Use SMF then 
That’s the magic of open source. YOU can choose.
SMF has had over five years of development. vBulletin has had over eight. phpBB, eight years. punBB, five years. Vanilla, four years. Invision, six years.
I wish people would compare by software development time. bbPress is just over a year old, just imagine what it will be like in five years!
Development has been slow this year so I understand the frustration but technically it’s not even 1.0 yet so anyone using it is considered an “early adopter”.
And bbpress has had many weeks of … nothing. And some funny old bugs.
Look at WordPress. How many lines of code you can find? And how many tickets are closed for a week? This is “development time” for me.
In other hand the bbpress development team does not give people timely versions … and news. For now this project looks like a hobby.
There is only one person currently working on bbPress. WordPress has a few main people in charge and dozens (if not hundreds) of people contributing additions and bug fixes.
Look, your complaints are doing nothing to help. There’s no amount of comments you could make which is going to instantly put dozen of people working on the project. bbPress costs nothing. It’s free. If you have something which is a priority or commercial in nature you need to find something else to satisfy you.
Apparently you are already using SMF so why are you even complaining here?
For now this project looks like a hobby
Lol, sorry but I think Open Source is hobby – that’s why it’s free. If bbPress develpers would be working on this project like on normal job, then you wouldn’t get open source, but forum software for $250.
People should stop complaining and start helping. Write some plugins, release some theme – why not? Oh, because you can’t? You don’t know how? I don’t understand people who don’t understand how hard work is coding, but who are still complaning…
And me, I would like to say “thank you!” at the developers! :p
Indeed, I myself separate of phpBB for bbpress 1.0, a forum for ~ 100 members. I think that even if bbpress is less natively provided, he went on good bases with excellent management of urls and rss excellent! Even if it takes a twenty plugin to find features like on other forums, well bbpress seems better already!
I’m just frustrated to not find IRC channel and there have not an integration process native of the best plugins: p (perhaps should organize competitions, is not it?). therefore it lacks a bit of “fun” lol. But bbPress is already super:)
we want the fun :p
IRC channel is at #bbpress on Freenode
@_ck_: Sorry, English is not my native language, and I don’t know what is mean “full-time employment” and “financial security to back bbPress into the foreseeable future”. But programming is my job. I’m not using forum software for my personal website, but planning for late 2009 or 2010. Yes, I have so much time.
@Thion: Yes, of course. But WordPress(.com) and (probably in the future with TalkPress) bbpress are not hobbies. Red Hat Linux too. Thank Automattic for free WordPress – it’s really excellent.
Thanks all for the answers! Missing too.
Ok, WordPress and TalkPress are two different projects, and bbPress is third. Send these $250 to my PayPal account and you will get all plugins from my TO DO list (visible on freebies section on my weird blog) till the end of this week – I promise!
If someone is doing something for free, then he is doing this in his free time. You don’t have free time all the time, right? More developers – more free time – faster development. You got the point, right?
For what it’s worth, I think bbPress is a great piece of kit, and I send out a big thanks to the developers and members of this forum
It’s just outright rude to complain about bbPress – it’s completely free for pete’s sake! If you haven’t got the guts or the knowledge to work with it (and reap the rewards I assure you!), go use another forum!
