Web home status

I was just looking at http://www.webhome.org/ That project that Boonex announced a while back.  It doesn't seem like much progress has been made - I still couldn't find a registration system.  In fact, I don't see where they are really using Dolphin technology at all there - they have plans to integrate Wordpress apparently, but what I found interesting was the forum.  They aren't using Orca, apparently - it looks link phpBB in an iFrame, but I am not sure.

What bothers me about this project though, is they are giving OpenID - and other logins,  to their own project, but not to ours.  I think that should have been a priority with D7.

Been there done that....

I'm as interested in WebHome as I am in America's Got Talent after the auditions. If I want to aggregate content from another person's blog or web site, I'll use an RSS feed.

As for the forum being used on WebHome's web site, it's PunBB, formerly Vanilla.

@Dolphin Jay - been there done what?

@Magnussoft  - Thanks - I was just wondering why they aren't using Orca.

Really, I am just trying to figure out what is going on with Boonex - it almost seems as if they have lost interest in D7.

Andrew stated that from time to time, they work on these odd projects to remain interested in Dolphin. And are you honestly wondering why they aren't using Orca?

No, I am not wondering why they are not using Orca, but I am wondering why they have never weighed in on all the complaints about Orca over the years, or attempts to integrate other forum technologies - this just seemed like concrete evidence that they don't like it either.

Does anyone know - are they undergoing some kind of management change?  I know a few developers come here sometimes, but most of the Boonex staff has seemed quiet lately.

BoonEx has repeatedly launched and dropped projects over the years (see my related blog post for more information). As for any management changes, this seems doubtful, but it should never be ruled out. I know for a fact that there are only four developers working on Dolphin, so such a presence isn't expected too often (they've never been active here, anyways).

BoonEx must know by now that Orca is an inadequate forum solution, evident by the fact that they use other scripts such as Vanilla and PunBB on any of their other web sites when a forum is called for. I myself have been looking into integrating Vanilla into Dolphin to replace Orca for a long time.

@Caltrade - Andrew made an announcement that there was going to be an announcement about Orca soon - he said that the have some 'exciting news', but this was a few weeks back now, and like most things that Boonex promise, it hasn't eventuated.

Orca really isn't all that bad, sure it has some issues, and needs a little work, but it is very useable, and already integrated. Comparing it to other forums is like comparing apples to cheese - they are not the same thing at all. Most mainstream forums are trying their hardest to be a whole CMS solution all on their own, they are mostly just packed with lots of garnish and have lots of useless jewelery hanging from them. Orca is simply a forum, and nothing more - the other CMS type garnish is taken care of by Dolphin and it's other modules. I think sometimes, people lose sight of this.

@magnussoft - instead of constantly bagging it, why don't you release your updated version? / work towards improving it? I would be happy to put forward my updated orca code, and work on a collaborative version. I really don't think that I can be arsed to try and make cash from mods any more, there simply isn't a big enough market to make it worthwhile. So in this respect if I ever finish my branch of orca off, it will be free (as in beer).

As far as webhome is concerned - the only thing I can think of is tax scam. They are ready to throw $200K at it, yet it's gone nowhere. Plus they have already admitted to investing over $500k in Dolphin - which has also (relatively speaking) gone nowhere. I wonder where this money has actually gone?

/DM

Companies have invested money like that into Dolphin, and it's in the state it is now? HOLY CRAP. Dropping money like that with no results let alone a defined roadmap is baseball bat time, compliments of Marcellus. Sheesh.

It is not so much the money they have spent, it is their incredible lack of focus.  Theguypc did a really insightful comment here recently about how everytime it looks like we might make some progress, they make some surprise announcement of something they think is real cool, but is a major setback for us.  They like playing with new toys more than fixing what has already been built, and it is really too bad, because D7 could really be awesome with just a few more things working properly.

I'm working on a stand-alone distribution of Orca, not an enhanced module. While I do have plans to create some form of enhancements, this is not a priority at this time.