Next Generation Blogging Software and the Open Source Philosophy
Posted by Moses on Apr 2, 2007
Update: I got taken. 
See the first 2 comments below. It turns out that ForkPress and K3 were April Fool’s hoaxes for the launch of the first release of Habari. So I’ve marked out that parts of the post that are hoax related. The rest is still valid.
Earlier today I was doing my usual web surfing and I came across a project called ForkPress which is an offshoot of Habari, which is itself a ground up replacement for WordPress the software that runs Three Sticks. As a relatively, new blogger I was surprised that there was such contention in the open source community regarding the different blogging platforms.
Apparently, some of the key developers for WordPress disagree with the founder’s decision to take WordPress in a commercial direction. As a result, many of the more well known WordPress developers left to create a new blogging platform called Habari. Although I certainly understand the concern regarding the commercial push of WordPress, there appears to be a strong commitment to by the WordPress leadership to the open source version of WordPress so I’m surprised that there are such hard feelings.
I personally don’t see anything wrong with providing a commercial alternative for users who lack the confidence or desire to manage a blog and its infrastructure. I am also concerned with reducing the developer focus for a seemingly popular tool that has an active user community that produces a vast number of useful plugins. This is one of the downsides to the open source community. Successful projects that are able to compete with purely commercial projects can easily lose their momentum through infighting and disagreements, leaving the average user with the following choices, all of which are unattractive:
- Continue to use the software that has been abandoned
- Use the new replacement software that lacks maturity, stability and functionality
- Switch to a purely commercial version
On the other hand the richness of the open source community is driven by developers creating projects that effectively tear down an existing project and rebuild it from the ground up creating a much improved version. In many ways this is simply the open source community’s implementation of the scientific process where theories are developed and then torn down and rebuilt with a higher level of understanding.
The key to maintaining the success of the open source movement is striking a balance between the constant rebuilding of existing tools and providing enough stability for the end users to make use of those tools in their own projects.
I believe that this is a valuable role that commercial enterprises can fill. Providing support and stability for customers are functions that many commercial companies perform exceedingly well. For those who are interested in staying on the cutting edge and dealing with the subsequent challenges it makes sense to leverage the improvements found in new projects.
For example, prior to the reaching it’s first release disagreement among the developers in the Habari project has resulted in a new project called ForkPress. It has already developed a following among some in the development community including the developer of the popular K2 theme engine for WordPress. His new version K3 will only support ForkPress.
I’ll continue to watch the unfolding drama, but given that I’ve just gotten to the point where I’m effectively managing Three Sticks on the WordPress platform, I’m not likely to change to a new platform anytime soon.
Update: For more clarification read the comments from those involved who took the time to set the story straight. Thanks guys.
Tags: blog, blogging, forkpress, habari, hoax, open source, software, technology, wordpress
Trackback URL for this post.
Planet Aggregator or Splog
Posted by Moses on Feb 17, 2007
I discovered the world of splogging approximately 1 week ago. During my regular log review, I realized that my article, Joining the Open Source Tidal Wave: Part 2, had been stolen by another website. I was able to tell because the image referenced in the site was being called by the other website.
As I wrote in an earlier post, I was at first surprised and then dumbfounded as to what to do next. Despite living in a world of spyware, malware, viruses and other threats, I naively expected that blogging would be relatively safe from criminals. I mean who wants to steal a bunch of articles about mom’s home made pie. Of course, I quickly discovered through some quick and dirty googling that splogs and splogging are a relatively new and growing problem in the blogosphere.
For those of you who are new to splogging here is a quick introduction. Splogs are websites where criminals place content stolen from the RSS feeds of other blogs without the permission of the authors. These criminals place ads on these new aggregated sites and create an instant money making machine. There is a huge debate in the blogosphere of what to do about these criminal some bloggers feel like going after each site is a waste of time and others feel like it’s necessary to draw a line in the sand and say no more. You can read more about the debate here.
In the course of my research, I also discovered Planets, which are legitimate aggregators of content. Planets are aggregation sites where the content is aggregated via RSS feeds and Planet software. The Planet web feed aggregator software is FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) maintained by Jeff Waugh and Scott James Remnant. Sites that use the Planet software often contain the word Planet in their name such as Planet GNOME.
Although Planet aggregators are benign and beneficial its clear that the Planet software or software like it is being used by criminals to steal original content from many bloggers. In my case, the first site to steal my Joining the Open Source Tidal Wave: Part Article, was titled Planet Fedora XXX (I see no need to send more people to that site or to legitimize it by providing it with a link from my blog). The criminal operating the splog was masquerading the site as a legitimate Planet.
How do you know if your content has been misappropriated by a splogger or was simply included in a legitimate Planet?
Here’s the difference between a Splog and a Planet.
Splog:
- Steals content with no notice to the original author
- Does not provide a means of contact to contact the site owner (often the contact and about pages are broken links)
- There is no means to remove your site from the splog…errr Planet
Planet:
- Author is notified if they are automatically included in the Planet (this should rarely occur)
- There is a way to get in contact with operator of the Planet
- There is a straight forward way to have your site removed/added from/to the Planet
Often splogs masquerade as legitimate blogs, but still steal content such as the latest site to steal my now oft stolen Joining the Open Source Tidal Wave: Part 2. Even though it looks like a blog, it will have the same characteristics of a splog mentioned earlier.
How do you fight sploggers? Well, if you want to fight back Lorelle’s article is the most detailed I’ve seen for how to go after sploggers. If you want to prevent your articles from being stolen bookmark or subscribe to this site because I’ll be back with an article that explains the steps I’ve taken to prevent sploggers from stealing my content. Of course, like any contest the tools to steal content and prevent it from being stolen will continue to evolve.
Update
Since posting this article I’ve found some additional resources that may help you identify splogs.
Tags: blog, blogging, open source, software, splog, splogger, splogging, technology
Trackback URL for this post.