Consider carefully before installing Dolphin

Before I installed Dolphin I was aware there were advertisements on the free version but I was not aware it would be advertising your web hosting company or a 3^rd party affiliate company. I think you need to reconsider these types of advertisements. By us using your free version we are excepting responsibility from any users to our site, that click on a BoonEx advertisement and the redirect that goes to the BoonEx site.

A responsible webmaster whom is going to use one of the free versions needs to do there own homework and checkout BoonEx and if they find it to be a responsible community which this community clearly is and shows its colors everyday.

But many of us do not use this web hosting company and to have it advertised on our sites is telling our users that we vouch for them meanwhile we do not want to be responsible for them or their actions. I have searched the net and I see good and bad but if something bad happens to a user of my site with this company now they have created a problem for me. If it was BoonEX then I am willing to live with that problem.

I do understand some people will think and say well that is part of the free version or that you should consider paying for the removal of all advertisements. Well partly yes this is true but at the same time then it looks to me like this is just a money pit and nothing else is the focus even though I see posts in many places preaching community, community.

There are many ways to look at this and it can be seen from both sides to almost an even stance but there is one overwhelming factor, us, the webmaster that now has to be responsible for some third parties business dealings.

Please reconsider these types of advertisements and also please consider the advertisement designs as they are very very ugly is style. Otherwise I would have to guess this free community script is only a cash cow or money pit.

I tend to agree with this. Dolphin seems to be a hybrid between a purely open source / public benefit product, and a purely commercial product and for-profit enterprise. I don't mind so much keeping backlinks to Boonex at the bottom of my site, but I am just starting to play around with some of the chat applications, and the branding and advertising seems very heavy there.

Rob

Advertising is way too heavy, "wolf in sheep’s clothing" that is so you get annoyed by it and make the purchase to get rid of it, after all just look at the design style of the ads they have to be intentionally made that ugly just to piss you off. Plus anyone that builds a script doesn’t have a removal license for 1 area but yet a different section has totally separate advertisements that you need a whole other license to get rid of them. This reminds me of phpBB where every mod has the designers link on it so if you modded your system a lot then it looked like a build board which Dolphin kind of looks like now.

I have been looking for a script like this or with lesser functions for a while now and once I cam across this one I figured this would be good and I would pay to remove the ads but the unfortunate reality is, nothing works well, every time I check a function there is another problem.

On my 20+ domains, I have been pretty much using turnkey scripts over the past 5 years, but I have never come across a script that spends more effort in giving itself props over involvement in making it work properly. If it wasn’t for the involvement of the community here I would have dropped it already and chalked it up to just another website advertising scheme. I pretty much read most of the posts from the community and I can’t recall seeing a single post by anyone that is part of the designers of this script, I maybe wrong but I just didn’t notice it.

I keep on trying because there are a lot of users that reply to the help posts pretty quickly, but my patience is wearing thin for sure. I need something that works so I can spend more time in getting my site going rather than spending days to weeks fixing what should have worked on install.

Pick any app out there, they are in it for the cake! You have initialized an endless debate my friend heh....I thought there were only three...religion, economics and politics, not necessarily in that order.

Over the course of this year, I have answered many questions by recreating the error, fixing it and posting results...ask Cal he knows!

I find that most people confuse this with a plug and play system. Then come to find, they are learning about mbstring and modrewrite and htacess files. This is so open to shape it isnt funny. Where was I? ahh out all the sites I have worked on and helped with about 10% do not read the "requirements" and beat their heads against the wall for two weeks only to find out their host doesnt allow ffmpeg or xslt isnt enabled.

I love this thing, and most here do. There are only a few who have a deep hatred, err severe dislike. Opinions vary.

As for the ads, the car you drive has an ad on the back. The ads are only there for the dev stage.

mrpowless good points.

And you are definitely right when you say "people confuse this with plug and play" but how do you think they got confused? Look over the main website; it is propped as a plug and play, except for the ffmpeg or xslt. A good example would be the forums, yes they may have SEO friendly url’s but there is no information for the spiders to index and even if there was you can’t get them past all of the script calls that freezes the browsers, so they will just leave.

