Mikey

In what way does your solution share the backend? Does it use different databases and cache/public/upload/hooks-folders, or do you have it all setup to run on the same db/folders?

1 IPB install. Many domains pointing to it. Different output based on domain.

TO clarify, I don't use this live, thus I do not know the challenges re: cookies, etc. It's something I made to 'see if I could'.

 

It's pretty clear in my eyes, one license per url:

 

 

 

There's no licensing issue there. If you've managed to accomplish it, how about letting us know how you did it, so we can have a go at doing it ourselves?

I'd be happy to provide you with a working hook file in private once it is more polished. Right now it requires a hack to conf_global, has stuff hard coded etc.

It's not a question of whether this can be done, as I know it can (i've done it recently just to see if it can be done). It's a question as to whether it will be done. It's unlikely that a product like this would be permitted on the marketplace because of the licensing implications.

bfarber's already answered your questions, but from the custom software aspect, thought I could add this. I've converted my own software to IPB before, and it's not been too painful, for a somewhat experienced PHP developer.

What I did was downloaded the free converters and took one of the converter files (I think I started with \admin\applications_addon\ips\convert\modules_admin\board\mybb.php), and adapted it to suit my needs. Once you get into the flow of how the converters work you should be able to easily write your own custom converter to convert your data into IPS software.

Fair warning: as you're converting from a custom software there WILL be things which you cannot save. For example on my custom software I used bcrypt for the passwords in a way which was not compatible, so my users had to re-set those.

Why not just have IPS provide a directory of sites that use the IPB software, that are legitimate license holders of the software and only provide access to that list to those who have licensed the software. That way, it doesn't create an elitist group of IPB owners and simply classifies them in groups, classified by the size of the IPB owners forums.

And with this we're back to the "Links Directory" discussion which everyone was arguing about a while back.