Bulletin board XML format (BBXF) is an attempt by the creators of bbPress to create a single common import/export format for web forum software.
Currently the majority of web forum software lacks an easy and predictable method of importing data from other web forum platforms. The simple premise is that web forum data should be easily transportable between web forum systems. So when installing web forum software, an administrator won’t have to fear vendor “lock in”, and can feel confident that if their first choice doesn’t work out, they can easily move their data to another web forum platform.
Incorporating BBXF into your web forum software will lower the barrier of adoption of your product by new users and help promote openness and a new standard which will help your existing users get their work done.
A greater level of interoperability amongst web forum platforms will encourage each platform to deal swiftly with bugs and security issues and generally raise the standard for the genre.
BBXF importer and exporter plugins are already available in the development branch of bbPress and are due to be released with bbPress 1.0 – work has already begun on stand-alone import/export tools for Vanilla and phpBB.
BBXF has evolved from an idea by Michael Adams and was realised by Dan Larkin with help from Sam Bauers as part of the Google Summer of Code 2008.
Some nascent code is available at Google code.