For advertisements I myself do not mind link backs but come on this system is saturated and with ugly ads at that, plus to pimp your affiliate web hosting that is just, well let me say not right. I know others try to put there Google adsence in their scripts but in about 90% of those cases it is in one place.

If you go to look at a video and use the large screen 25% of it is cut off with the place for an ad. If I look at it as a money thing then how do you think the visitors to my site will look at it? The only difference will be they will think it is me who is trying to sell to them on every page and most likely will see it as I see it and then just leave.

I myself plan to have all ads removed but to pay 1000 USD is very steep when weighed against the issues and short comings of the system. Overall this script has some real potential for its users but my biggest concern is no support.

The script has potential, but plenty of bugs and glitches. Maybe that's part of the fun too. $1000 usd is way to much, but what do you do. Ads or no ads, or a combination of them. Many things are not so clear hear until you mess with them including the ads and licensing info. Some definate lack of instructions and reading as well. But I haven't found a script that did document there product from beginning to end either.

For free it does give you the opportunity to play around with it and see if you can get it to work on your hosting. Some do not do this, they pay then find out it don't work so well and they have to find a different host. Some of the folks that go the free route can't get it to work right either, and they scream and yell, yet they wont spend a few more $'s and get a decent host that this thing will actually run on. Or they don't do their homework or don't want to change hosts, they would rather fight this thing then to spend $5 to $10 per month on a host that it actually works with.

It's not a real big deal to switch hosts, and if you go with one that is known to work with dolphin you will save yourself tons of time messing with things, emailing the host, complaining and complaining here.

The only thing a host that can run this thing can't do for you is fix the bugs, which there are few at present. I'm sure they will get worked out and patched in a matter of time, but who know's for sure how much time that may be.

gameutopia

Can webmasters let other companies advertise on the free version that also has boonex ads within?

Just curious.

What license do you need to let other companies advertise?

I think $1000 is steep also- at least it is for me.  I read somewhere that that includes three installs- does that mean three domains?  i.e.  can that $1000 license fee be used to pay for three different domains?

Rob

No, it means they will install it for you 3 times but it has to be on the same domain.

The pricing of this software is ridicules.

$429 a year for dolphin+ray+orca  wherelse other software u just pay a onetime payment of $599-$699 .

$998 for unlimited, hmmmm  (what happen if boonex decided to close their company down like they did before with aedate anytime soon or a year after or later?there goes ur $998 )

I did not mind the linkbacks to Boonex, those were not obtrusive.  However, the whole free ray suite is oversaturated with large ads as many here have stated.  I was even willing to live with that for awhile, until I saw that they were advertising potentially competing websites!  My strategy is to rplace the ray suite.  There is countless alternatives out there.  The ray suite is not worth the 1000 to remove the ads.  The functionality is limited and the interface clunky.  I have also looked into alternative to Dolphin altogether.  Yes, Dolphin is a fairly good free system, but there a lot of things in there that are getting ignored.  I am tired of manually integrating patches.  Dolphin is a good starter site for attracting members, but it has a long way to go to become anything more than that.

hmm... I don't really see the argument here. To me it's simple. If you have issues with the product, then don't use it. No need to waste your time making a case when it won't really benefit you. Just move on to something else that meets your criteria.

On the ad thing... well, personally I don't like them either. But, that's the way the game is played.  You want free, they give you free, but accept the implications or don't bother with the product.

On the price tag, well, yah that can be steep, depending on your perceived value of the benefits. The challenge with low cost or free products is that it (many times) establishes a very low perceived value. As a geek who loves my craft, I've had many confrontations with that in my 20-year tenure. i.e., I get so engrossed at times by the challenge that I don't realize ('til later) that I've just given away valuable services for free. While it may give you the personal satisfaction (even w/o the moolah), it sends the wrong signals to your clients about the value of your work.

Anyhow, back to the issue at hand... Yes, there are lots of issues (which even the long time users turned experts dealt with them just the same); Yes, they have a game plan that may not agree with everyone; Yes, they have support woes (i.e., very dificult to get support).  But let's face it, they seem to be doing their best at keeping up with bugs/ehancements as best, as quickly and as frequent as they can; they have a following of technical ghurus (e.g., mrpowless, dosdawg, etc.) who love the product and fill in the void with support (excellently I might add); and most importantly, their products are growing in popularity, exponentially. So, for those serious at this game, you'll want to keep an eye on them (at the very least) or get on the bandwagon.

