FusionBB

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FusionBB
Developed by	InteractivePHP, Inc.
Latest release	2.3 / April 11, 2008
OS	Windows or Linux
Platform	PHP
Genre	Discussion forum
License	Proprietary
Website	www.fusionbb.com

FusionBB is a commercial Internet forum software package developed by InteractivePHP, Inc., written in PHP with a MySQL database backend. It is designed as a total community solution, with portal and photo gallery functionality built in.

InteractivePHP was re-organized in early July 2007. This re-organization reflected the departure of Dave Lozier and the entry of Billy Cooter to the InteractivePHP staff.

1 History
2 Former Team Members
3 Related Articles
4 Notes and References
5 External Links

[edit] History

FusionBB was started in 2003 by Joshua Pettit and Dave Lozier. Josh began with message boards in 2001 when he helped a friend upgrade their UBB.Threads message board. He taught himself PHP, MySQL, and became an active participant at ThreadsDev and the UBB Central community. He also began doing modification work and development for clients through ThreadsDev.

Through the ThreadsDev website, Josh met Dave Lozier. Dave had created the first portal system for UBB.Threads as well as modification such as sidebars, inline images, and the MyPaymentPal module.

Over time, they began to discuss what people really wanted in a forum software package. They knew what features and modifications were popular from Threads, and also knew that most forums used the very popular PhotoPost gallery software. They theorized that if they could take a good, efficient forum system, merge it with a photo gallery, and also have the ability for forum administrators to collect subscriptions or donations via something like MyPaymentPal, they might have a viable product to offer.

In August of 2003, Jesse Robbins, a friend of Dave's, joined the planning. Jesse had vast experience with database efficiency and corporate-based permissions. The three decided to produce 'the next big thing' in online community software. Fusing those three things (efficient forum software, a photo gallery, and subscription/donation capabilities) gave them the idea for the name of the software: FusionBB.

Soon after, Jason Parker joined the team and was put in charge of graphics- and skins-development for the new software.

The FusionBB website was launched on August 6, 2004 - it had no forums, but did have teasers about the new upcoming product. The next day, the team issued a Press Release^[1] announcing FusionBB. A few weeks later, a demo of the software (FusionBB .1 Alpha) was released on the FusionBB.com website.

In late October, Lori Scoggins joined FusionBB as their first moderator. She had been a member of the site since early August and had taken on the duties of 'bug hunter' for new releases. She also tested the software's functionality from a message board user's point of view, giving feedback as to what might be areas of improvement.

Beta testing began on FusionBB .1 Beta in December of 2004 with a private test group who volunteered to test the software on their own websites. By March of 2005, the developers started taking pre-orders for the software from the general public. Beta testing continued on successive software releases, with FusionBB Final coming out on the second anniversary of the team's formation.

The FusionBB Documentation Resource went live on the FusionBB.com website on November 7, 2007. FBB Docs replaced the wiki-based documentation, which had been located on a separate website. The new documentation was integrated into the FusionBB message board and information in the FBB Docs was included in any searches done by members.