Hello everybody, I'd like to respond to several comments made in this topic.
A.- Project hosting is not free. It 'was free' for about a year when we were on SourceForge supplied servers. In case I have to remind you, it was awful. You get what you pay for. Prior to that YaBBForum.com was hosted byXIMinc, a company set up and run by Corey Chapman on the principle it will provide a home for YaBB and possibly generate some revenue. Running a hosting operation is a competitive, time absorbing and stressful business and not well suited to a part time venture. I'm not spilling the beans to say it was a costly misadventure. Corey has said so himself.
Currently we are hosted by way of a very generous donation. It's "NOT" a tax write off as we are not a charitable organization. Its money out the door for the provider of the services.
It's unreasonable to expect to always have free hosting, particularly if we get development going again and you need a "big honking server" and are plenty of bandwidth.
B. - Developers aren't free either. Working on open source projects takes a huge swath of time from your week. I can speak to this directly myself; I work on two projects, host two forums and a free website. I estimate that each week I spend between 16 and 20 hours at minimum on these projects. Plus of course I have my regular work. There is not only the matter of coding new features and maintaining the code base, but also documentation, help system, bug tracking and testing has to be done as well. Did I forget to mention backups and maintenance of the website, codex/wiki and any other front and projects? All this takes time and effort plus the individuals must have the requisite skills. Working on an open source project is much more a part-time job than a hobby, and the stresses are the same as on a paid full-time job.
As has been noted in this topic and others, Corey has a young family and a regular job. It is tough to balance all these things.
C. - Not everything needed to run an open source project is free. If you're going to run virtual machines for testing and you want to have Windows servers and Mac machines, you will need to purchase the correct licenses. If (as in my other project) you need compilers for your Windows versions, you'll need licenses for them as well, ditto commercial database licenses.
D. - There is a whole litany of small services that aid development and research work that cost money. I won't dwell on the technicalities of it or the usefulness of the tools -- I simply speak from experience.
E. - There are a pretty fair number of organizational expenses if you're going to things properly. You need the services of an attorney, a CPA or Chartered Accountant (or the like), fees for incorporation filings and ongoing registration, tax returns, a bank account and books to be kept, and the list goes on. I was an officer (and president for a while) of a not for profit corporation dedicated to a sports league for a period of 12 years. I'm pretty familiar with all the necessary things to keep going, a long list.
I urge any of you who think this is a trivial pursuit, to ask some of the developers, documentationists, or support people how much time they have spent on the project.
As others have noted, it is appropriate for Open Source projects to ask for donations, and those using YaBB for commercial purposes particularly should donate or buy a license.
I hope I have made my point.
Good Luck to all.