A "Brief" History of SMF, including YSE, other predecessors, and versions.
Version 1.1.0 (Updated Section(s) In This Version: YaBB 2.5 Anniversary Edition added)

Note:  In version lists, bold text denotes a major branch and underlined text denotes a minor sub-branch.  An asterisk (*) denotes a charter member only release, as two asterisks denotes a team membe ronly release.  Please report any inaccuracies to me.

Key: RC=Release Candidate, SP=Service Pack,
Introduction
SMF's history goes all the way back to 2000 when Zef Hemel needed a forum script.  The existing leading forum scripts, UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board), vB (vBulletin), UB (UltraBoard), and BoardPower.  However, none of them were suitable for Mr. Hemel's forum.  So he decided to create his own forum script, and started expanding the existing RobBoard.

The First Predeceding Software: RobBoard
RobBoard is completely different from SMF, despite the loose connection.  RobBoard was coded in Perl and CGI rather than PHP and MySQL (and now PostgreSQL and SQLite), and was threaded, meaning that you had to open each post individually, rather than opening the whole topic  (or a certain number of posts in the topic).  Hemel realized that threaded forums were losing popularity, so he rewrote YaBB into a linear forum (as yabbforum.com states, and I interpret that YaBB was written by modifying RobBoard and making some big additions).

RobBoard Versions:
1.0
1.0b
Edit:Found the only version of RobBoard.

Forum #2: Yet another Bulletin Board (YaBB)
NOTE: YaBB is still in development, as SMF came out of a fork of YaBB called YaBB SE.

The first version of YaBB was released on July 4, 2000.  YaBB was still written in Perl and CGI.  YaBB is currently in its 9th year of development, and has had many forks and versions released during that period.  It later had forks like YaBB Splinter Edition, YaBB Light Edition, and YaBB Platinum.  YaBB 1 Gold is often cited as a fork, but is actually just another set of versions in the main YaBB chain.  YaBB 3 will add support for other database drivers other than CGI, such flat text, MySQL, Ms SQL, Oracle, Access, and more.

Versions:
YaBB 1
YaBB Original Release
YaBB 1.1111
-YaBB 1.1111 (Build 6)
-YaBB 1.1111 (Build 7)
-YaBB 1.1111 (Build 8 )
YaBB 1.222
-YaBB 1.222 (Build 1)
-YaBB 1.222 (Build 2)
YaBB 1 Final
YaBB 1 Gold
-YaBB 1 Gold Beta
--YaBB 1 Gold Beta 2
--YaBB 1 Gold Beta 3
--YaBB 1 Gold Beta 4
--YaBB 1 Gold Beta 5
--YaBB 1 Gold Beta 6
--YaBB 1 Gold Beta 7
-YaBB 1 Gold Release
-YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1
--YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1
--YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.1
--YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.2
--YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3
---YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3
---YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1
---YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.2
--YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.4
YaBB 2
YaBB 2 RC
-YaBB 2 RC 1
-YaBB 2 RC 2
-YaBB 2 RC 3
YaBB 2.0 Pre-release
YaBB 2.0
YaBB 2.1
YaBB 2.2
-YaBB 2.2
-YaBB 2.2.1
-YaBB 2.2.2
-YaBB 2.2.3
YaBB 2.3
-YaBB 2.3
-YaBB 2.3.1
YaBB 2.4
YaBB 2.5: Aniversary Edition
YaBB 3
YaBB 3 Alpha 1 (SVN release)
YaBB Splinter Edition (YaBB SE or YSE)
Some members of the YaBB team decided to port YaBB to PHP and MySQL.  This was the last predecessor before SMF came along.  YSE was a good forum script, but had some vulnerabilities and other issues (such as having the GPL license rather than one like SMF's), and was often associated with YaBB, which was having issues of its own, and thus it recieved a bad reputation.  The designers decided to moved on to a new project, temporarily designated YaBB SE 1.6.0, which later became SMF.  After SMF's creation, two more legacy versions of YSE 1.5.5 were created.  YSE's site has since been shut down, but is still available for download on SourceForge.  YSE also had a fork called SuperMod.

