A few months back, my friends Marshall Mayer, Brian Gershon and I commiserated over a beer here in Seattle about the lack of robust, reliable, modern, moderately full-featured forum software for Plone.  Marshall runs LiveModern.com, and has one of the world's larger CMFBoard installations, which has become a clunky and and unwieldy beast.  (See Marshall's comments below.)

"Wouldn't it be great," we thought, "if Ploneboard could be full-featured enough to be a solid general purpose discussion forum tool?  It's got a solid architecture, great developers -- all it needs is a bit of a push."

So we got out our notepads, threw together some PLIPs, and started some conversation with the Plone community about what Ploneboard needs.  Then we got online with the Plone Solutions gang to hash out what was feasible, what should be prioritized, and what it would cost to get it done.

Marshall and the LiveModern community are putting up some of the dough.  We're trying to raise the rest from the wider Plone community.  You can make a pledge now at Fundable.org, or you can contact Marshall directly at marshall at LiveModern.com.

There's another angle as well.  For me, this effort is not just about Ploneboard.  It's about piloting a more general process for funding and supporting products and features in Plone. 

As we all know, great open-source software projects (like Plone and its products) don't "just happen."  Some things happen because there's a single customer who has a need and the means to pay for it.  Some things happen because a developer (or two) have a huge passion for a good idea and are willing to burn the midnight oil to make it happen. 

But  there are some needs out there -- like the need for a great Plone forum product -- that a lot of folks need,  but no single user has the pain and the cash to single-handedly fund the development work.  And there's no developer who is willing or able to "just do it" for free at a sufficiently high level of quality.  It's an "open-source market failure," if you will.

So, here we are with Ploneboard, experimenting with one possible solution to this dilemma:  a "social source" development model where a community of users come together to define their spec, raise the money, and fund the development process.  It's a big experiment, but I think the Plone community is strong enough that it can work, and I hope that our efforts can blaze a path that we can all use in the future to fund additional work on important Plone features that no single customer can justify funding.

Here's the meaty part from the email Marshall just sent to plone-users:

I've used CMFBoard for a couple of years (my name was even in the  
credits at one point), and it's just not a product that I want to  
stay with longer term. There is no documentation or support, it's  
unclear if it will ever be upgraded, and while it is full featured it  
just does not scale well (it follows it's own path, and unless  
CMFBoard 2.3 is a complete rewrite -- a HUGE task -- I have no  
confidence in that path). It's time for a change, at least for me.

Ploneboard, on the other hand, seems to me to be the future, and if  
it takes off like it should it could even replace the discussion tool  
in Plone. It's quite simple (it will never be full-featured, by  
design, though you could add your own features to it), it does most  
of what a discussion board should do really well, and most  
importantly Ploneboard is written to work well with Plone 2.1.x  
(i.e., it is architected well, scalable and it does not break  
anything else).

While in development for some time, Ploneboard 0.1beta1 was released  
less than 6 months ago, I think mostly to show that there was a there  
there. It looked promising. Plone Solutions is now working on a major  
upgrade to Ploneboard, funded by clients and the community.  
Development is being driven in part by a PLIP,

http://plone.org/products/ploneboard/roadmap/psc_improvements_listing

that was generated by some of us CMFBoard users with the most pain.  
Note that there is a PLIP for a migration utility (deferred until  
after the next version comes out), and that some PLIPs are in  
progress (the ones we think are necessary first steps to get a good  
product out quickly). Other PLIPs are possible, but will depend on  
funding. It's been great working with Plone Solutions to develop and  
flesh out the PLIP.

My site, livemodern.com, is paying for some but certainly not all of  
this work. Much like Morten, I'm raising money from my members to  
help fund the development of Ploneboard. I've set a goal of $2500 USD  
to be raised in the next month. Part of that will be raised using  
another cool Plone site, http://www.fundable.org .

If you are using CFMBoard and want to migrate, help us get Ploneboard  
to the next version as fast as possible. Contact me directly if you  
want to contribute. If you want your members to contribute, set up a  
fundable.org campaign. Heck, if you simply want to get Ploneboard  
moving along, contribute now at

https://www.fundable.org/groupactions/ploneboard

Either way, it's time to contribute to a discussion board solution.

Marshall Mayer
marshall at livemodern.com