As many of you may have noticed, the comments got an overhaul. They now support HTML and use the TinyMCE rich text editor so what you see is what you get when writing a comment. This gives a additional support for adding links, bolding and emphasis, as well as block quotes. Before each comment is saved, it’s run through Bleach, an html sanitizer that strips any invalid or illegal tags.
Going forward, the plan is to eventually remove Textile completely. The next step will be replacing the FUD and TM editors with TinyMCE. This should make common tasks such as adding link, images, and quotes from the referenced FUD articles a lot easier.
The final step would be to implement TinyMCE in the Stream. This is more complicated than it seems, given the near-realtime AJAX transactions that are going on.
I’ve made a significant update to the Stream of Consciousness today which integrates it with the FUD Tracker and Trademarks.
From now on, whenever a new FUD or Trademark is posted, the stream will automatically post a message about it, alerting anyone viewing the stream and making it easy to find new content. Likewise, a post will be made whenever new comments is made on Trademarks or FUDs, making conversations on old articles easier to follow.
I’ve replaced the aging, and often broken, Digg buttons with Facebook Like buttons.
Another year has passed and I’d like to wish the freetards and the haters a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
A new year brings renewal and vigor. I’m sure the freetards are already gearing up to claim that 2011 will be the YearOfTheLinuxDesktop and I’d like to wish them the best of luck with that.
For those of you wondering where I’ve disappeared to, I’m busy establishing my own business and as such, have had very little time to contribute to the site. Don’t like it? Tough! I’m living proof that being paid in pats on the back means dick-all when you need to keep the lights on and put food on the table. It would seem that when Mommy and Daddy aren’t paying my mortgage, cooking my meals, doing my laundry, or paying for my internet that working on unpaid projects becomes difficult to justify. I guess that’s something they don’t teach you at the Freetard Academy.
Regardless, this is a major milestone in my career; Finally branching out on my own, becoming fully self-sustaining. I ask that all the members remain patient; I haven’t forgotten about the site, I just can’t dedicate the same number of hours I used to. I realize there are issues that need to be resolved and I’ll be attempting to fix them as soon as possible.
Have a fantastic holiday!
Most software projects are funded by the organizations that create them. These companies are, in turn, paid by the customers who use their software. This cycle is maintained only as long as customers are willing to pay for the product. If they deem the software no longer useful, they stop paying and the product is eventually discontinued. One concern the FOSS community often raises is that if a large group of people are heavily reliant on a piece of software, and the company that maintains the software suddenly ceases to exist, what happens to all the people that rely on the software?
The answer, probably nothing. The software simply won’t die. The company that makes it won’t go out of business since they’re so ubiquitous. When everyone needs what you make, the likelihood of going out of business is pretty slim. If nobody needs what you make, then nobody is sorry to see you go. FOSS, on the other hand, operates on the principle that a project that should die be artificially kept on life support by the community, for fun.
However, in the off chance that a company that makes a phenomenally popular piece of software does manage to go out of business, what then? Simple, the software will continue to work for decades, just like all unmaintained legacy software. Eventually, the next strongest player in the market will step up, make their software compatible with the old formats, scoop up all the legacy customers, and gain industry dominance. Naturally, FOSS advocates will complain about this new player since it won’t be Linux. Why would this almost certainly be the case? Because FOSS’ greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It can’t die.
Because open source is inherently free (as in free of charge), developers who contribute don’t get paid for their work, instead only receiving a few pats on the back as a reward. Initially, adulation seems like a pretty good incentive to keep working on what many developers consider to be a hobby. However, most contributors have a real job, their after-hours coding efforts tend to result in open source table scraps rather than their best work. With no competition, no reward and nothing at stake, it leaves most FOSS developers with no incentive to innovate. Often, this quickly devolves into the project being ego-driven. If the developer’s ego isn’t stroked just right, he’ll get bored, throw a tantrum and abandon the project.
FOSS advocates would argue that the project isn’t dead, since the source code is all available for someone to pick up and continue, but this almost never happens. A FOSS project may never be able to die, but like Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen head, they are capable of remaining in suspended animation until the end of time.
Happy new year, freetards and non-freetards alike.
Want everyone to know how many Trademarks and FUDs you’ve posted? Want to show of your vote score? Now you can, with the amazing TM Repository Badges! Wear 'em with pride in the Ubuntu forums or wherever Linux is praised!
What’s a Badge?
A badge is a dynamically generated image that displays your TM Repository username, the number of Trademarks you’ve posted, the number of FUDs you’ve posted, and the total vote count you’ve received. To view your badge, click My Profile and look on the right hand side of your personal profile page.
How do I Use It?
To integrate your badge into your website, blog or forum signature:
- visit your personal profile page by clicking My Profile – copy the html code from the text field beneath your badge on the right hand side of the page – paste it into your blog code or website – that’s it
(optionally, you can convert the html angle brackets to square brackets to make the html BBCode compliant)
I hope everyone has a great holiday. Even the freetards.
So its a slow news day. Sure, things are happening in the background, but I’m pulling an Apple and not releasing any details until I’m sure its done, resulting in MAXIMUM MARKET IMPACT!
That said, I just wanted to remind everyone to head over to the TM Repository Twitter account and start following it. If you do, I promise to update it more than five times as much as the blog with lots of inconsequential details about the site!
Also remember to use the #tmrepository tag if you ever tweet about the TM Repository.
I’ve updated the User Profiles. You can now specify some additional user information, such as a website, your location and a brief description about yourself. All this information is optional.
The new User Profile page displays all a user’s posted Trademarks, FUDs and some of their most recent comments. This will make tracking trolls much easier and more fun.
Some of you may have also noticed that beside each Trademark, FUD and user there now sits an avatar icon. For many of you, it contains a random kaleidoscopic image. This is being generated by Gravatar.
What is a Gravatar?
A Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar. It can follow you around from site to site and be used to identify you wherever you go. It does this by associating your email with an image you upload, or an identicon that it generates.
How do I Change my Gravatar?
- Sign in
- Click My Profile in the upper right corner
- In your profile click Register a Gravatar, the email address you used to register with the TM Repository will have already been filled out in the Gravatar sign up form
- Follow the Gravatar email registration steps
- Upload and crop an image, it should update on the TM Repository immediately
Alternatively, you can skip directly to the form, sans automatic email fill-out, by clicking here.
