Is there any way you can sell this product as a one time fee, where a user can host it on his own server? I was told in the chatroom that the reason IPB doesn't allow users to host IP Chat on their own servers is because most people have shared hosting, and it would be too resource intensive. But what about users who prove that they own a dedicated? Would you then allow a user to purchase IP Chat and host it on his own dedicated server?

It would effectively have to be rewritten as an entirely new product. We have a pretty custom and specialized setup to handle the chat, not something easily distributable.

<br />It would effectively have to be rewritten as an entirely new product.

Of course it would. I posted a more extensive topic than this where I posted how it would be benificial to open up the hosting here:

It would effectively have to be rewritten as an entirely new product. We have a pretty custom and specialized setup to handle the chat, not something easily distributable.

I would have to disagree. I would love to use the IP.chat but not if it is not hosted locally.

I would have to disagree. I would love to use the IP.chat but not if it is not hosted locally.

What are you disagreeing with exactly? :unsure: There's not much in my reply that you can disagree with. It WOULD have to be rewritten, and we DO have a custom setup, and it IS a setup not easily distributable.

I'm French and I guess your solution to chat, you do not plan to install servers in France? or is the quality of service here?

Furthermore your products IPB are very good but why you do not make yourself the translations?

Jacky

I'm French and I guess your solution to chat, you do not plan to install servers in France? or is the quality of service here?

Furthermore your products IPB are very good but why you do not make yourself the translations?

Jacky

We have no servers outside of the US at present.

And as for translations - none of us speak French, that's why we can't maintain a French translation in house. :)

Well, ok.

IP Chat is a custom designed solution as you have said above, but the back-end which depends on, isn't something which can be available for the people who run a dedicated server? (e.g. it is based on a freeware, or licensed IRC chat solution, which can be downloaded and probably needing to be compiled, before installing it). So, ok we may need to install a specific back-end, but it can work with it.

The reason I don't like the hosted chat solution is:
a) I can't figure out how many members may want to use the service.
b) In case there's a surge in its usage (say for example there's some event where from 10 users on line - I end with say 50+ users on line or whatever), I have either to pay for a feature (more users) which may be used once or twice a year the most or disappoint my members at all.
c) Members may not like anything, which involves sending private information (IP addresses for example) on a third party server for their own privacy reasons.
d) Language problems (e.g. Greek characters are a pain in the brain, in specific chat-room solutions, AFAIK)

While we can understand your concerns, at this time we feel our IP.Chat product is best suited as a service. We are not prepared to make the backend "releasable" at this time. If you don't feel this is the best solution for your community that is entirely understandable, and you do have other options out there available. :)

We realize that sometimes something may not suit everyone.

Hello,

Since there's the IRC chat plug-in for Invision out, I don't worry too much. I am going to find my way.

Now, a little case study.

I have a friend who runs a web-portal about Eurovision song contests. The (custom) code supporting the site is aging, so I was wondering of moving him to Invision. It seems a very adequate solution, for his needs. Now ...

The site would have a chat, alright? So, since it has already about 600 on-line users, and hypothetically say 10 to 30 in the chat room in the future, whenever it would come on-line, how many users would you expect in the chat-room the days, when the Eurovision song contest takes place? 200? 300? 500+ to melt the server down? It's an interesting case, because the number of users it's just unpredictable. Well ...

If the custom back end is written in C, I understand the difficulties of realizing the code, (or the binaries with the plethora of Linux flavors out there), I am just giving this as an example, of whatever ... "mess" would be a sounding "simple" chat-room solution anyway.

(In such cases, like the above, even the load balancing would be a problem, when the spikes would start).

Hello,

Since there's the IRC chat plug-in for Invision out, I don't worry too much. I am going to find my way.

Now, a little case study.

I have a friend who runs a web-portal about Eurovision song contests. The (custom) code supporting the site is aging, so I was wondering of moving him to Invision. It seems a very adequate solution, for his needs. Now ...

The site would have a chat, alright? So, since it has already about 600 on-line users, and hypothetically say 10 to 30 in the chat room in the future, whenever it would come on-line, how many users would you expect in the chat-room the days, when the Eurovision song contest takes place? 200? 300? 500+ to melt the server down? It's an interesting case, because the number of users it's just unpredictable. Well ...

