Category: Weblogging

Categories
Weblogging

Never kick a sleeping giant

Recovered from the Wayback machine.

Mark Pilgrim has also made the move to WordPress saying what the rest of us have been saying, that it’s not about the money (i.e. we’re not whining, cheap, spoiled free blogging shits). He wrote:

WordPress is Free Software. Its rules will never change. In the event that the WordPress community disbands and development stops, a new community can form around the orphaned code. It’s happened once already. In the extremely unlikely event that every single contributor (including every contributor to the original b2) agrees to relicense the code under a more restrictive license, I can still fork the current GPL-licensed code and start a new community around it. There is always a path forward. There are no dead ends.

No doubt this is going to encourage more people to make the move to WordPress. I can only hope that the people making this move be a bit patient at first–the tools are different. It will take time. Make sure you know what you’re doing before you hop.

As much of an impact as it is to see the first Technorati 100 make the jump from MT to WordPress because of the 3.0 upgrade, I think the more significant jump could be Scriptygoddess, an important member of the community providing tools and tricks and coding goodness to MT users. Jennifer is seriously considering moving to a PHP-based CMS , based in part on MT 3.0 and in part because she, like myself and others, likes to work with PHP.

Finally, if you’re hosted in Hosting Matters, as I am, and others of you are, don’t count on running the free version of Movable Type 3.0, as you can see in this thread. With that foolish and totally unexplainable single CPU restriction, very few hosts will allow the installation of MT 3.0 free on their sites.

However, and this is important: don’t count on staying with the old version of MT 2.6x either. Without corporate or even third party support, MT will soon become a security risk, as mentioned on the thread. If it does, the host will boot it.

Update

As Rogi noted in my oomments, and I spotted over at Michael Hanscome’s (with a snazzy new look, Michael being one of the first of the new Men In Pink), Six Apart has listened to the ‘constructive’ feedback the last few days and has updated their pricing and licenses.

(An update that already has 30+ trackback links, will be curious to see reactions.)

The single most important update was removing the single CPU restriction. This was critical: once companies like HM weighed in against the license because of it, others would soon follow, and this effectively shut people out of using the 3.0 upgrade. However, like Michael, I am left with a question:

Admittedly, I’m very curious about this one. If it wasn’t intended to be in the license, how did it get in there in the first place? And then stay there up to the point where it was posted to the website? Didn’t anyone (their lawyers, for example) go over this stuff with a fine-toothed comb first? This is the sole point that still really has my eyebrows raised.

The company has clarified that this new pricing is not retroactive to older versions of the product, which I didn’t think was an issue. However, there is still that concern of hosting companies about old versions of MT–just as no longer supported versions of Windows are prime targets for viruses (I have to wipe my roommate’s machine next week due to nasty bug in his Windows 98 install), a bunch of old, non-supported versions of MT can provide a risk to an ISP.

Six Apart has also changed the policy on multi-author, multi-weblog installations. The number of authors has been increased in the lowest personal purchased license, and the expanded licenses have increased counts. With this, my installation would have fit within the Personal Edition II license, with an intro offer of $149.95 (regularly $189.95). If I needed additional author/weblog pairs, I could purchase them at $9.95 each.

This is an improvement, but, frankly, if I were paying that much money, I would purchase ExpressionEngine, instead, which I looked at a couple of months ago. (Note: the products are no longer installed, and as a clarification, EE now has a Movable Type import utilitiy.) I found it to be a superior product to MT, and there is no limitation on authors/weblogs.

Still, I think that Six Apart made an important step with these clarifications, and by listening to what others have said. I also think it’s good that many of the people who are thinking of moving because of pricing won’t need to–for their sake and the sake of the tools such as WordPress, which may have been overwhelmed if the exodus became too extreme.

However, I had already planned on moving before the licensing issue, primarily because I felt that Six Apart was not communicating with its customers, and was keeping too many things close to the vest, as ‘corporate secrets’. This is a company that makes weblogging software, for personal and corporate use; yet weeks, even months would go by without a peep (including during the time when many of us were being overrun with comment spam). I also don’t care for the concept of using a tool that’s a ‘publishing platform’–as if our writing roots are like parents we don’t want to introduce to our hip new friends because they’re such hicks.

