Help DD buy the Forum's one-time license

[Lee Enfield-Burke]

Folks,

vBulletin, the company that makes our Forum software, has recently changed its licensing requirements. Formerly a discussion forum could elect to pay a low yearly licensing fee rather than a higher price to buy the right to run the software permanently, with no further payments. This is how we've been running the Forums since migrating them to vBulletin from Groupee last year.

As of this autumn, however, vBulletin has announced they'll no longer sell yearly licenses: They're now requiring all vBulletin users to buy a permanent-use license. The YW Forums' license runs out on November 28th, after which -- unless we pay for a new permanent license -- we can no longer use vBulletin, and would have to shut down the Forums and migrate to some other system.

Since this system seems to be working pretty nicely, DD has asked me to offer Forum members an opportunity to help her out by chipping in toward the cost of the license. Since she already bears the expense of paying for the YoungWizards.com domain and its server bills, this doesn't seem too unreasonable to me.

I'm attaching a ChipIn widget here, and also in the upper right-hand column of each page at YoungWizards.com, just under the "QuoteBook" item. If just 20 or 30 interested members will each drop $5 or $10 into the pot, we can pay the $195 Forum license fee ourselves in short order. This is a one-time expense: after this, YW.com will own the right to run the software permanently.

So please chip in! And thanks to all the contributors in advance.

ETA: Thanks to just seven of our Forum members, we've now amassed the necessary funds! (I know it says eight in the widget: but one of you contributed twice to bring us up to the necessary amount.) DD asks me to pass her thanks to all of you who contributed. The license has now been bought and paid for, thanks to you seven!

Nice work, folks! Thanks again.

[Lee Enfield-Burke]

Regarding the above: Details from vBulletin

We received this reminder email from them this morning, and I thought I'd post it as an FYI. Also,heartfelt thanks to those of you who've contributed so far: after only a couple of days, we're nearly halfway to the amount we need! If you haven't contributed yet, please consider helping DD out by throwing $5 or $10 into the pot, using the ChipIn widget on the message above or on any page at the YW main website.

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Your customer number is (redacted) . Here are the licenses we have on file for you:

(redacted license number) -- vBulletin 3.x Forum (Leased); expires: Nov 28th '09; set to: www.youngwizards.com/forums/

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