Is Nuke dying out?

registered · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 7:51 pm

I stepped out of the biz for about a year and just reinstalled RN on new personal site. I spent some time looking for all the sites where are the good Nuke stuff could be found only to find there's very few sites still left working with Nuke for modules, addons and support.
I expected most of them to be fly by night sites but even some of the most popular coders have disappeared.
Even RavenNuke has changed a bit and it's actually a good thing, it's almost not even Nuke anymore since it looks like many of the phpbb files have been moved from the Nuke root to the Forums module where they rightly belong. But now many of the old scripts aren't working and it'll take me some time to figure out what goes where again.
Anyway, the question still is, are there any coders still working on Nuke modules, building new ones, updating old ones, offering them for download...etc etc..
Or are we doomed to paying way too much money for the same scripts from vBulletin or IPB?
Any links to any sites still in the game would be great!
Thanks!

registered · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 8:02 pm

Many of the older modules and blocks can still work with RavenNuke 1 of 2 ways.

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Involved Joined: Jul 03, 2006 Posts: 273

To answer your question about the doomed I believe yes it is if current trends continue. Oh you'll have Raven and a couple decent places desperately hanging on to it using there false teeth as anchors while sitting in their nursing homes in the future but unless the community changes it will be doomed to an overall failure. The main reason too many people who get good enough to improve thngs either move on to already better systems or get gready and try to either make money everyway the can on it or hog the good code to themselves whining because people are stealing their work. What they don't realize is that you can't steal something that is supposed to be FREE!

But seriously you look around there are some sites that have made some cool stuff. Do they give it away? Nope the either hog for only their site or sell it and encode it forgetting what OPENSOURCE is supposed to be about. Now I am not saying people can't make a buck here or there but there are many ways to do it and keep open source active. But once a theme maker gets really good at making themes he stops releasing freebies and only sells. Once a coder decides to improve his site instead of sharing it back he hogs it. Or creates something and encodes it to sell instead of releasing it open so it can grow faster and better. Unless these trends and attitudes change Nuke (Raven or any other flavour) will remain an ever shrinking community.

These comments are not meant in disrespect to Raven or most of his helpers and community members that are still embracing the concept properly. But there are far too many out there that aren't and Raven and his small team need help or they'll never be able to keep up with changing technology and trends.

That's my $1000 (or 2 cents inflated at the same rate as most Nuke coders ego) worth of opinion. Laughing

Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 11:35 pm

Thanks for the links nuken...bookmarked.

And duck...totally agreed! And it makes me sick. As I got better at coding I developed scripts and addons and gave them to the sites that are now shut down and unfortunately the backups were on another hard drive..well you know the rest. 4 years of codes are gone. I didn't keep them on my site because I was a gaming site not a support site and I truly believed that anyone could afford 10 bucks a month for hosting and 10 bucks a year for domain name. And truly thought the world of Nuke was kinda like the Red Cross...we do it because we love it. That's why someone made a donations module and block and now we can't even get that without paying for it.

By no means have I ever been good enough to build the awesome mods that used to be available, but now that I'm back in the game I will certainly contribute again where I can.

To all those that bailed out and started charging....IT'S A HOBBY FOLKS! You will never create a myspace for facebook using the knowledge you've gained from open source nuke!

Wish me luck on catching up with RN...it's been the best open source Nuke CMS since all the forks started coming out (yes I remember them all and tried them all)
From what I've seen in the code so far...Raven made Nuke work like it's supposed to. I just hope the old coders come back and follow his lead.

registered · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:34 am

Just one comment regarding charging. Many of us have considered charging for our work for the sole reason that we need to pay for our expenses for our "HOBBY". The cause? People just take, take, take and give no donations. While some can support their hobby with other means, some cannot and need help.

One also needs to consider that for some, being on-line is their only livelihood for various reasons. I am not saying that "selling" *nuke-ware, but traffic and skills recognition can open doors in a market where there are millions of competing programmers for work.

