First

Everyone remembers their first car. You will never forget your first true love. That new car smell. You remember every line, every curve. For me, it was a 1972 Pontiac. In its day, it was considered a luxury model. Came with an 8 track tape deck, Am radio, no Fm. Automatic seats, windows and door locks, 500 cu. in. Cadillac, 4 on the floor, posi rearend  - pure American muscle. You could put a chair, a tv and a mini fridge under the hood and still have plenty of room to work on your baby. More than once, she left me stranded on the side of the road. But I didn’t care. I sank more time and money into her than she was worth. I created memories with her, mostly in the back seat …

When companies are no longer able to turn a profit and the cost to maintain those old models is no longer cost effective, they create something new. Something that will inspire a new generation. Create new memories. Something with Fm radio and a cd player.

Software is a lot like that. For many of us, Dolphin was our first true love, our passion. We sank money and time into her. We know every bug, every quirk and more than once she’s left us stranded. But we didn’t care.

Like your car, Dolphin is an investment. Whether you’re a developer or a web designer, you used the software to realize your dreams and to profit from it. But it’s more than just software, it’s a community. You created memories and formed new friendships.

Like a car, software eventually gets old and expensive to maintain. Sometimes it’s necessary for companies to start over, to rethink their design and to modernize. They need to strategize and prioritize and make hard decisions on what to keep and what to scrap.

Developers and web designers still have choices, such as choosing to move to another brand, transferring existing licenses from Dolphin and continuing their investment with Boonex by using Una, keep using Dolphin, making their own platform, or retirement.

You can put a fresh coat of paint on an old car and it will still be an old car. But if you enjoy driving it, I say go for it. Dolphin is a lot like a Ford Model T or Fortran. You can still use them, but do you really want to?

Those who leave, will eventually return, to reminisce about the good old days. To those who plan on creating their own platform, stick with Dolphin or retire, I wish you all the best.

Personally, I will stick around and see how Una develops. Also, waiting for Andrew to brew a fresh pot of coffee …

You do realise that UNA is Dolphin; they dusted off Dolphin 8 that was actually behind the current Dolphin and decided they would do something with it.  It would have been nice if all the time and money that was put into UNA was put into Dolphin.  Also, UNA's purpose is not what Andrew first stated.  Now they are back to UNA being a social platform.   Also, they are throwing in third party left and right that requires one to either pay Boonex big bucks to set up, or hire a developer and pay to set up.  Many will probably turn to Boonex and pay the big bucks because they don't know shit about hiring developers and knowing if they can do it or not.

UNA is still beta software; yes, they are close to releasing a first version but it is still beta.  I think they are up to release candidate 9 but that will probably go to 12 or higher before the official UNA release.

You do realize when you make the same statement over and over you sound like a broken record? Does everyone only use it to create dating sites, as was its original purpose? Is it not up to each webmaster to determine its purpose? I have been using this software since it was AEDating and it would be a really odd conversation if I did not distinguish between Dolphin and Una.

The entire marketplace here is filled with 3rd party modules and templates. People pay big bucks to extend Dolphin, they will pay big bucks to extend Una and developers will laugh all the way to the bank. There is an entire community of developers here who are normally willing to help others.

Have you even looked at the code of UNA?  UNA is Dolphin 8 that started back as far as 2011 and maybe more.  A lot of Dolphin 8 found its way into Dolphin; except the horrible admin interface and even now they pushed a mobile admin interface.  I will sack anyone of my team that I see using a bloody phone to do admin work.  I complained before that the admin interface should not be tied to the Dolphin template systems.  However, that is another rant for another day.

You keep talking about AE Dating and Dolphin 7 is a far cry from AE Dating.

Developing is hard work and to jump on UNA when it is still beta code and you don't know if Boonex itself will be around in a year... No, I would go to one of the stable platforms that are available.  Boonex has already seen the market bleeding developers because of bad decisions of Boonex management.  We are all suppose to just gleefully go over to UNA when we invested so much in Dolphin?  I don't think it will happen.

Now I understand why Andrew wanted to call both platforms Dolphin...  I think the intention to end Dolphin was in the works all along.  By having two platforms with the same name, it would blur the lines.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

No one is forcing you to do anything. Quit playing the victim card. You have a choice to stick with Dolphin or not.

I mentioned AE Dating as a reference because it's what I started on. Before it became Dolphin. But we can discuss Fortran, C++, Basic, running a BBS, or why Apple became known as the pc for dummies.  

Boonex will be around for a long time to come. You seem frustrated ... perhaps too much caffeine? 

tdsranger you horribly missed the whole point with geek_girl, this is about accountability for the people who actually believed in Andrew Boon and company, and have invested years and years of knowledge, time, and money with the promise of Andrew himself... Guaranteed Success

Claiming Dolphin being the world's most popular social network platform by far with over 300,000 Success Stories with over Over 150,000 web-masters that collaborate and help each other grow. This was never true, and if it was we would not be having this conversation. The content in the boonex forum does not even hold 2% of the claim of 150,000 developers nurturing the community, as well... with all the open source platforms on the internet there is around 100,000 probable success stories all together.

The fact that you think nobody using dolphin has created relevant platforms that can completely add value to life around the world, or that no one has collaborated with governments, big names, communities, and marketing investors based on Andrew's guarantee of the world's best platform is a complete disaster. People have reputations and commitments to a bigger world with what they have created... believing in Andrew.  Do you get this? I don't think so


As far as the extensions market. People who have all, or some third party modules to be more professional and specifically create their niche, as well spending a lot of money on custom work. Now vendors have left with a distrust in dolphin, have not said a word, and have abandoned the whole community. We are in the dark with no service or updates for these extensions, and with no dolphin updates... This is a quick collapse after a decade? And you tdsranger, think this is alright.
 
The title of your post says (First) 80% of your post is about your past relationships with cars, power windows and an 8track player. Dolphin is obviously just a part time nothing hobby for you, if it wasn't, you would be angry. You need to wake up... Your the one that needs caffeine... You don't get any of this

Accountability sounds like a spinning record, It is how things are made right and just, but not in your world. Thanks for your profound intelligence, and the old love stories about your cars, very classy in the darkest period for boonex, and it's 300,000 success stories Good luck...

Wow you make a ton of false assumptions there Canadian. Also missed 80% of the point of the post. But that's okay, I will not hold it against you.

OK, you are getting to be a bit of an arse here; I am not playing anything. 

Agreed! Too much name calling and unprofessional replies. whewwww