In addition, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the benefits of the paid versus free upgrades. I notice that the order page still lists the following for the paid version, but not the free:

# Application updates and fixes (not including major upgrades)
# A guaranteed path to future versions
# Access to fee-based services such as installation, advanced support, other services

The implication here still is that MT 3.0 is the last free version. There’s also that restriction requiring MT upgraders to sign up for TypeKey to download the product, when we were assured that TypeKey would not be required for MT. This is a complete reversal from an earlier Six Apart communication. Why a MT upgrader must have TypeKey makes no sense.

More than past unhappiness with Six Apart, though, I really do want to provide more support for open source efforts. And I like WordPress, it’s so fun to tweak! So time to stop focusing on Movable Type and it’s upgrade, and face forward into a new environment, and new adventures.

But I respect Six Apart coming out with this clarification, and the new licensing, not to mention removing that bizarre single CPU restriction. And I wish the company and its employees continued success in the path of its choosing.

Second Update

I guess I can’t move on just yet. Not while I’m reading the makings of a growing misunderstanding.

From reading through the trackbacks to the Six Apart license update, I wanted to add my own clarification about the discussion of what is a ‘weblog’. The definition at Six Apart states:

In our licenses, we now address this with this language: “Weblog” means a single Web site viewable at a single URL (Uniform Resource Locator), consisting of one or more weblogs as generated by the Software via the “Create New Weblog” function of the Software.

People are making the leap that this means separate weblogs within the same domain are now considered one weblog; this is not what the new license is stating.

The license states that weblogs that are used as lists and embedded within another page are not separate weblogs; however, weblogs that can be viewed distinctive from another page, and have their own URL, are considered separate weblogs.

For instance, at a maximum, I had the following weblogs:

burningbird.net
weblog.burningbird.net
rdf.burningbird.net
linux.forpoets.org
semanticweb.forpoets.org
techtools.forpoets.org
internet.forpoets.org
tinfoilproject.com
tinfoilpresident.com
mirrorself.com
articles.burningbird.net
interactzone.burningbird.net

And well, the list goes on. Each of these is a distinctive sub-domain with its own URL, but a URL is not synonymous with domain.

None of these weblogs are used as ‘lists’ or included as content in another weblog page, as some people do for book lists or quick links. Under the license definition, these are separate weblogs– many of which are under one domain name, but still separate weblogs.

Technically, if one is feeling particularly pedantic, one could say that each page in a MT weblog has its own unique URL, and therefore the company can charge for each page–but splitting semantics this far is counter productive.

For additional reading on the issue of domains and URLs, in an ideal world, I would point you to the book, “Internet for Poets”, but, well, this is a book that hasn’t a home. Yet.

Third Update

This is the last update, I promise, but I don’t like FUD.

Tim Appnel comes out with another post on the MT license thing. That’s great who cares, except that he is deliberately misquoting, or quoting out of context, and I feel that clarifications are in order.

Appnel takes on Mark Pilgrim, writing:

Not everyone gets a regular pay check to bankroll their million dollar code projects. I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to use free software or develop it. (Why would I? I do both.) But I don’t think its fair to pounce on them for not doing so. Conversation is fine and freedom is great, but it doesn’t mean we all have free license to say rude and hurtful things with impunity – especially to people you claim to like.

I had to go back to Mark’s post to see the rude and hurtful things. What I read was a pretty objective statement, giving the reasoning behind Mark’s move to WordPress: Movable Type never was open source; it stagnated while Six Apart started TypePad (even the Trotts admitted this); TypeKey has attracted spammers already (nyah, nyah, told you so); the 3.0 development release is buggy; and he provided a pretty damn good explanation about why many of us like GPL. Oh, and the Trotts are nice people, and we all have a right to make money.

If these are ‘rude’ and ‘hurtful’ comments, then please, may I have so more rude and hurtful comments from folks? Especially when I talk about tech? Please, please?

As for implying that I was suggesting a ‘conspiracy’ because I, like others, was curious about how the single CPU restriction entered into the license, that’s just about the gummiest FUD I’ve seen on this whole Event. I agree with Appnel that the license probably was a copy from another product. However, I would assume that it would be looked over by the Trotts to ensure that this type of confusion doesn’t happen, because Hosting Matters was at a point of not allowing the product because of this ‘mistake’.

Mistakes in licenses are serious things. Folks are right to question these. People who plan on using Movable Type in the future should continue to question confusing language in the licenses.

What’s sad about this though, is that the ‘baby squirrel’ phenomena is still in effect for Movable Type and the Trotts and Six Apart, when I thought we’d grown beyond that.