Versions:
YaBB SE 1.0.0
YaBB SE 1.1.0
YaBB SE 1.3.0
YaBB SE 1.4
-YaBB SE 1.4.0
-YaBB SE 1.4.1
YaBB SE 1.5
-YaBB SE 1.5.0
-YaBB SE 1.5.1
--YaBB SE 1.5.1 RC1
--YaBB SE 1.5.1
-YaBB SE 1.5.2
-YaBB SE 1.5.3
-YaBB SE 1.5.4
-YaBB SE 1.5.5
--YaBB SE 1.5.5
--YaBB SE 1.5.5b
--YaBB SE 1.5.5c
YaBB SE 1.6.0 (unofficial, never released version, eventually evolved into SMF)

The YSE Fork... SuperMod
SuperMod is a version of YaBB SE with every mod installed.  I cannot be sure if this is every version, but here it goes.

Versions:
0409
0414
0419
0420
0421
0422
0422 Re-release
0429
0516
0619
0621
0817
0817 R5
1203
2.0.4 Alpha
2.5.0 Alpha
2.5.0
3.0.0 - original without patches
3.0.0 - Newest Version
3.5pr

Another YSE fork... YaBBl
The YaBB Italian team created a fork called YaBBl.  I only know of 1 version, 1.1, but can't be sure of the others.  Their site is down, and can't be accessed through the Web Archive, so I have no more information on this forum software.

A YSE fork being sold... ttForum
ttForum was even being sold.  I only know one version, 1.1.  I also can't find their website.  They also had a CMS that integrates with it called ttCMS.  It had hundreds of vulnerabilities.

And Finally... Simple Machines Forum (SMF)
Must I explain more?  SMF has evolved into the the internet's leading forum software.  however, some of it's early history is not in the common knowledge of the SMF community.  But, I will list the versions as best as I can.

Versions:
SMF 1.0
SMF 1.0 Alpha**
SMF 1.0 Beta
-SMF 1.0 Beta 1*
-SMF 1.0 Beta 2*
-SMF 1.0 Beta 3*
-SMF 1.0 Beta 4*
--SMF 1.0 Beta 4 Public
--SMF 1.0 Beta 4.1 Public
-SMF 1.0 Beta 5*
--SMF 1.0 Beta 5 Public*
-SMF 1.0 Beta 6*
SMF 1.0 RC
-SMF 1.0 RC1
--SMF 1.0 RC1+**
-SMF 1.0 RC2
SMF 1.0.0
SMF 1.0.1
SMF 1.0.2
SMF 1.0.3
SMF 1.0.4
SMF 1.0.5
SMF 1.0.6
SMF 1.0.7
SMF 1.0.8
SMF 1.0.9
SMF 1.0.10
SMF 1.0.11
SMF 1.0.12
SMF 1.0.13
SMF 1.0.14
SMF 1.0.15
SMF 1.0.16
SMF 1.0.17
SMF 1.0.18
SMF 1.0.19
SMF 1.1
SMF 1.1 Beta
-SMF 1.1 Beta 1*
-SMF 1.1 Beta 2*
-SMF 1.1 Beta 3*
--SMF 1.1 Beta 3 Public
SMF 1.1 RC
-SMF 1.1 RC1*
--SMF 1.1 RC1 Public
-SMF 1.1 RC2*
--SMF 1.1 RC2 Public
---SMF 1.1 RC2 Public Patch
-SMF 1.1 RC3*
--SMF 1.1 RC3 Public
---SMF 1.1 RC3 Public Patch
SMF 1.1.0
SMF 1.1.1
SMF 1.1.2
SMF 1.1.3
SMF 1.1.4
SMF 1.1.5
SMF 1.1.6
SMF 1.1.7
SMF 1.1.8
SMF 1.1.9
SMF 1.1.10
SMF 1.1.11
SMF 1.1.12
SMF 1.1.13

