TheBigK We haven't introduced any speculation in regards to release dates. To reiterate:

Please understand that we don’t provide release dates for Flarum. We’re still an open source project and are relying on the time of our developers and your contributions to define the development pace.

      jordanjay29 Of course you haven't. I'm only making a guess - and I'm not even a member of core team.

        Love to hear this! Keep up the good work ?

        Can't wait for a stable version with even more features! ?

        24 days later

        Awesome! Thank you all! I am looking forward to using Flarum in production! I have a very high trafficked website and I am consistently asked to add a Help forum there, or a forum for news updates. I am looking forward to it.

        If I can figure out how to eventually one day API it to the main website, it'd have a ton of users.

        Web installer sounds awesome. I'm just hoping it will be possible to upgrade from beta to stable release via web installer, or web installer will only work for a stable release installation?

        Yes! Waiting for Installer!!!

        jordanjay29 an emergency staff meeting took place

        Thanks for the update, Jordan. The updates are important and appreciated. Truly. I look forward to the good news of the next one.

        I have one small quibble regarding outward appearances and unexpressed timelines. This frequent use of the word "staff", that's obviously meant to distinguish a small group from the rest of us, is a little itchy under the apparent circumstances.

        As far as I understand it, and as far as anyone newly arriving here would understand it, there's one guy (Toby), and there's another guy (Franz) who got on board, and they take volunteer contributions and occasional donations from the community. In fact, the most I've seen made public, is a "Core Team":

        • Toby Zerner – Core Developer
        • Franz Liedke – Core Developer
        • Dominion – i18n Lead
        • Daniël Klabbers – Community Manager

        That doesn't outwardly suggest a legal structure having a revenue stream to pay support staff, whether full-time or not. Don't get me wrong, if the team is more than just a dedicated group of volunteers, and you're getting paid for your efforts, then more power to you. It gives me some assurance that my time/effort invested learning this tool is not entirely misplaced, and that using it for my own community of people being migrated off Google+ is not a lost cause. But if what appears on the surface is true — that it's just two guys tinkering in their spare time (which isn't much) on software, with some other volunteers moderating a forum — then maybe using terms like "emergency staff meeting" is over-inflating the reality of the situation; giving mixed messages, if but unintentionally.

        The thing is, "staff" has an implicit ring to it. Its appearance and regular use basically gives the impression this operation is well-structured and supported, serious, dedicated, responsive, on track, and so on — in short, professional. And it may well be. In that case, you should be able to give your "customers" some straight answers about when a milestone of the product/service will arrive, even if it's a guess-timate. Be honest about it. People are forgiving when you're honest, even if you're inaccurate, but at least give something. A ball-park point in time is all that's needed. It shows that you are serious and will make a little extra effort to meet that milestone.

        But you never give a time, not even an approximation, which, let's be honest, get's developers off the hook. It buys them more time they don't have to explain. I understand that. Things happen and timelines shift and you don't want to give dates that end up changing. But in that case, maybe it's better to adopt a dialog that better suits the garage operation it is right now. Take off the business suit and put on the AC/DC tee-shirt. When the website footer reads "Copyright Flarum, Inc.", then don the suit and use the dialog again. Or at least update the "Team" list, along with the rest of the website content, so it's current and shows that support staff are truly on the job.

            csf Unless it changes (and that would be news worth sharing), Flarum is an open source project made up entirely of volunteers and people who are dedicating their free time to seeing it succeed. That we distinguish a few as staff, team members if you so prefer, in order to facilitate some things such as core development, community management or internationalization, or community moderation, doesn't change the fact that the project is sustained by a community effort.

            Any decorum or professionalism is for the benefit of the community, not for any presumption of business structure. I understand it may feel unfamiliar if you work in a strictly professional outlet, where such an attitude is associated with money and customers are tolerated as far as they generate a profit, but neither professionalism nor the utilization of staff reside wholly in the the realm of the money-making world. That we attempt to maintain both, I hope, won't have an impact on how we proceed in development speed or philosophy. It simply establishes a courtesy for the benefit of those coming here to get support, contribute code or just be a part of the community.

            As for the team members on our website, I agree, it's outdated and needs some love. Unfortunately, the priorities are focused on other things at the moment, pushing development towards stable and growing our community, and as such the website has taken a backseat. It is, like all things Flarum, is available on Github for anyone to step in with an update in the form of a pull request, if our core team members don't get there first. For the record, here is our core team/staff/superheroes:

            • Toby - Lead Core Dev
            • Franz - Core Dev/Merge Master
            • Luceos - Project Manager
            • jordanjay29 - Community Manager
            • Dominion - i18n Lead/Community Moderator
            • Kulga - Community Moderator
            • Digital - Community Moderator

              Well said. And I recognize the Flarum project as you describe it. I'm familiar with both open source and commercial models of operation. Increasingly the two are not so different. My point is only that the "decorum" be sincere, not trying to suggest Flarum is anything more than it is. No need to fluff it up. As for the website, you're saying all content is on GitHub? I hadn't even noticed that. I assumed it was a CMS of some sort and content was in a database. Content is our area, so maybe if we can find the time...