What do I mean by the ‘kicking the baby squirrel’ phenomena? When we address technical issues or question pricing, and you perceive it as an attack on the people, that’s accusing us of kicking the baby squirrels. If you perceive any criticism of a company or a technology or a person’s writing or opinions, as an act of overt hostility, and respond with personal insults in return, that’s playing the kicking the baby squirrel card.

I hope those of us moving to other tools, don’t bring this “can’t kick the baby squirrels” phenomena along with us–I’d hate to see a weblogging tool like WordPress reverenced by a league of obsessed followers. I’d have to move tools, again, then.

Categories
Weblogging

Spin City

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

It’s not surprising that yesterday’s unhappiness at the new pricing structure for Movable Type 3.0 has generated response from those in support of the structure, Six Apart, or both. But I am disappointed, no let’s be honest, angry at the deliberate misinterpretation and obfuscation put on our responses.

In the MetaFilter thread about this topic, Matt Haughey spins the negative reaction against the pricing structure to one where those who are unhappy are so because we don’t want to pay:

If you so despise the idea of paying someone for software, it’s pretty easy to keep using MT 2.661 free of charge, or having a few blogs to yourself with MT 3.0.

If you so despise the idea of paying someone for software… Show me the writing where the person has said they despise having to pay for software? From what I’ve read, most people’s negative reactions were due to the fact that they, like myself, run multiple weblogs for different subjects, or run weblogs with multiple authors, and the pricing structure is, indeed, prohibitively expensive. They, like myself, weren’t expecting this type of pricing structure. We have happily used the easy functionality of MT to create multiple weblogs and add authors never knowing that some day we would be penalized for doing so; that ‘cheaper by the dozen’ may apply to egg rolls, but it sure doesn’t apply to weblogs or authors.

Timothy Appnel writes on his weblog and for O’Reilly about how are poor software developers to eat:

This outcry raises a bigger more important point which is the reason for my post. As a developer and one who makes a living writing code, this reaction to Six Apart’s new licensing is really disheartening and on a certain level frustrating to see. I am a firm believer and backer of open source. I’ve personally released quite a bit of open source code myself and will continue to do so. However this apparent expectation of the vocal part of community that it is their right to have all great works of software at no cost is bothersome. If users don’t have the funds or won’t pay on principle for my time, effort or talent – how do I eat?

Oh poor Timothy, and Ben and Mena, too. They are starving while we rip the software from their hands and dance on their emaciated bodies in the street in a frenzy of open source lust.

Though I think Appnel turning around the negative reaction to Six Apart’s pricing structure as somehow originating because of open source is the biggest stretch I’ve seen since I last watched a taffy machine in operation, he doesn’t have to look beyond MySQL to see open source being profitable; or Linux (SCO problems aside) implementations created by Red Hat and others. Each of these companies makes a profit by providing value added versions of their products that have appeal for those wanting to use the product for commercial purposes; or for people who may want a simplified installation process or better help system, and support for using the product.

But Movable Type isn’t open source. That’s not the issue. What is the issue is that those few discussions about Movable Type 3.0 in the past at Six Apart gave the impression that this version, at least, would remain free. In fact I remember reading once in one of the weblogs associated with Six Apart that the reason so much support was given to TypePad (and hence the MT developers couldn’t work on the comment spam problem) was so that products like Movable Type could remain free.

There is a free version of MT, true. But there are so many caveats on its use that either there’s confusion about whether a person can legally use it–exactly what does it mean that it can only be used on a single CPU machine; exactly what does it mean that the paid version is the only one on the guaranteed upgrade path; exactly what is meant by having access to paid services– or dismay at how much it will cost if you can’t or choose not to use the free version.

Howver, rather than address these concerns directly, Appnel obfuscates them and makes this an issue of open source, and how he will starve if we don’t stop our unreasonable demand for free software, selfish gits that we are.

I particularly like Appnel’s deliberately negative spin on my writing yesterday, saying:

Many of these posts gripe that alternate server-based tools such as WordPress do not support multiple blogs and/or authors yet. What’s a bit silly about these posts is that not one so far notes that the hosted version of MT (TypePad) allows for unlimited authors and weblogs (plus many other features not available in MT) at a price that rivals basic hosting packages.