SMF 2.0
SMF 2.0 Alpha**
SMF 2.0 Beta
-SMF 2.0 Beta 1*
--SMF 2.0 Beta 1.1*
-SMF 2.0 Beta 2*
--SMF 2.0 Beta 2.1*
-SMF 2.0 Beta 3*
--SMF 2.0 Beta 3 Public
--SMF 2.0 Beta 3.1*
---SMF 2.0 Beta 3.1 Public
-SMF 2.0 Beta 4*
--SMF 2.0 Beta 4 Public
-SMF 2.0 Post Beta 4 Dev Edition (Originally designated SMF 2.0 RC1)
SMF 2.0 RC
-SMF 2.0 RC1
--SMF 2.0 RC1-1 (AKA SMF 2.0 RC1.1)
--SMF 2.0 RC1.2
-SMF 2.0 RC2
-SMF 2.0 RC3
-SMF 2.0 RC4
-SMF 2.0 RC5

THE END

NOTE: This Article Is A Work In Progress.  I Will Improve It Shortly.  Please Post Your Comments or Inaccuracies Here.  Thank You.

Alot of time and effort put in to all of the above is one thing for sure.

I am looking for RobBoard versions now.  And do you think I should have included a small section on YaBB Platinum and YaBB LE, the other forks in YaBB development?"  I didn't include them because they technically aren't part of SMF's lineage.

EDIT: RobBoard Versions found, updated article.

Its probably a cache thing for you.

Try CTRL+ F5 in your browser.

For me its showing 2 replies.

I'll try that.

EDIT: Didn't work, but ok, I'll just check it every so often.

QuoteYSE was a good forum script, but had some vulnerabilities and other issues...

I don't recall vulnerabilities, but there were definitely other issues.

1) SuperMod.  This was a forked version of YSE that had ALL the mods installed.  It was slow, buggy, and full of security holes.  It was impossible for the YSE team to provide support for this.  This gave YSE a bad name.

2) Problems with it being licensed under GPL.  This is the reason for the SMF license.

I will add info to reflect Orstio's post.  Thanks Orstio!

Found 1.0b of robboard

Thanks vbgamer45!  I'll update the article now (version 1.0.3) and then I'll find the SuperMod versions to make version 1.0.4 of the article.

EDIT: 1.0.4 finished

I found a source saying that YaBB SE was cancelled due to "ALL the forks".  Were there more besides SuperMod?

Quote from: Jntg4 on July 29, 2009, 09:02:52 AM
I found a source saying that YaBB SE was cancelled due to "ALL the forks".  Were there more besides SuperMod?

There was another fork by people calling themselves the YaBB Italian Team.

Looks like the fork was called YaBBl. I still need to find the versions.  Thanks Orstio.

I also found ttForum, a YaBB SE fork that was commercial!   

I believe more topics should be added to make it interesting!!

Quote from: Jntg4 on July 30, 2009, 08:08:06 AM
I also found ttForum, a YaBB SE fork that was commercial!   

There were more problems with the ttForum situation than just being commercial.

When one looks closely at the history of YaBBSE, one can easily see why the SMF license was conceived, and what exactly it protects.

I just found that ttForum had an official CMS called ttCMS.  It also had hundreds of vulnerabilities.

I don't know that ttForum's security was any better or worse than YabbSE's.

When I said "more problems", I was referring to things other than directly software-related issues.

I was on a security site and it had an awful lot of bugs and vulnerabilities listed for ttForum and especially ttCMS.

I updated the YaBB section for it to show shat the alpha version is (YaBB 3 Alpha 1)

I have updated this for 1.0.19, 1.1.11, and 2.0 RC3.  If anyone has any more information, please tell me here.

I only thought YaBB was the first version of it. Some nice information there