Also, I can't help myself but make a comment regarding the "encoding" bit. Encoding isn't against the GPL, but they are required to make the source code available upon request. This is only a GPL comment and not a philosophical one as I agree with Duck, and encoding something that is required to be GPL is pointless. In fact, its more than pointless, it is actually a huge annoyance because as a site owner, I cannot easily tweak the code. I would always have to ask for the source code and what if they refuse (i.e., no understanding the GPL)... do I really have the means to fight them? Certainly not by way of time I don't.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 7:16 am

Quote:

using there false teeth as anchors while sitting in their nursing homes in the future

Great line Duck! Which reminds me that I forgot to ask my nurse to bring in my false teeth to the computer room this morning.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 12:03 pm

I do agree that some charging in some areas is warranted. Hey we all have mouths to feed and bills to pay and so yes making money is good. But there are lots of ways to do it and yet keep the activity alive. Yes many people take with no give back and it is disheartening to a degree but even the takers help a little cause the provide linkbacks and Activity stats so it's still good if they come.

Selling custom themes is good too cause users like to have a site that stands out from the rest but if you are a theme maker and you wanna sell themes also release some free ones from time to time cause there are 1000's of users who can't afford them but also want a system that's got choices. Those same users that can't afford right now once they develop a site may come back and BUY later. Also if you are a theme developer and making good money from your themes consider donating to the coders on sites. For without their code your themes are useless so encourage them to make better and greater variety of codes.

Coding is a harder one to make money from and still keep the community alive. Encoding your scripts creates all kinds of issues (not to mention Ravens comments) but also it really slows down community development and suddenly you got 4 different coders working on the same thing reinventing the wheel each taking a year or more to get the job done instead of those same 4 working on the one project together making it the best possible product in a 1/4 of the time.

But to make money as coder there are still options. (besides hiring yourself out for commercial projects) you can at least create simple versions of products and advanced versions and charge a small fee for the advanced. Or Put bounties on projects. Want a new Video play back module? Ok the coder puts a $400 bounty on the project (or whatever seems reasonable) and then everybody who's interested and can afford to donate something contributes to the bounty for everyone to enjoy it when it is done. This way any one person can contribute $5 or $20 or whatever they can afford to help push the completion of project forward.
There are some great ways to make money with Advertising as well. and the more FREE but useful and wanted stuff a site has the more visitors and the more visitors the higher the advertising rates and the greater chance for sales and commissions or click throughs etc.

Paid support systems can also help bring in money. Sure offer free support the usual way but people can also purchase SLA's that give them instant access to full support thereby resolving their issues quicker, eaiser and with less headaches and time searching for answers.

Advanced Release Clubs.
Ok let the new code co into a Clubs download for a month or 2 and Club users get the first crack at it? Not my favourite method but still can raise a lot of money sometimes and still keeps the system in place for keeping active growing community.

These are just but a few and of course there are many others. Don't forget things like Sponsorship and community prizes and give aways from larger companies that want to boost the area where you can win sometimes upto $25000 for the best system. But to get there the community has to be rising not falling.

I do see some site that have already got the things people are looking for and needing but noone is sharing their code. I do know that sometimes the reason for this is because they "Hacked it together" and are afraid releasing it publicly will show the holes in it or create support issues they don't have time for but you can still release it without support and let others try to improve it and clean it up if it has issues. The more there is to choose from or the closer to a goal some code brings us the more enthusiastically it will get done and the next project can get started.

I myself find it overwhelming from time to time looking at ALL the areas that need improvement and going d*** I'll have to pay for a new walker before I can get all that stuff done!

P.S. sorry for the short rambling novel!