What I said yesterday was, “One of the reasons people haven’t moved to WordPress or other weblogging tools is lack of support for multiple weblogs–yet”. I wrote what I did in reference to the reason people have used Movable Type in the past instead of something like WordPress is because of the ease of creating multiple weblogs. Unfortunately, they did so not knowning that someday they’d be charged by the blog or author.

And why did Appnel introduce a hosted product into this conversation? This has nothing to do with TypePad…

…unless this all has to do with TypePad.

Dave Winer, accuses those of us who were critical of ‘being children’, a mature reaction for sure:

Six Apart announced new pricing for Movable Type and hell breaks loose. The users are acting as children, saying somehow they didn’t know that eventually Six Apart would charge for their software. I knew they were going to charge, why didn’t you? I can say this because I’m not a customer (I do use their software, but I didn’t pay for it) and I’m not them. But I’ve been where they are and it sucks. No one’s perfect. If you use their software, you owe them some money. If you don’t like the price, don’t use it. Amazingly they’re not asking for money if you use the new software in a limited form, or continue to use the old software. Users who can’t get behind that are people we don’t need to work with. Everything costs money. When you drive to the gas station, try whining at the attendant, and see how much gas you get. Do it enough and they’ll call the cops.

Are some people using specialized glasses, like 3D glasses, that decodes our writing into some kind of hidden message? Is that why they deliberately disregard the statements we’re making about not being adverse to paying? My issue is that I feel Six Apart has not been open with us about the direction the pay structure was going before we committed ourselves to what will be prohibitively expensive installations. How does that translate to, “Wah! Me want lollie for free!”

Let me repeat, slowly for the filter challenged: We… don’t… deny… Six… Apart’s.. .right… to…. charge… a… fee. But doing so on top of lack of communication in the past, and what communication there was runs counter to what we’re seeing now, is reason for concern, and yes, written complaint. Just as Google’s support for Atom might be seen as reason for concern and complaint by others.

If people have no problems paying the cost and they love Movable Type and they think the price structure is fair and Six Apart has been open in their communication, then say so; but if you can’t do so, not without the words sticking in both your throat and your keyboard, don’t defend the company by spinning our legitimate concerns into the trite, whining ramblings, of free software open source spoiled brats who want something for nothing. You’re not helping Six Apart by your actions; all you’re doing is polarizing the issue and making enemies where once there wasn’t.

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Survival guide to LAMP: Installing the weblogging tools

L is for Linux, M is for MySQL, and P is for PHP

 

I used nextpage to break this writing up into manageable chunks. I know that not everyone likes nextpage, and the implementation in 1.02 is a bit problematic, but we’ll see later how we can modify WordPress to provide full page displays for people who prefer this, and how to refine the nextpage behavior for the rest. And yes, we’ll also add in comment preview.

Once the software for Textpattern and WordPress is on the server and unzipped (discussed in last LAMP essay), you’ll need to create a MySQL database for both tools, unless one is provided for you by your ISP. Since they each use different table naming conventions, I used one database for both installation.

Creating the database is dependent on your ISP. Most companies providing MySQL also prohibit creating databases directly in the MySQL console–a command line interface directly with the database engine. Instead, you’ll use a tool like that which is attached to cPanel to create a database and a user and tie the two together. However, if you did have to create a database directly in MySQL, it’s not that complicated–as long as you have access to the command line version of MySQL.

To access MySQL from Linux, you’ll type the following command which opens a console to MySQL. Notice that you’re passing in a flag designating a specific user, and in this case asking the tool to prompt you for a password (you could also type the password directly in the line, but I prefer not to because Linux remembers your command in history, and I don’t like passwords to show in history):

mysql -u shelley -p

In this case, my user name is my first name, shelley. Once I get the password prompt and type it in , I’ll be in the database engine console.

Since I didn’t specify a database on the command line when I entered the console, I haven’t entered directly into any of my existing databases. To see what they are, I can ask MySQL to show me them:

Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1214348 to server version: 4.0.18-standard

Type ‘help;’ or ‘h’ for help. Type ‘c’ to clear the buffer.

mysql> show databases;
+——————+
| Database |
+——————+
| shelley_bbweblog |
| shelley_frgn1 |
| shelley_test |
| shelley_wp |
+——————+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

Even if there are several people with databases on the system MySQL engine, only the databases you’re allowed to see should show. This provides a little extra privacy.