If the custom back end is written in C, I understand the difficulties of realizing the code, (or the binaries with the plethora of Linux flavors out there), I am just giving this as an example, of whatever ... "mess" would be a sounding "simple" chat-room solution anyway.

(In such cases, like the above, even the load balancing would be a problem, when the spikes would start).

We have limits up to 250 - if someone needs more than that, they are welcome to contact us and we can arrange special requirements.

This I actually see as a huge benefit of it being hosted. You friend doesn't have to worry about having an expensive server; and trust me, if you were expecting 500+ in a chat room, it's need it's own server (separate from other aspects of your site) and it would need to be a beefy one at that.

Yes, the benefit of a hosted solution in that situation is that no matter how many he has in his chat room, it doesn't put the burden of "chatting" on his server, but rather on ours.

It would be cool if IPS could sell a version of IPB chat where we can host our own IP Chat which would mean no monthly fee and no limit on the amount of users of

And to add to the points made in that topic, IP.Chat is so resource hungry it will put a major load on your server. People with shared hosting will most likely crash the entire server (because they ignored the numerous warnings and notices regarding resource usage), and who will the customer and hosting provider blame? IPS. And that's why they wont put it for sale.

And to add to the points made in that topic, IP.Chat is so resource hungry it will put a major load on your server. People with shared hosting will most likely crash the entire server (because they ignored the numerous warnings and notices regarding resource usage), and who will the customer and hosting provider blame? IPS. And that's why they wont put it for sale.

We do not have limits. I would offer both, sale and renting.

My dedicate server is in France and when I want to chat I have to wait more than 20 sec before app launch.
Since I activated IP.Chat, my forum is really slower too.

I bought this addon to give more pleasure to my community, not to make then wait more and more...

Do you have any project to make IP.Chat faster if you don't think you will open possibility to host server ?
Will you open localized server ?

Julien
http://www.lesnomades.fr

My dedicate server is in France and when I want to chat I have to wait more than 20 sec before app launch.

Since I activated IP.Chat, my forum is really slower too.

I bought this addon to give more pleasure to my community, not to make then wait more and more...

Do you have any project to make IP.Chat faster if you don't think you will open possibility to host server ?

Will you open localized server ?

Julien

http://www.lesnomades.fr

The only way it could be considerably slower, is if your having network issue's speaking to the IPS Hosted services. In which case you need your network team to take a look at it, since packet latency / loss can make your server seem to hang during a request serve and slow down.

I don't think problem come from my network except if chat need special port to work. I have no special restriction, just firewall with all necessary web ports open.

Julien
http://www.lesnomades.fr

I am hosting a few sites on my home server and this far in the game I have no restrictions from my ISP as to what I can and can't do. But the math is simple if I were to overload the bandwidth common math says they will start adding restrictions making my customers unhappy thus making me unhappy. It takes more than a dedicated server to make a chat connection. You have your Internet Service Provider that will limit the uses when they see the lines being overloaded at the server. People with large forums already know the shortfalls of bandwidth issues. There are other options as stated earlier but I have to agree that when the problems arise it will not be you holding the bag it will become an IPS issue...
Back in the Hay Day I have had websites with a running chatrooms on them today you couldn't give me the software to host my own.

We do not have limits.

Yes you do. There's no such thing as a server that can handle an unlimited number of concurrent users - that's just not how servers work.

We don't limit our own chat servers, but there are still baseline limits. The boxes can only handle so many concurrent TCP connections, for instance, so once x number of users are on a chat server it simply can't handle any more (not because we are limited by a hosting provider or anything like that).

Every server has limits.

Hello,

Since there's the IRC chat plug-in for Invision out, I don't worry too much. I am going to find my way.

The IRC plugin that exists right now quite frankly sucks. It's based on Java which is a whole other bag of worms, for n00bs that don't know what Java is they see a warning pop up on their screen warning them on the dangers, click on NO or CANCEL thinking they would be doing something wrong if they allowed it, then complain to the site admin when it doesn't work.
IP.Chat has too many short comings to use in my own situation it's just too limited in it's functionality.
If someone is up to it I would love to see a module built for IPB based on a webclient called Iris or Qwebirc, which is based on Python rather than Java, which means no special requirements or prompts from the users end.