# What code ...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-code/81994>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [September 16, 2001, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-code/81994 "2001-09-16T17:44:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CaelNCSU](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@CaelNCSU](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaelNCSU)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2001, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-code/81994/1 "2001-09-16T17:44:48Z")

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does this message board use? Is it proprietary or free? Where can you download it if free?

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2001, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-code/81994/2 "2001-09-16T18:40:07Z")

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It’s called vBulletin. It’s proprietary and written in PHP. You can buy it from [http://www.jelsoft.com/](http://www.jelsoft.com/)

The database backend is MySQL, which is free. You can download it from [http://www.mysql.com/](http://www.mysql.com/)