with buying a new licence...

All in all, I recomend leasing - if your site (or at least the ubb) isn't popular enough after a year, you spent less money - and if it is, you will probably want to keep the latest version... it just seems to make more sense that way, especially when you're not sure what you will do with it in a year.

Just MHO :)

Oh, and Charles - stop poking me!!! ;)

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support
[This message has been edited by Justin (edited 06-05-99)]

[Charles Capps]

*pokes Justin a few more times*

Data in your #3 is out of date, as Ted now allows purchased license holders a year more of updates for $25.[nbsp][nbsp]:)
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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[pc]

Thank you both for your interesting arguments. Are you brothers? ;o)

Justin,
I plan on the site being around forever and being bigger than Yahoo! Bill Gates will beg to sponsor it, which I will refuse, of course.

But ... maybe not.

Thanks for your opinion.

Update... I decided to lease and I actually have this thing up and running. Still tweaking a bit though. A big thanks to the person that wrote the nice UBB tutorial on AOTA.net.
[This message has been edited by pc (edited 06-06-99)]

[Justin]

Lease lease LEASE!!! IMO, that's the only way...

As for installation, just remember to use the sendmail option, and put /usr/lib/sendmail for the path to sendmail (the freebie has no mail functions). Other than that, it's about the same.

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Charles Capps]

When I bought my license, I leased, as I couldn't afford the purchased one at the time.[nbsp][nbsp]When the license expires next month, I'll be purchasing a license to replace it.[nbsp][nbsp]:)

It all sort of depends on how much you want to pay, and if you think the board will catch on within a year, etc.[nbsp][nbsp]Just use your best judgement.[nbsp][nbsp]Just remember that you'll likely pay about a third more next year for another year license!

The full version isn't that hard to install once you've gotten the free version under your belt - just remember to follow the instructions and submit the variables in the proper order, you'll be fine.[nbsp][nbsp]:)

*edit*[nbsp][nbsp]*pokes Justin*[nbsp][nbsp]Stop that![nbsp][nbsp]*L*[nbsp][nbsp]Right now I'd rather just pay $25 a year to get an extention on the upgrade ability than pay $67 this year and probably at least $80 next year.
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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/[nbsp]
[This message has been edited by Charles Capps (edited 06-05-99)]

[Charles Capps]

Justin is NOT my brother, though...[nbsp][nbsp]We're all sorta siblings here at FQ....[nbsp][nbsp]:D
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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[Beckles]

Even accounting for the fact you can purchase another year of support for $25 on bought licenses, it still takes about three years of leases to equal three years of purchases (including $25/year for maintenence after the first year).[nbsp][nbsp]Three years is a looooooooong time on the internet ...

[Mandi]

We lease . . . I just couldn't front the purchase price, and at the time, the details about "extending" your purchase into a second year were kinda fuzzy.

[Beckles]

At the risk of being blasphemous, you may want to take a look at a freeware product that is very similar to UBB at:

http://www.ultrascripts.com/UltraBoard/

[Bi4Be]

. old - general discussion post
[This message has been edited by Bi4Be (edited 02-16-01@9:35 pm)]

[SneakyDave]

I agree with leasing. And although I really like UltraBoard and its installation, it just recently got a support board, and has a few bugs, not to mention a slew of grammatical errors and search feature not working correctly. I think its more of a resource hog than UBB also, but these are just my opinions. I'll probably start using other "free" ones in the future.

[frankc]

pc 'n others, this is a not-uncommon question. I myself asked it last year before I bought my first two UBBs, and here's my line of thinking on it.

LEASE
Lease a UBB if you have a brand-new idea for using a UBB but have no idea as to how popular it may/may not be. Some take off like a rocket; others languish and you visit it more than the prospective users. The one-year lease will let you test the waters, and you get all updates during that year. If it takes off, buy a license and then, after that year, re-up for access to the Members Area (see below).

PURCHASE
Purchase a UBB if you have an existing BB that's getting good visit numbers or if you just *know* it'll do well. After the first year, renew the subscription for access to the Members Area for just $25 (current rate).

Man, I had to dig to find this, but here's the scoop on a subscription to the Members Area (for full license owners only): http://www.ultimatebb.com/home/subscriptcenter.shtml.

Price both methods out (lease/purchase/update/update/update vs purchase/update/update/update/update) for one through five years.

That's just my line of thinking; hope it's helpful!

There are other issues, tho.[nbsp][nbsp]The UBB code seems to be[nbsp][nbsp]getting mighty messy, and the last few updates seem to have had more bugs than normal; that scares the snot out of me, and I've chosen to stick at 5.34a.[nbsp][nbsp]For my third BB, I chose Discus; out of the box it's got most of the needed features; for $99, it adds what UBB has and more, and seems to be MUCH more stable.[nbsp][nbsp]Doesn't have the nice look 'n feel of UBB, but the coming upgrade is supposed to allow for more control over that.
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Frank
Hosanna! Lutheran Church[nbsp][nbsp]www.hosannachurch.com (http://www.hosannachurch.com)