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 1:03 pm

My opinion is Nuke just needs a jump start just like what RavenNuke is doing. PHPNuke probably is dead unless the new developers surprise everyone. RN has fixed so many issues that plagued nuke for so long. With security and support like this, some of the people will come back and help make this a great open source project.

registered · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 5:10 pm

I have to say a lot of good opinions here. I would say for a business solution I would never use nuke based system. Now for a community, hobby type of site, gaming etc. it is good. Having switched from php nuke to Raven, the security of Raven is just excellent!
Regarding the modules and addon's available to Raven, this is for now the weak link. The truth is there is some excellent people involved with Raven, and the guys that program and code for RavenNuke are great, but there are just so many of them, and they are usually very very busy people! so it is hard to get some things accomplished due to this even when one is willing to pay for modules, blocks and addons. Having said that the support here is incredible! so one can only be thankful!!! I suspect RavenNuke will go strong for many years...so I'll keep enjoying the ride Very Happy

jc

registered · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 7:05 pm

The Nuke Club was such a scam. Basically you got badly written, untested junk... with no support anyway. FB never really involved the community. The new "owners" of phpNuke also have never involved the community. They just sit back and let things linger. That is why phpNuke is going no where. Smile

registered · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 8:33 pm

Even though evaders99's comments sound cynical, there is no doubt to deny his comments.

They have no ears and hearts to listen to users.
Also, they don't have any idea to keep up with new progress of their critical modules. For instance, Journal module and bbtonuke module are not their work. They just stealed. So, their php-nuke name goes nowhere.

registered · Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 9:47 am

There is more of a technical reason for nuke's demise as well. For starters the forum system is no longer officially supported. For all intents and purposes its dead.

Nuke's base code is awful. It's slow, poorly written, and in many ways insecure. Though the RN team, I, and a few others have gone a long way at correcting these issues there becomes a point where you can't keep pushing it.

If you ask most of the coders that left that didn't want to make $ that's the reason they usually give. The code sucks. I used to hate going into PHP forums and mentioning I work on Nuke. I would have to defend working on Nuke against the wave of hate for the coding.

That's why I have drifted away from Nuke.

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

I have to disagree with much of the discussion here - mostly about the future. But before I go into that, duck, thanks for the positive discussion on ways to increase funding.

I've seen a steady stream of new ideas, approaches and addons come in over the years, and I don't see that trending down. For examples, see jestrella's and nuken's recent works, not to mention palbin's efforts to eradicate every possible issue and fkelly's quest for documentation clarify and perfection. I'll let technocrat speak for Nuke Evolution and bluerace speak for Enterprise Nuke, but here are my thoughts on that: technocrat, you've contributed many great addons over the years - you should never need to defend that. I challenge any of those naysayers to deliver half of what you've done for their chosen systems! bluerace, you're working on some great addons right now (including updated forums integration) - keep up the good work!

For purposes of discussing the future, I'll ignore PHP-Nuke (without forgetting that, for all it's warts and issues, it got us here and is a major reason all the other systems exist) and focus on RavenNuke.

The RN development team (which continues to grow) has either addressed or is addressing every significant issue and request. New ideas continue to pour in (many from young contributors), and, though not necessarily tomorrow, eventually get added. There is a great tradition among Nuke developers: passing the leadership / ownership of addons, modules, etc. from one Internet generation to the next. Maybe the other systems don't have this because they've only seen one generation, or maybe it's because Nuke-based systems have more open source contributions. Maybe it's the flexibility of the code that allows webmasters to get things done without needing an advanced information systems degree.

These supposedly "better" systems have weaker community support than does RN and / or a higher percentage of commercial addons. ANY open source project will deal with ego, funding, support and motivation issues, including those with commercial support. Expecting anything else of any open source project isn't realistic.

So please, if you really want to pee in the well, find another well. We have too much work to do to have to worry about that, too!

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 12:08 pm

I guess I should rephrase my earlier comment to read "kguske and a few others will be hanging on with their false teeth as anchors from their nursing homes in the future" hehe!

But I do admire Nuke for one advantage over most others. Its simplicity. I often get lost trying to find my way around the interfaces of many of the others. I do see some of the advantages of their design that brings the complexity but I get a little frustrated at scratching my head sometimes going "Where the heck do I do that?".