I’ve already created the WordPress 1.2/Textpattern database, the one named shelley_test. Well, I used cPanel to create the database ‘test’, and to keep it unique to me, the system called it ’shelley_test’. However, if I wanted to create a database in the console, I would use the create database command:

mysql> create database shelley_test;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.06 sec)

Impressively easy, eh? Well, I can about guarantee that it’s the easiest thing you can do in MySQL. Now that I’ve generated even more interest in learning how to work with MySQL, you need to create a user and tie this user to the database. The reason is that both Textpattern and WordPress (and Movable Type and most other database driven tools), require three things for installation: a database, a user, and a password.

(They also require a server name, but unless you’re getting into some kinky remote data access, you’ll use the local server name, handily designated as ‘localhost’, when queried for server name.)

When creating a user, what you’re really doing is creating a named set of permissions, which just happens to be usable by a what can be termed a ‘user’. To do this, you’re going to use the MySQL GRANT command, and grant all permissions to the specified person, for the specified database, accessed via the localhost server, and identified by a password.

Or in one command:

mysql> grant all privileges on shelley_test.* to someuser@localhost
identified by ’somepass’ with grant option;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Of course, you’ll replace the name and password for your system, as well as the database name, but what I’ve done with this command is to grant all priviledges on anything contained within the database shelley_test to the ’someuser’. However, they’ll only be able to access the database from the local machine and only after giving the specified password.

I could have given this person access to all databases using ‘*.*’ in place of ’shelley_test.*’, but first rule of thumb with good database habits: never give more than is needed. By this I mean never grant more permissions that a person needs to get the job finished.

If I had not given the localhost host designation, your PHP applications would not have been able to access the database, and the user would not be able to log int MySQL from the command line. If they tried, they’d get an error similar to:

ERROR 1045: Access denied for user: ‘anotheruser@localhost’ (Using password: YES
)

Of course, MySQL could automatically assume all users can access the database system from the local host, except this violates that rule I just mentioned, which is Never give more than is needed.

There are fancy variations of all these commands, but we’ll hold them for another time. Right now, you’ve created what you’ve needed to finish the WordPress and Textpattern installations.

Installing WordPress

When the WordPress files are unzipped, chances are they’re unzipped into a named subdirectory. The first thing you’ll want to do is move them into your wordpress directory. You can do this your FTP program, or you can use the Unix move command, ‘mv’. Change to the subdirectory that contains all the files and subdirectories and do the following:

mv *.* ../.

When finished, you can then delete the directory just emptied, again using your FTP program, or the Unix remove command, ‘rm’. First, move up a directory, and then remove the WordPress unzipped file directory:

cd ..
rm -r wordpress-somename

There is a readme.html file located in the top level directory of the files just installed. You can see the one with my installation here. This provides what WordPress calls the “5-minute install”, and you’ll want to use these instructions.

You can either manually edit the configuration file for the weblog, by opening wp-config-sample.php either using a text editor on Linux, or by downloading the file to your PC and editing it there. Later I’ll demonstrate how to use the granddaddy text editor of them all, vi to do simple text edits in Linux, but for now, we’ll let the program make the configuration file.

To create the config file, open the install-config.php page in the wp-admin subdirectory in your browser and provide the information needed. This will be the database name, username, host (localhost), and user password. If you’re running multiple versions of WP, you can change the table prefix, but for now, since this is the first install, we’ll leave it at wp_.

Once you run, you should get a message something to the effect of, All right sparky! with congratulations for not screwi… congratulations for being successful. You don’t have to remove install-config.php, as it can’t be used to overwrite an existing configuration file; but you should anyway. The second rule of good database habits is: evil shit lives, don’t leave behind any open doors.

Next, load the install.php application, also located in wp-admin. A link for this file is provided in install-config.php if you’ve run this. The installation application should be able to run unassisted, and as long as it can access the database, you shouldn’t have any problems.

The first page provides feedback as to what’s been created, and a link for step 2. This page also shows some status of table and other object creation, and also asks you what the URL for the blog is. In my installation this is “http://wordpress.burningbird.net”.

Step 3 should give you note that you’ve successfully installed WordPress, that a user has been created called admin, and a generated password is given. Don’t lose this! If you don’t record that password down, you’ll have to do the install all over again.

At that point, you can log into WordPress, and the first thing you should do is access the Profile option, and change the password. You’ll also have to provide an email address for the admin user.

That’s it. You be WordPress bad at this point. My installation is at http://wordpress.burningbird.net.