Just my 2-centavos.

...forgot to mention, there are also hosting companies who host nothing but Boonex products and are appearing to be earning enough from it. So, again, very hard to ignore this product if you're serious about the social networking game.

Guys, guys, guys. This software isn't open source. It is developers using the idea "open source" to get money. People like above willing to pay a grand for this are the only reason it is "open source".

I am new to Dolphin and Boonex. I have over 20 years experience in the computer field, however. I have been an advocate of Free and Open Source software since 1995. I recently started a hosting service and installed Dolphin as an option for my customers. I've installed one instance of it myself to familiarize myself with it. I've spent the last 2 years doing Wordpress consulting and, while not a PHP guru, I can code.

What concerns me, reading through the forum this morning, is the legal status of Boonex software. It is released under the CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE 3.0 (intended for "Literary and Artistic Works") - is this correct? It seems an odd choice for code, I think the GPL would have been more appropriate, but that is only my opinion. :) I have read some disturbing threads such as http://www.boonex.com/unity/forums/?action=goto&topic_id=Liars-and-Theives and http://www.boonex.com/unity/forums/?action=goto&topic_id=How-Much-Should-Dolphin-Cost- as well as this one.

I am no lawyer, but it is my understanding that the CCPL 3.0 allows modification of the code and distribution of that modified code provided the original license is included, the modifications are marked as such, and attribution is given to the original authors. I see no ethical or legal dilemna in forking this open source project and providing an ad-free version free of charge. This would also apply to any mods or templates licensed in a similar fashion.

If the authors of the Apache web server (clearly a valuable chunk of code) were to charge $1,000 for their product, it would be quickly forked and redistributed, just as MySQL has been.

I happily await thoughts and feedback from the community.

Hi Guys, I agree with a lot of sediments here; in particular, the price of this software.  I have been burnt on three separate occasions by software companies claiming that their product is the best on the market; and therefore, the best value for money and of course, best after sales servicing and technical support.

From my experience, majority of these software companies employ one software developing genius (usually the original creator), a couple of part-time consultants, a marketing/MD and customer support staff.  Invariably, the software developing genius and part-time consultants are constantly run off their feet just fighting fires; so the after sales servcing that you are suppose to be entitled to, after purchasing the license, is usually very slow and providing only enough to make the software function correctly.

Again, from my experience, you are far better off playing around with the FREE installation, including the distracting adverts, until you are happy with the full functionality and you are starting to draw an income, which amortised over a six month period will cover the cost of the purchasing license.  It's at that point, you should consider purchasing the license, because over the last six months (in your first 12 months of using the software), you will start to generate a gross profit.

My frustration with this software is for an Australian company, of which I'm one, they have not done enough research in regard to the payment gateways; because if they had, they would have known that all the payment gateway installs they enclosed, will not service adult dating websites outside of the USA or Europe.  The only free start up payment gateway that will is Verotel; unfortunately though, Boonex, has not enclosed a payment gateway install script for this company.

Again, if Boonex had done their research, they would have known that PayPal, 2 Checkout.com and Authorize.net will not service adult dating websites; yet, if you google "free adult dating sotware", Boonex is featured on the front search page.

Boonex, please resolve these issues in the next upgrade; because if you do, I know that you will make a truck load of money in licensing fees!

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of sediments around here.  Hopefully, that will all change soon, and those sediments will break loose and rise to the top.

Interesting issues raised here. I am new to Dolphin, but not new to the computer/software/internet game. Nor was I born yesterday, as some around here seem to be.

Dolphin has drawbacks, that is definitely so. I have been waiting weeks for a reply to the developers with no luck. Luckily, that note was not about support. Then again, rarely have I made use of support even when it's offered, simply because I like the challenge of figuring it out.

