Looking back- an interview with Joseph Fung, Jeff Lewis and [Unknown]

[capabmx]

Very great read. And I too must say I wish I would've been around to see Unknown in action. Cheers to the founding fathers, and may SMF be around for many more years to come. I hope to grow up with SMF, (I'm 16) lol, so maybe when I'm 20 I can look back and say that I feel like SMF contributed to my real life. There are many morals here shared by the team and members that are just as useful out in the real world. And once I graduate next year, and many of my friends part ways, I'll still have everyone here at SMF . This is the best community ever, and also the best forum software by far. There are so many people that I could name that are helpful in every aspect and it almost feels like everyone here is a family of sorts. (If anyone is crying yet, please let me know ) But on a serious note Thanks to the founders, and thanks to the team, and thanks to all members on here for making this what it is.

[Fiery]

Very nice.

Thanks to all of you for getting SMF started, thanks to everyone on the team for keeping it going, and thanks to all of the users for giving the software a chance!

[Laibeus Lord]

Oh lol the founders!  And [Unknown]!!

It's been a long time since the Secret Project and YaBB SE.

Btw, you should consider IPB a competitor now, other than vBulletin :p

Well, good luck to all.  Glad to hear from them again.

[Minare]

Great story.

And this is the point where I really agree with Jeff Lewis :


"Looking back, if you could of changed one thing, what would it be?"

I think I would have wanted to see a more solid base in place in regard to expansion of Simple Machines. I always felt that we could offer more than just forums and one area I always wanted to expand into was content management solutions and if I could have changed one thing I would have changed was the direction we took in regards to additional software so that we could have grown quicker.
I think I would have wanted to see a more solid base in place in regard to expansion of Simple Machines. I always felt that we could offer more than just forums and one area I always wanted to expand into was content management solutions and if I could have changed one thing I would have changed was the direction we took in regards to additional software so that we could have grown quicker.

[SleePy]

Btw, you should consider IPB a competitor now, other than vBulletin :p

who?

I consider every software competition. Even the little guys, they are the ones who you will ignore and they suddenly start taking the market when you least expect it

[HoTmetal]

Btw, you should consider IPB a competitor now, other than vBulletin :p

who?

I consider every software competition. Even the little guys, they are the ones who you will ignore and they suddenly start taking the market when you least expect it

Indeed. SMF started when yabbSE was @ no more than 11k members. Not everyone converted right away. We don't ignore any of the forum softwares. To quote our core values...

Friendly Competition

We exist in a competitive world, with many other alternative software titles. We will persevere in this arena through quality and respect, not through antagonism and hate. We will support competitors and treat them as we would have them treat us. We will not insult, disparage or in any other way teardown other projects, businesses or organizations.

[青山 素子]

Wonderful interview by the people that started this project. It is always nice seeing what they thought of various things.

Btw, you should consider IPB a competitor now, other than vBulletin :p

who?

I consider every software competition. Even the little guys, they are the ones who you will ignore and they suddenly start taking the market when you least expect it

Agreed. Even really small ones like Vanilla have things to teach us, and often some good ideas. (Personally, I don't care for Vanilla's huge lack of structure, but it is an interesting philosophy.)

[elwizard]

I hope to see more than this

[Prasad007]

Fantastic interview indeed!

[ft28]

Very nice interview.
I am not a coder and indeed,  it is very simple to install and to administer SMF.

[tuanluu]

Kool keep up the good work

[humbleworld]

The world has become a better place to live and the Internet more appealing because SMF is free. Thank you Jeff, Joseph, and Mr. Unknown.

[Meriadoc]

Rick, as far as further questions - did you ask them what they were up to now? It's been a while, at least for [Unknown], since they were first-hand involved. "Where are they now?" Projects, business, etc...

[PacificWx]

wonderful interview - great philosophies

[shadow82x]

Rick, as far as further questions - did you ask them what they were up to now? It's been a while, at least for [Unknown], since they were first-hand involved. "Where are they now?" Projects, business, etc...

Yeah I asked the same thing to myself.

[HoTmetal]

Rick, as far as further questions - did you ask them what they were up to now? It's been a while, at least for [Unknown], since they were first-hand involved. "Where are they now?" Projects, business, etc...

Yeah I asked the same thing to myself.

I did discuss with them what they were up to now days, but didn't really add it into the core of the interview. For those of you intrested....
Joseph  still runs LM, you can view his blogg site @ http://www.josephfung.ca/ or on
Jeff's helps on LW from time to time and has his site. http://www.lewisonline.ca/
And [Unknown], well he wished to remain unknown

[MH-MINI]

Thanks for the interview Rick, it was an interesting read.

Not sure if you can divulge this but, I'm really curious though, what was the actual reason behind [Unknown] leaving the team? IIRC, one day he suddenly left, and before that he was actively replying to support posts.

[tatore]

I'm still learning tons of tricks reading the [unknown] posts and answers.
Meantime I've understood that he doesn't like to be celebrated with a "requiem" soundtrack (or better he doesn't like to be celebrated at least)-
Personally I've stopped to ask to myself what about him actually, and I just try to take the best (there's not worst, though) from his great, elegant and powerful contribution he left to the SMF community even now, because what he wrote in  34,901 posts still remain available for everyone-
Thank you, [Unknown], for all things you've done for SMF.

[Matthias]

That's a very nice interview, really!
I'm using the software since 2003, YaBBse and now SMF. The Software is the best to customize.

[Jeff Lewis]

Joseph  still runs LM, you can view his blogg site @ http://www.josephfung.ca/ or on
Jeff's helps on LW from time to time and has his site. http://www.lewisonline.ca/

My buddy Joe is taking Lewis Media to some cool places and has some really innovative stuff going on with their main product there.

I am currently working for a local developer spearheading a product that is used by work at home businesses and is doing pretty good.