In the next essay, we’ll take a closer look at the WordPress tables, and work on importing Movable Type entries. Next, though, installing Textpattern.

Installing Textpattern

Since the database has already been created, all you need to do with Textpattern is make sure the tool files are located directly in the weblog directory, moving them out of the unzipped subdirectory if needed. Once set, all you need to do is run the Textpattern setup application, setup.php, located in the textpattern subdirectory.

As with the WordPress installation, you’ll need to provide your MySQL username and password, database name, and host. Again, provide a prefix if you’re going to install multiple weblogs in the same database; otherwise leave it blank. In addition, ensure that the paths to the web root and textpattern installation are correct.

You’ll note a secret word, used for authentication security. Make sure you change this, okay?

When you click the bright red button, the next page that opens has a textarea with your configuration information contained in it. You’ll want to copy this and add this to the config.php file in the textpattern subdirectory. You can use your local text editor or one located on the server.

Important Note: It’s critical that there is no text or white space or carriage returns after the final closing PHP tag, ?> in this file. Doing so will cause problems later. Once you add the text, stop, save, and close the file.

After you’ve created the config.php file, then click the button that says, “I did it”. The next page allows you to create a user, use whatever answers are appropriate to your circumstances. Note that the version used in this example does not verify the password: watch the typos.

Click the button and that’s it. You’re ready to go. After you remove the setup.php file, that is. My Textpattern installation is at http://textpattern.burningbird.net.

Again, next essay we’ll look at importing Movable Type entries, and explore the Textpattern tables.

Why WordPress over Textpattern

I’ve been asked in comments, and elsewhere: why WordPress over Textpattern? Both are PHP, and both are open source.

Well, when I originally looked at Textpattern, I didn’t know it was open source. I had missed the license information that read:

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

* Neither the name Textpattern nor the names of its contributors may be used to
endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific
prior written permission.

Though Textpattern is being developed by one person, Dean Allen, he has left the source open for innovation, copy, reuse, and even distribution–with the only caveat that the original copyright be included. This is open source.

Still, there is a major difference between the two development efforts: WordPress is not only open source, it’s also a multi-developer project, registered and maintained at Source Forge. Though Matt of Photo Matt fame is the primary developer of this product, if for some reason he decides he would rather spend his time photographing naked people holding fruit, he can; the project might slow for a bit, it won’t stop. Why? Because Matt is not the only force behind WordPress.

More than that security, I, as a developer, am attracted by the thought that changes to code I make could be incorporated back into the product, if it’s vetted by the development team. The same is true for Textpattern, but the infrastructure isn’t in place.. As far as I know, Textpattern is Dean Allen, and if Dean gets hit by a beer truck–fates forbid–that’s it for Textpattern.

(Let me know if I have this wrong.)

More than that, though: I’m a tweaker. WordPress is naturally easier to tweak, in my opinion, than Textpattern. However, this is more my personal opinion than any ultimate truth; others may find Textpattern easier to tweak.

Finally, WordPress is the more mature product, and those aspects of Textpattern that folks like, such as the friendlier administrative interface and superior XHTML support and controls, not to mention abstraction from the physical layer, just aren’t as important to me. Or if they are, I feel they can be emulated in WordPress…with a little tweaking.

Regardless, both are good products by good people and a viable alternative to proprietary software options, which is why I’m covering both.

Enough for tonight. But as you can see, installing both Textpattern and WordPress is not a complicated process: grab the software, unzip it, place it in the weblog directory, create database and user, and then open a page in your browser and follow the instructions.

Categories
Technology Weblogging

For those about to move to WordPress or Textpattern…

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Six Apart released new pricing information today, and no matter how you package it, it’s not going to have people happy.

Yes, there will be a free version of Movable Type 3.0.

Mena Trott writes, but what she doesn’t say in the page is that free only works if you have one weblog author and three weblogs.

One of the reasons people haven’t moved to WordPress or other weblogging tools is lack of support for multiple weblogs–yet. Movable Type provided this, and it was simple to create a new weblog and add new authors, and many of us have done so. We didn’t see that this was going to be an issue someday. There was a major storm headed our way, and we never saw it coming.

I’ve created weblogs for multiple authors, and I’ve created multiple weblogs on one installation of MT. I have enough weblogs on my current installation that if I had stayed with Movable Type, and moved to 3.0, I’d have to go with a commercial license, and be paying upwards of $600.00. No, I didn’t see this coming. There wasn’t a clue.

