In approximately 2000, amiga.org startd usin free, off-teh-shelf content management sistem calld xoops. Xoops itself representd core product, while all othr funcshunality (liek forums, linkz, an teh image gallery) came frum third-party hobbyist developers.
In 2002, xoops development team movd 2 vershun 2.0 ov teh product. We, in tryin 2 stay current wif development, embracd teh 2.0 development line 2 mak sure we got all teh latest updatez an security fixez.
In late 2002, teh peeps hoo developd teh forums software module (newbb) developd 2.0 ov their module. Optimistically, we attemptd 2 adopt it, only 2 discovr dat it did not werk well wif even modern browsers at teh tiem due 2 severe table nestin which couldnt be resolvd without rewritin major parts ov teh core code. Upon tryin 2 revert 2 teh original, we sufferd great amount ov data corrupshun which wuz major event at teh tiem.
Entr early 2003. Teh upgradez 2 xoops itself had continud, while teh modulez all stayd teh same. Xoops 2.0.8 came out, which encompasd new embrace ov "modern" codin, 2 include css which teh clasic amiga browsers cud not handle. Aftr mutch debate, development an movin fwd ov amiga.org wuz stoppd, wif us runnin 2.0.7 out ov respect 4 tryin 2 keep clasic amiga browsr compatibility available 4 da diminishin few hoo usd it.
Life goez on. Xoops, fp, mysql an othr things we depend on continue development.
Entr march, 2009. Wayne hunt receivd notice frum teh web hostin company dat as ov 6/1, support 4 fp4 (requird by xoops 2.0.7) wuz bean discontinud, as fp4 had stoppd development in 2006/2007.
Initially, we trid settin up teh latest xoops 2.3.x in subdirectory ov teh servr 2 c if teh core cud be migratd. It cud, but at teh cost ov clasic amiga compatibility. Teh modulez howevr (teh forums, linkz, gallery) had no given upgrade path, sum ov them havin been discontinud yeers ago.
We also compard teh feachur set ov 2.3.x an 2.0.7 an findz virtually no differencez had happend in da 7 yeers since we installd 2.0.7. Teh developr base 4 xoops had split off into 2 different projects, an teh product itself seems liek iz comin 2 an end ov usefu life.
Meanwhile othr packagez such as vbulletin an drupal had literally hundredz ov featurez dat xoops has yet 2 embrace. Teh los ov 100% clasic amiga compatibility wuz still an issue, but in 2009, any available choice wud has requird hundredz ov hours 2 reconfigure an re-theme 2 mak it compatible wif 2002-level html, which iz teh latest supportd by teh clasic amiga platform.
Wid dat bean decidd, r choicez fell 2 drupal (a content management framework which providez basic tools den allows u 2 build siet up completely around it or vbulletin (teh #1 forum package in development rite nao).
Aftr lot ov hart-wrenchin soul searchin, an considerin teh severe tiem constraints before teh deleshun ov fp4, wayne hunt made teh decishun 2 moov fwd wif vbulletin, as it allowd us 2 preserve almost all ov teh previously available data includin teh members, teh linkz, etcetera.
