christicehurst let me begin by saying how much I appreciate seeing your post and your candor in response to the OP. I believe the true sign of a healthy community is open and honest discourse, and your post has helped to demonstrate how healthy the community here on Flarum happens to be. Additionally, I want to let you know that I recognize the frustration of yourself and others concerning the timeline of the project, as I can't imagine waiting more than four years for a product to move out of beta.
That said, though I do my best to refrain from sharing my personal opinion in a public forum, I felt that I needed to respond to some of your points. As I lack many of the fundamental programming skills needed to truly contribute to the platform, I feel this is a small way that I can give back to the community.
Firstly I would like to respond to your comment
christicehurst Yes everyone here is volunteers and people love to pull that excuse but it comes to a time when you can't keep using that.
While again I appreciate your candor in expressing your opinion, I would like for you to consider that over the lifetime of Flarum's development there have been three primary contributors to this project, who have (combined) contributed 80% of the more than 3000 commits. These contributions were in addition to their time spent working on platforms including esoTalk, Flagrow, FluxBB, Tenancy, and Laravel, alongside full-time jobs, school, family obligations and I am sure many other projects that they do not advertise online. While I can certainly understand your frustrations, to critique their (and the other 58+ contributors) prioritization of such a valuable commodity (i.e. time) as an "excuse" seems to be extremely misguided. Additionally, while they have not gained any funds from their time on the project, neither has anyone here or elsewhere ever had to pay a dime to access their work.
Secondly, I would like to respond to the question
christicehurst My question is why would anyone trust to buy his new forum board software and use it when his resume shows Flarum - a unfinished forum software project that never got to a final 1.0 version after four years?
While Flarum certainly has had an lengthy development roadmap, I would encourage anyone looking at his resume to check out esoTalk, Toby's original forum platform. The development from esoTalk to Flarum has been an exceptional accomplishment, and I believe that any future client or user of Toby's new platform would be able to see both the quality of his work and his commitment to continued growth and community building. Additionally, in terms of the question of trust, I am sure you are aware during the last few years Toby has been tirelessly working towards completing his education to become an Australian physician. While I realize that the worlds of medicine and software development are not at all the same, I can imagine that someone who is entrusted with the lives of others can probably be entrusted with the development of a quality piece of software.
While I am sure there will inevitably be fallout from this post, I hope that everyone reading this will take a few minutes to consider voicing their negative opinions towards this platform or the individuals involved in its development. Though everyone is entitled to their opinion, this team is making huge strides to creating a new generation forum platform, and I am absolutely certain it will be worth the wait!
