How is Moodle 3.8 different from Moodle 2.6? How much are both the lincense of moodle?Quite a lot of reading for you to do.....
Hahahahaha!!!! good one, Howard.
Moodle, Sireethorn, is open source, that is it has a GPL and that means it doesn't cost you anything to download, install and use. It also means you can develop a plugin for it, if you like, or reuse the code on your own web site to drive your website if you choose. It is polite to acknowledge Moodle, somewhere on your site, and really good manners to acknowledge the Devs who work on stuff. I have worked on a Moodle with less than 200 Users and an organisation like the Open University in London has over 250,000 users, but our licensing fees are the same, zero. Of course, their costs are higher in equipment, staffing and such, but that's what works for them.
If you are familiar with v2.6, using it, and want to upgrade to v3.9, due out soon, I would suggest you upgrade to v2.7 then 2.9, then 3.1 and so on, every second version should be okay, but someone else may suggest something different. This is, I believe, one way to protect your existing courses, but it may not fully work that way so there may need to be some rebuilding of your courses, or at least major editing.
Do not try to go from v2.6 to v3.8 in one jump, it just isn't going to work. If you want to start afresh, then decommission your v2.6 and do a completely new install. I would think you have to rebuild all your courses though, I doubt they would survive this large a jump if you back up from v2.6 and try to restore them for v3.8. You can crack the backed up courses (*.mbz files), use that as material in your rebuild. Or, keep using your v2.6, put a v3.8 in another root directory, or even on another computer, rebuild your Moodle site with the v3.8, then just redirect your ip address to the new location, should work.
Irrespective of anything else, if you have a v2.6 that is operational, I would really suggest your organisation develop a credible update policy, as well as a credible backup and restore policy, as well as a credible retraining or familiarisation policy for after upgrades.
Good luck.
Moodle, Sireethorn, is open source, that is it has a GPL and that means it doesn't cost you anything to download, install and use. It also means you can develop a plugin for it, if you like, or reuse the code on your own web site to drive your website if you choose. It is polite to acknowledge Moodle, somewhere on your site, and really good manners to acknowledge the Devs who work on stuff. I have worked on a Moodle with less than 200 Users and an organisation like the Open University in London has over 250,000 users, but our licensing fees are the same, zero. Of course, their costs are higher in equipment, staffing and such, but that's what works for them.
If you are familiar with v2.6, using it, and want to upgrade to v3.9, due out soon, I would suggest you upgrade to v2.7 then 2.9, then 3.1 and so on, every second version should be okay, but someone else may suggest something different. This is, I believe, one way to protect your existing courses, but it may not fully work that way so there may need to be some rebuilding of your courses, or at least major editing.
Do not try to go from v2.6 to v3.8 in one jump, it just isn't going to work. If you want to start afresh, then decommission your v2.6 and do a completely new install. I would think you have to rebuild all your courses though, I doubt they would survive this large a jump if you back up from v2.6 and try to restore them for v3.8. You can crack the backed up courses (*.mbz files), use that as material in your rebuild. Or, keep using your v2.6, put a v3.8 in another root directory, or even on another computer, rebuild your Moodle site with the v3.8, then just redirect your ip address to the new location, should work.
Irrespective of anything else, if you have a v2.6 that is operational, I would really suggest your organisation develop a credible update policy, as well as a credible backup and restore policy, as well as a credible retraining or familiarisation policy for after upgrades.
Good luck.
It is the same story: If one is happy with release 2.6, why does he need release 3.9? There is one reason, release 2.6 does not get security patches. Only 3.5 (LTS), 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9 (LTS) do. Ref. https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Releases
The upgrade route is not straightforward for such a long jump. I maintain this table as a planning aid: http://www.syndrega.ch/blog/#php-and-dbms-compatibility-of-major-moodle-releases.
The upgrade route is not straightforward for such a long jump. I maintain this table as a planning aid: http://www.syndrega.ch/blog/#php-and-dbms-compatibility-of-major-moodle-releases.
It did cross my mind that I was being "passive aggressive" but if you really want to know what changed between two versions that really is the easiest way to find out. If you're running an ancient version then there's going to be a big list of release documents.
Aside from all the new features and bug fixes that Howard linked to, an important difference is that Moodle 3.8 is a supported release, so is recieveing bug and security fixes, while Moodle 2.6 is not.
As to your question about licenses, Moodle is free to download and use under the GNU General Public License. If you require hosting or support, you can discuss costs with a Moodle Partner.