I look at these forums and the Dolphin blogs, and I know I have many challenges ahead. *grins*

But I digress. I would rather not pay an unlimited license fee, simply because in my start-up there is limited funds to go around. I feel the same way about purchasing new computers, paying my DSL, and purchasing my Adobe Creative Suite upgrades. But if I want to use them properly, I have to pay the fees, so I do, and I smile about it, because I made the decision and it's the right one. If/when I purchase a license from Boonex, it will be for the same reason.

You might say that the DSL service, Apple, and Adobe both offer excellent support of their products, to which I would agree (although it is less support than it was when I started using computer, I have to say, MUCH less). Boonex does not truly offer that support, even though their website implies it. This, you complain about. I don't. I simply accept.

We all know Chevy is not "like a rock," Papa John's uses the same ingredients as every other fast food pizza maker, and snapple is not "made from the best stuff on earth," unless you consider chemicals the best stuff. It's hype and fluff. A child can see through it, and so can you, if you spend even a few minutes in the forums and blogs.

As adults, it is our responsibilities to make our decisions based on the facts we know, the ones we have discovered for ourselves, and to live with those decisions. It is Boonex's responsibility to fix their internal issues. Until that happens, however, anyone who purchases Dolphin (or anything else, online or off) without doing their due dilligence only has themselves to blame.

If you want to use it free, you either play by the rules or re-write the code to not need the licenses. It is simply the way it is. Complaining will not change that.

If you want to create change, write to Boonex. Be polite, state your thoughts. If they care, they will read. If they agree, they will change. If not, you are no worse off than you were.

And as far as considering carefully as the title of this thread suggests... Of course! Anyone who hinges their business success on a software bundle deserves rewards in direct proportion to the amount of thought/research they put into the decision.

*smiles*

I dont think you can really put the blame at Boonex's feet for this. This all depends  what you see as the term "Adult dating web site" means. To me, this implies a site of adults wanting to date, and not what some have done and filled the site with people with their tackle out wanting sex. A world of difference.

My site is called adultconect (no nudity or sex content) Friendship and dating site only, and paypal doesnt have a problem with my site and has prossessed subscritions for me without hassle.

Boonex cant be held responsible for  content if its off the main stream so it stops people from using ordinary payment facilities.

regards

tyke

(although saying that, i once tried selling dried herbs (lavender and so on) on one of my store's and paypal didnt like that, so they are a funny lot anyway)

What is driving me nuts about this thread, is the fact that it was started over a year ago, and many of the issues mentioned in the first few posts have changed.

I had noticed that it was an old thread, but since it was resurrected, I figured I'd say my piece. *grins*

The original points made were corect in that the ads within the free version pretty ugly ads for second rate hosting.  The lastest non working version of Dolphin changes all that.  Progress!

 So, why are we keeping it alive?  LOL

 Have to laugh.  Key words there  are "non working".

Once it is working you can be sure the ads will be back. It's how they make money, either from people buying the license to remove the ads or the advertisers paying for the ad space.

Most communities, blogs, wikis, forums, free sites have advertising and the option to remove the ads if you pay a subscription or become a member or a sponsor or a hundred other ways of saying the same thing which is perfectly fine, that's how 3/4s of the social sites out there make the money to run.

Hmmm, interesting.  Boonex license page does NOT tell you that there are going to be 3rd party ads in the free version, only that Boonex links will be removed if you cough up. http://www.boonex.com/payment.php

Now $1000, oops sorry, it's now $790 (for 1 domain) or $2900 (for 5) to support open-source software (quote from their main page "BoonEx Dolphin is 100% open-source") is Yes, just a tiny bit over board, (sense the sarcasm?)

If Boonex were to lower their prices to a third of what they are now there would be far fewer complaints.

Is this software worth the money?

• The software does NOT work out of the box. There are numerous bugs, glitches, problems as anyone can see by browsing the forums here. eg. magic_quotes, XsltProcessor error, coding errors etc...
• The software is already dated upon release. eg. Why does Boonex start using magic_quotes AFTER it's been depreciated in php and CONTINUE to use magic_quotes in Dolphin7 when it is going to be removed in php6. (We are supposed to believe the software is secure? What other coding practises are they using that they shouldn't be? Are we going to be forced to use older and therefore less secure software to run our sites?)
• Dolphin 6 still has issues and yet they are pulling out 7 to wow us and get us to jump on the bandwagon. Well D6 is over 2 years old now, so, from past experience, D7 will still have problems over 2 years from now. (Oh wait, Php6 will be out way before then, hmmm, will Dolphin even be functional?)

