Hey! I’m one of the rookie team 1676. Right now I have some questions that I am really confused.
I have an open source forum program that is made from other people. And it said that in last year rule that we could use forums, chats, etc.
Will I be able to use this program? Because I don’t know what I would do if I can’t… Please reply!!
By the way… I fixed this program a lot to fit into my team’s website.
Go ahead! There shoudn’t be anything preventing you from doing so.
I would recommend that you make your own sections more than you use opensource projects…
If you used just opensource programs then your site will not really be too origional. But thats just my opinion
It’s not the software that makes a site original, it’s the content.
Take chiefdelphi for example… it would have taken brandon many years to write vbulletin (okay i’m exagerating, he could do it in a few hours)… but that’s not what makes the site original. Given he has customized the site incredibly, but what really makes this site great is all the awesome members who post here daily.
The people make the site, not the software.
–Tom Schindler
Computer Science Major 
Although it is not the only thing that makes it unique, I personally feel that it is much more interesting to have things that weren’t pre-packaged.