Invision Power Services - History

History

Matthew Mecham and Charles Warner established Invision Power Services when they resigned from Jarvis Entertainment Group (JEG), a company (now Westlin Corporation) that acquired Mecham's forum software IkonBoard. Mecham promised his software would remain as freeware before and after the acquisition by JEG. The company proposed commercializing his software rather than maintaining its freeware status, and placed Mecham and Warner under pressure with the workload of IkonBoard that lead to their resignation. 85 percent of supporters from IkonBoard followed them to their new company and Ibforums (now Invision Power Board) came to be.

The Invision Power Board software license changed incrementally. The free software became an unlimited free trial and required payment to access official technical support. On September 27, 2004, the discontinuation and commercialization of the free software received criticism from the community, describing the movement as hypocritical as Invision Power Services was established in protest of Jarvis Entertainment Group.

Read more about this topic:  Invision Power Services

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.
    Norman Mailer (b. 1923)

    The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.
    —Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)