All along we’ve said that we’d pay for a pro version of MT that provided what we needed. Several people understood that this new release wouldn’t have everything we asked for, but it was still free. Now we find out the caveats, the hammer dropping.

If it was just a ding to the toe, people would hop about and grumble a bit, and probably pay. But damn, this is a sledgehammer.

Nothing wrong with making a profit. But all the $20,000.00 contests in the world won’t make up for the fact that you don’t encourage people to use a product a certain way, and then charge them what are, frankly, extremely high fees–the highest in the business by my figuring–to upgrade to a new version.

If I were still a MT user now, I’d be furious. Now that I’m not, frankly, I feel a bit smug.

I need to return quickly to my Survival Guide to LAMP series. I expect a lot of movement to Textpattern and WordPress about now, and folks might be wanting help. But no fears–I won’t charge you to read my writing.

Yet.

update 

Hee. I like Steve’s take on the license.

By the way, I want you all to know that I made a prediction in Phil Ringnalda’s weblog earlier this week, saying that WordPress and Textpattern would surpass MT in users in a year. This was before the pricing announcement, so I want you to have some respect for my crystal ball reading ability.

Second update

Just caught this. The following are what you get, specifically, with the paid version of MT 3.0 that are conspicuously missing from the free version:

# Application updates and fixes (not including major upgrades)
# A guaranteed path to future versions

I think that after MT 3.0, you can probably kiss free versions of MT good-bye. I see the TypePad/TypeKey writing on the wall.

third update

From Paul Freeman I found out that you have to be registered with TypeKey in order to download the free version.

We were assured that TypeKey wasn’t required for Movable Type. I specifically remember this being said.

I also didn’t realize the physical limitations of the free version–one installation only, and no installation on multi-CPU machines. Most hosted environments are multiple CPU machines. Does this mean even if you are a single author/single weblog user, but hosted, you still can’t use MT?

update four

Looks like the trackback for the Six Apart entry is broken at 79, but you can get links at Technorati.

Categories
Weblogging

Sing in Harmony

In the mornings I catch up on my weblog reading through Bloglines. I’ve developed the habit recently of reading full content feeds within the tool rather than clicking through. I feel guilty about this because I’ve been critical in the past about full content RSS feeds, and about reading entire posts in aggregators rather than go to the person’s site.

Reading a person’s writing in an aggregator, I said, strips away their personality. Each bit of writing looks just like the others, and each is read, bang-bang-bang, one after another without a break or a pause to prepare ourselves for the next writing. The juxtaposition of one weblogger writing about the horrors of war, followed immediately by another writing about their cat and dental cleaning, jars and clashes when the subjects are so obviously different. However, it’s worse when the subjects are the same, and there’s only a mouse click’s amount of time between. The writing will blur and lose it’s distinctive edge, and you won’t be able to distinguish when one voice stops and another starts.

Today, I clicked on the Emptybottle link and read the following in a writing titled On the Turning Away:

But not turning away can lead into an addictive room of mirrors. Bearing witness changes from a duty and a rite to a habit and a vice. The feed only gets notice when we unhook it, and we’re not fed the world by our umbilicals, we’re pulled further out of it. Schroedinger’s cat doesn’t die unless we see it happen, but if we’re watching it on video, it doesn’t really matter which way it goes. Kill ‘em all and let god sort ‘em out.

So we watch. We stagger from table to buffet table, dyspeptic and enervated, mildly turgid under our loosened belts. We snap and grin with our cams and camphones, and our photos are products that refer to themselves, not us. Our kaleidoscopic images proxy the world, and let us maintain the illusion that we aren’t really a part of it, and that the bad things are happening over there. That those chants and tribal signifiers that make us feel so good and so strong and so right actually mean something other than ‘go team’.

When I finished, I clicked the next active link, which happens to be Halley’s Comment (’H’ following ‘E’), and read the following in a writing titled, You Really Don’t Have to Look:

We were talking about the disturbing pictures in the papers and on TV that you can barely avoid, and can get you DOWN big time, but I HAVE BEEN avoiding them. I’ve been taking time to make my house pretty, organize my finances, care for my son, care for myself, write, read, make new friends. Especially helping my kid avoid the barrage of dreadful images. My mom used to tell us when we drove by an auto accident on the roadside, “You really don’t have to look.”

About that whole full content feed and losing distinctive voice thing: I was wrong.