Help Wanted - Open source forum software project

I've got lots of questions, i hope you don't mind

Can you tell us a bit about the structure of the current team? For example can you give us a short overview of all people who are on the team so far, and what they will be doing?
Which language will it be written in? PHP? Ruby on rails? ASP?
Which technology will the product use?
Under which license will the software be distributed? BSD? GPL2 / 3?

Sure...sorry I should of posted the basics.

Can you tell us a bit about the structure of the current team? For example can you give us a short overview of all people who are on the team so far, and what they will be doing?
This project is brand new and the only one involved is myself. Sadly...I am not a coder. I am more of a visionary / manager, as I know what I want it to look like & what I want to include. I am looking for coders and designers (themes) and beta testers.


Which language will it be written in? PHP? Ruby on rails? ASP?
This will be written in php.


Which technology will the product use?
This will utilize: php, javascript, ckeditor
-Is using the Smarty Template system a good idea or not?

Under which license will the software be distributed? BSD? GPL2 / 3?
We will utilize the GPL v.3 license.


If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate in asking. Thanks for your interest!

I'm sorry if i will look like a negative nancy in this post, but my time on this forum (and similar forums...) has teached me that most, if not al developers have a strong dislike of people who come into a recruitment forum, requesting help, and telling that they will be the idea person and / or manager of the project.

The point is, software development is a lot of work, and if a developer puts a lot of unpaid time in a project, he wants to decide himself what he does, and how he does it. The developer does not need or want an idea person to tell them what they can and cannot do and how they should do it. Developers have plenty ideas themselves.
Of cause when you pay a developer, he/she is usually willing to set aside his/her own convictions , but i guess that's not really an option for you.

The same thing goes for people who want to be managers of a project. Developers tend to dislike managers quite a bit during their daytime development job, and the very last thing they want is another manager breathing down their neck during their unpaid open source development job.
That doesn't mean that there are no management functions in an open source project of cause, but in my experience the management role in an open source project is filled by a main developer of the product,who takes a couple of junior devs under his wings, and gives them smallish jobs to do. Once again, once money changes hands this can all be changed.

I can understand how this might be incredibly frustrating for you. You might have a pretty good idea for a product, and there might be a "market" for it. Now you only need a couple of people to make your vision reality, because you lack the skills to do it yourself... And then you get either ignored or yelled at.

The only advice i can give is: Start programming. Or maybe you mighy want to start doing webdesign, that's cool too. This site is full of really neat people who are willing to help you. Make sure that you're no longer just the idea person, and your chances of ever seeing your piece of software become reality increase dramatically.

I see where your coming from and knew that was an issue before I started this request.

The sheer size of this project has made me balk at paying a dev to do this.
If I were to pay a dev per month to start this....how much is a fair price?

In response to "code it yourself" I have actually purchased 2 books in hopes of learning php but realistically it will be awhile before I can simply start coding something. Thanks for the tip.

The cost of hiring a competent developer (/developer team) could vary wildly on how much functionality you would require, and the way you hire your developer.

The cheapest way would probably be to outsource it to India or something. I would not take this road though; From what i gather the software quality is usually very shabby and unless you specify to extreme detail what you want, you do not get what you want. This will probably cost a couple of thousand dollars, but i would not recommend it. Your mileage may vary.

On the other hand, if you would hire a local developer, the build quality and all will probably be better (check his/her portfolio!), but depending on where you live, this could probably get pricy fast. Average salary of a software engineer in the USA is about 90.000 dollars a year. If this project takes half a year... You do the math

If you are looking to start a company with this software product (you could release the main forum software package as open source, and the CMS as a paid addon, for example), you could try to get a developer onboard for reduced initial salary, and give him/her equity of the company.
If you go this route, please do not try to let the developer forgo his salary completely. Nobody competent will accept that offer.
Also, if you want to set up a company, remember that it will probably become your task to sell this product, do finances, and so on.

Or you could bite the bullet and get coding, of course

Just curious, but can i ask you why you would like this piece of software created? Yes, i understand you feel like the current forum software available is lacking, but what is your personal reason to get involved in creating a better piece of forum software?