Lincoln's Note:
Howdy stranger, it's been too long.
Vanilla has been hard-forked by Lincoln, one of the original developers.
It's not intended as an ongoing effort, but "one last release" to get you by.
Every locale, plugin, & theme Lincoln could find is bundled herein

It is all now under the AGPLv3.
Do NOT update to this version if you run a hosting service, because
ALL code that touches it must be released. Yes, even your cloud-only plugins.
I must do the same if I ever use it that way — no more "cloud-only" here.

This release:

• Strips HL logos, replacing with the abandoned original Vanilla logo.
• Defaults new installs to the Keystone theme and legacy layouts.
• Strips all references to cloud & fixes compatibility issues with modern PHP.

Notes:

• I'm still working on getting a built release together.
• Today, Docker install works on localhost as-documented.
• Happy to accept pull requests, but no compatibility breaks or major features.
• Bundle is MUCH larger than previously (TONS of SPA cruft + bundled addons).

Old README, lightly edited, follows.
Stay safe, kindle hope, & organize.
-Linc, MLK day 2026

Ramesh Narayanan has been customizing Vanilla Forums for over 5 years and used to write blogs for ColoCrossing:
Ramesh(at)exoboosters.tech

Now Ramesh is launching "Choco Forums," a fork to continue work on Free Vanilla. In January, '25, HigherLogic.com stopped supporting the free version of Vanilla Forums. Later, Higher Logic removed the repository of the free version of Vanilla from GitHub. Fortunately a former Dev, Lincoln saved the repository & posted it for Download. Lincoln also patched Free Vanilla to be compatible with PHP 8+ here: https://github.com/prosembler/vanilla

Let's start with Lincoln's Repository and take Choco Forums into 2027