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.
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you do understand the concept of April Fools don’t you?
Happy April Fool’s!
You got me guys
Good post for the most part.
I don’t know why or how this myth is till being believed, but we did not start Habari because Matt started WordPress.com.
We (being the original 4) wanted to build something that used cutting edge technology, and existed within a more open, inviting atmosphere. That is what Habari is and that is why we love it.
Glad to know you are watching, hopefully we will have a useable release for non-tinkerers very soon.
Ah-ha! Got ya!
On a serious note, I think that for end users it’s difficult to see the point apart from how you’ve described it: Developers are abandoning WordPress, thus diluting the support of the software, and the reason they’re doing it is because they don’t like the commercial direction that WordPress is taking.
What needs to be understood is the “commercial direction” that would bother developers. The problem revolves around the WordPress source code repositories being controlled by the same people who maintain the commercial WordPress.com site. This results in a situation that is, in my mind, unethical.
The people who decide what features go into WordPress are by necessity interested in the best interests of their commercial endeavor. You can see this in practice by watching the WPMU version of the software (what is used on wordpress.com) get newer features added before the single-install version. You’ll note that upgrades to the single-install version frequently trickle down from WPMU with the “flavor” of a multi-user setup, when there is no need for multi-user anything in WordPress proper. The data structure of the options system illustrates this well.
Because the barrier for committing new features to the “open source” WPMU project is “that it serves the needs of WordPress.com commercially”, there is a lack of opportunity for outside innovation, which is something that WordPress developers commonly think they have. In reality, if the controlling interests in WordPress.com - a commercial endeavor - don’t find your specific new feature useful, expect never to see it in the product, and pray that other changes to the core software don’t inhibit you entirely from implementing it on your own.
The reasoning is not as simple as the grade-school mentality of WordPress being a “sell-out”. That part doesn’t worry the developers. In fact, Habari’s license was specifically chosen to allow more commercial flexibility with Habari than with WordPress’ GPL. The difference is that the Habari project members have no intention of releasing their own commercial service using Habari, which would have an unfair competitive advantage (being that we hold control over the features that are added to our core software) over anyone else that might set one up.
To simplify, WordPress.com controlling the WordPress code repository is as bad as if an operating system bundled a web browser for free when other companies are trying to sell their own commercial browser software. It’s anti-competition, and in other arenas it would be illegal.
Owen and Chris,
Thanks for taking the time to clarify the situation for me and others who are users rather than developers.
I appreciate it.
I’m guessing from that you haven’t been on the wordpress.org forums recently. It’s pretty much an Automattic-free zone. Sure, they’ll say they’re committed to .org, but in reality their commitment to .com is about four million times stronger. It would be very strange if it were otherwise. After all, wordpress.com is their bread and butter.