Software information on "About" page?

Contribute Feature

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around adding software information, such as the Discourse version and licensing details, to the “About” page of a forum. calmh notes that users often ask about the forum software, yet this information isn’t easily accessible, suggesting a clear notice at the bottom of the page. sam agrees, advocating for the information to be included by default. watchmanmonitor supports adding it in default customizations as a balanced solution. Mittineague proposes using a plugin-outlet in the about.hbs template to display contact info and potentially other details. riking adds that copyright information for packages used by Discourse should also be displayed, especially if required by their licenses, noting that Discourse is GPL, not AGPL. Benno mentions that some users may be wary of revealing the software version, referencing a related discussion.

1

I get questions now and then from people about what forum software it is I’m using. On the forum. You’d think this would be trivially easy to find out for the users themselves, but it actually isn’t. I’d have expected something along the lines of

This forum powered by Discourse v1.2.99, the open source next generation blah blah, Copyright (c) someyear somebody, <link to source and license>

at the bottom of the About page. Is there a policy decision behind not displaying this information? I know some people are paranoid about showing what version of whatever is being run, but perhaps as an editable or disable-able extra field there?

Technically, copyright information about packages used by Discourse should also be displayed somewhere, right? At least if they have a license that requires this, which many do…

5 Curtiram
2

Agree completely, we should have a blurb at the bottom of the about page.

3

Adding it in the default customizations seems like a nice balance between having it there by default, but also making it easy to edit/remove as an admin desired. (without the version number, of course)

1 Curtiu
4

What about adding a plugin-outlet to about.hbs ?

    {{#if contactInfo}}
      <section class='about contact'>
          <h3>{{i18n 'about.contact'}}</h3>
          <p>{{{contactInfo}}}</p>
      </section>
    {{/if}}
    {{plugin-outlet "after-contactinfo"}}
  </div>
</div>

This would allow Admins to enable/disable and enter what they wanted there.

1 Curtiu
5

It’s GPL, not AGPL, so the copyright info just needs to go to people who receive copies of the source.

I support that; e.g. Sitepoint could put in a credit blurb about their heavy customizations.

4 Curtiram
6

Indeed: Show Discourse version on the /about page :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

2 Curtiram