Despite RN and some others excellent efforts at improving a messy system it is still a long long way from being as efficient and improved as it could be. There are still hundreds of lines of duplicate and unoptimized code and eventually one day the beast needs to change to resemble nothing it once did. But would it be easier to just start from scratch or continuing to add/subtract/patch as you go? I have a feeling the latter method will leave you in a dead end alley one day with no way to turn.

However RN in its current incarnation is quite a different beast then once was already so who really knows? Only time will tell.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 12:16 pm

duck, you missed my point. If you try to find the optimized, clean system of your dreams, you will have false teeth before you do.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 3:38 pm

There is no prefect CMS. All I have seen or tried have security issues that require patches. Most have the same basic features. They are only as good as the community and developers that support them. I will agree that some have over taken nuke based cms in style and addons in the past few years. That is no reason to believe RavenNuke will not rise to the surface as the cream of the crop.
Reasons:

Clear plan of development.
Priority on standards compliance.
Speed and security are at the forefront of development.
Support second to none.
User friendly CMS.
Clear documentation.
It works like we always wished Nuke did.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 3:55 pm

This is a guy I admire for his stance on promoting OPENSOURCE.

Some can be learned from his viewpoints though I am not sure I fully agree with his recent rigidity in the issues but it also might actually make some more people think which could be good.

It's a long interview but worth listening too in the background when you have time.

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Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 3:59 pm

kguske, I guess that proving that every module can be separated from the kernel is a huge step in raven's future.

I agree with you on the community part , even if some nuke distros are dying because of the dictatorship of some Dev's.I'm not framing anyone but some people are really pissing me off in the nuke world.I really suspect some people here who fled from these forums pretending never been affiliated.Which is perfectly understandable.

duck, you missed the whole point of Raven setting up this forum. Not only that Raven doesn't know everything (or quite close Razz

) he's offering other people's knowledge Very Happy

The perfect example is that bb3ToNuke project , or some other I've seen here. So to rephrase it correctly :"duck and everyone from ravenphpscript will be hanging on with their false teeth as anchors from their nursing homes till they get bored."

RavensScripts

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 4:18 pm

eldorado,

Not sure what you meant about proving that every module can be separated from the kernel or how it relates to this discussion...

...but your point on leadership is well taken. Raven refers to it as "the benevolent dictator," and it accurately describes what's needed: someone whose ego doesn't get in the way, but is willing to make a tie-breaker decision when a consensual decision can't be reached.

duck,

Thanks for the link on Matt Mullenweg. I haven't seen this, but will take a look when I get a chance - always good to hear different viewpoints on that subject.

Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:40 am

kguske wrote:

eldorado,

Not sure what you meant about proving that every module can be separated from the kernel or how it relates to this discussion...

nvm

I was merely referring to the first post about bb2nuke having all it's file in the same folder and your post at the same time.

duck, thats a nice interview.

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Great stuff! I was unaware this discussion was even taking place. My bad.

Btw, just for clarification, the News image of the Time magazine cover asking the question "Is phpnuke dead" was added a few week's ago and seriously was meant as humor, albeit a bit dry I suppose. Should I remove it? Don't hesitate to state your mind ( as if this group ever is Wink

). Should I replace it?

I have more to share concerning this overall topic but I need to gather my thoughts first. Keep up the discussion!

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 2:36 am

Why would you want to remove the image? phpNuke has been a dead project 'officially' for over two years since ownership changed hands, nothing controversial there Smile

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:42 pm

Quote:

ust one comment regarding charging. Many of us have considered charging for our work

Totally agree with montego. Nuke is more than a hobby and lots of people are not serious about the hard work and the time being behind the computer fixing and creating new stuff.

My idea is to make Raven Nuke more powerful and in order to download it u need to be a subscriber so u need to pay a small amount of money to get it so people take into account the value of many hours and efforts.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:13 pm

I´m for a mix between a paid and a free support and think this will work.

New Member Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 13

yeah i agree with Susann but i think finding the balance or what to charge for is the problem,

Charging for theme upgrades is a good thing i think if they are designed for another CMS

or evan blocks or modules that are for other CMS packages

thats where i would start if i was to charge for help.