Working software, open source? That is a good question.

In my opinion Boonex calls it open source so that they can get the community to help and solve their coding problems for free, then they turn around and sell it for thousands of dollars to the rest of us who don't know how to code but want our very own site free from outside interests.

Please, Don't get me wrong. The software has great potential, it looks awesome, I want to make use of it even if that means finding a way to pay for it. I just have concerns about how well it will work and will continue to work based on what I've seen so far. I am now looking into switching my hosting to a company that looks after Dolphin for me. Let them have the headaches of figuring out the problems, it's what they get paid for.

$2900 for the ability to re-brand a mobile app. Sure that's worth it. That could probably go for more and still be worth it.

$790 for link free software - Is that No Boonex links as well as No ads? Still, pretty steep.

How about;

$790 to re-brand 1 site (no Boonex logo and links, no Boonex 3rd party ads) and make it your own.

$400 to remove exsisting ads and add your own third party ads leaving Boonex branding.

$100 to remove third party ads making the site ad free but leave the created by Boonex links.

I and thousands of others would have no problem with advertising the software company that made our site possible.

The only thing that you are paying for then is the branding/advertising options. There are tons and tons of sites that are non-profit, charity, community based that would be running ad free and could afford that.

One last gripe;

Support. It would be an awesome improvement to see more support from Boonex themselves in addition to the support from the community. This seems to be an ongoing complaint.

I am so sorry to drudge this thread back up, I was consodering the 300 dollar liscence.

From what I gather from here, I spend the 300 dollars and will still have links on my site?

It's made to look like there will be no links at all. I use the ray widgets, but use smf forums (Not ORCA).

Will I be TOTALLY link free for 300 dollars??? Will the ray widgets come with that link free liscence and not have links?

These are outright questions, if not I need to know so I can move on somewhere else and I'll leave this site gracefully with no complaints. There is another opensource dating software I have been working with but dumped it since I found dolphin. I can't afford over 300. I really don't want to have to go back to the other software, but I will if I have to.

Peace.

If you purchase the license and insert it into your sites admin panel => Settings =>Advanced Settings it will remoe the licenses.  Sometimes it takes a little time (hours) for the servers to update, but then they are gone.  No links at all to Boonex, except for the news and such, which you have the choice to display or not display via the Page Builders section of the site.

This software is fun to play with, and that's really the only good thing I can think of to say about it. I wouldn't pay one dime for anything I've seen so far. The style is mediocre, its difficult to navigate but the worst part is it just doesn't work right.

There's tons of simple little things that just don't work right which kind of labels it as a work in progress type of thing. And that's great and that's what makes it so much fun but pay for it ? If I'm going to pay for it the sob better be perfect, that puts us into a whole different world.

dosdawg, mrpowless, houstonlively to name only a few of the many with hundreds of posts about this program are the ones that should be getting paid because without them where would this software be? Nowhere, long forgotten.

Now if I put my other hat on and talk about this project ( notice I went from "software" to "project" ) as free then I'm a happy camper and I can't wait to see where it goes next. Dolphin 7 seems like a bold move and probably a good move, it has a much more modern look about it and the modular design opens up a lot of extremely interesting possibilities.

Generally the Dolphin code is fairly user(programmer)-friendly, most of the issues I've had ended up being very small and probably my own stupid fault really. And there's always someone around to slap me up side the head and get me going in the right direction.

But for me the final nail in the coffin is the fact that every time ( or many times ) there is an update you loose your entire user base when it should be part of the install. Imagine if you logged on to Facebook and you got a message saying, "Gee, I'm really sorry but we lost all your information and pictures...would you mind entering it again ?" You wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.

That single fact, to me, brands this whole thing as a gimmick because nobody in their right mind would ever in their wildest nightmares even think of loosing a registered user...thats "Community 101".