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If you think this is the first open source project for Alabama, you obviously have never heard of Gaim (now Pidgin) or Asterisk, both of which were started by Mark Spencer (an Auburn grad from Huntsville). Phorum also got its start in Huntsville as well.

You're quite right, phpBB isn't lightweight. But there's no need to resort to half-coded forums, either (but best of luck to parent on your continuing development).

Try PunBB or Phorum, for good examples of lighter-weight BBs.

On the other hand, the original poster needs a 3rd party forum provider. Hmm. You can get this sort of thing as part of massively expensive "portal" services from companies who also want to manage your email, VOIP, etc., etc., though many of these have now gone out of business simply because it was mostly hot air.

Alternatively, you might consider just asking your web host. They're a 3rd party. They may be willing to set up a PHP-based forum for you with your company logo and limited access, and then maintain it for a small additional monthly fee (or maybe just tell you how to maintain it). If they offer web development at all, they'll probably be more than willing; I used to work for a company that offered webhosting (plus custom development) and I remember at least one client who wanted a forum set up (I think phpBB was used).

Bugzilla
cvsweb phorums

check out phorum

this open source software does it, and it work very well with thousands of messages and users... it is far from being impossible.

MyComputer.com's Boardserver uses the Phorum discussion software (which technically isn't the GPL, but close enough). Now MyComputer.com charges for the software in a round-abouts way (pay us and we'll take off the banner ads). They have not released the source to this nor have they contributed back to the development of Phorum. Now the question I have is what they are doing legal or not? BTW I'm anonymous for a reason, If you can't figure out why then don't bother responding. :)

Warning: File upload error - no name component in content disposition in /var/www/slackware/forum/post.php3 on line 0 Warning: Cannot add more header information - the header was already sent (header information may be added only before any output is generated from the script - check for text or whitespace outside PHP tags, or calls to functions that output text) in /var/www/slackware/forum/post.php3 on line 13

I know you hate the idea of running anything critical on NT, but maybe you should just hold your nose and set aside one box as the database server. There's an article on phpbuilder.com that should get you started here.

The other suggestion is to point out that, from a programmer's point of view, there's not a hell of a lot of difference between using Access and any other SQL-speaking RDBMS that's got at least as many, if not more, features (such as MySQL, which at least has a security model of sorts). If they're really prissy, you could write a DB abstraction layer (check out phorum's at www.phorum.org for the basic idea) that hides all the db-specific functions from them (e.g. write a DB class and a query() method in PHP that can do Access, Postgres, Oracle (if ever you become well-heeled), or whatever.

CERT seems to be stating the obvious here. And I'm glad. People need this rammed into their heads: if you want security, separate CODE and DATA. Once these are separated, you can begin to selectively allow trusted places to include code with the data.

I have selective way of enabling Javascript for trusted sites in Opera or Netscape, but Mozilla could add this much needed feature -- allowing me to run without Javascript, unless it's needed for something. Security is increased in this way.

Netscape's horrible 4.x browser seems to require Javascript for CSS to work at all, though, so you have to settle for disabling Java, and forcing it to use a Junkbuster proxy (nukes cookies except for the exceptions), and another for script escaping.

Web boards, AFAIK, espcape all content by default. This is fine, as escaped content comes out as visible data, and not as possible malicous code. The various exploits only seem to affect sloppyily programmed webboards (ie: not Phorum, it's secure).

Maybe someday we'll be allowed one click "trust for js" "trust for cookies" "trust for java" etc... As they are all executable code or, in the case of cookies, serial numbers allowing tracking (think doubleclick.net). CSS1 and HTML4 are perfectly secure by themselves -- remember that. Opera runs fine in "HTML & CSS only" mode.
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I'm not sure what the AC has in mind, but I've always liked Phorum.
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I bet it would have survived if it was running a 366Mhz PowerPC 750 with Linux and PHP.. maybe Phorum