Forum Subject: Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 12:23am
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
While surfing the web I came across a company's site that creates web sites. At the bottom of each page there is a logo that says "Created with MindFab".
But each and every site is created with Geeklog. I don't know if you have an agreement with this company, but I just wanted to let you know.
http://www.mindfab.com
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 07:31am
By: Agent X20
Wow - and not a single mention of Geeklog anywhere! Now there's gratitude for ya.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 10:37am
By: vinny
Actually if you go to there links page, the first link it shows says "MindFab configures and hosts software called GeekLog."
For professional sites it can look kind of silly to have "geeklog" plastered on the bottom of every page. Don't assume the worst...
-Vinny
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 01:00pm
By: alinford
At the PHPchalktalk site, he has sections for both free and opensource, but there is no mention of GL that I can find. This is on a site specifically designed to discuss PHP and MySQL. Dirk should make sure he uses those in GL2 so that he can get mentioned on the site 
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 01:55pm
By: T1Pimp
I believe from previous posts that Dirk and the gang don't care if you leave the Geeklog tag at the bottom of the page. I leave it, just because I think these guys should get all the props they can.
But I don't think that mindfab site is as bad as it initially looks. If you look on their links page[*1] they mention running sites with Geeklog.
But I don't think that mindfab site is as bad as it initially looks. If you look on their links page[*1] they mention running sites with Geeklog.
---
Paul 'T1Pimp'
http://www.Huggybeer.com - Geek news with attitude
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 06:35pm
By: Agent X20
I wasn't assuming the worst... rather just a little bit suprised not to see some sort reference to Geeklog. Sure it's not in their interest to plaster it everywhere - but a little "powered by" would go down well I'm sure.
But if as you say there is at least one reference well I'll have to let them off the hook. :-)
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/15/03 06:39pm
By: Anonymous (1gor)
I cannot agree more. When I want to publish an investment newsletter with Geeklog, I'll have to make triple sure that the word "Geek" never appears anywhere. Otherwise I'm out of clients and a laughing stock on the street.
Actually, my proposal to GL team is to create a supported stable release of Geeklog, call it differently (say, Technologist Journal) and then to offer commercial support on "per incident" basis (through support tickets) and customisation. Put it on a different site. And don't wait for GL2, since this one is widely used and stable.
Meanwhile, Geeklog will remain a venerable name for hobby and self-made websites. ---1gor
GeekLook.com
Designer Themes
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/16/03 08:19am
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
I agree the name Geeklog is okay to put on a hobby or personal website. Changing it to Technological Journal would be no better. That's a terrible name for a product. For professional sites, they won't want to have any name on their site's pages no matter what it's called though a different name would make it more marketable to them.
As for MindFab, I think what they are doing is very deceptive. Each site they have helped install says "Made with MindFab" in the footer of each page. It gives the public the impression a software called MindFab is what is powering the site. If one or more of the developers are running this one, then this is okay to do. If they aren't, the advertisement in footers should say "Designed by MindFab" or "Hosted by MindFab" or something similar instead. A slight wording change but a big difference in meaning. Although they do have a disclaimer in the weblinks section, most people do not click on every link of a hosting site. It's intentionally far away from the order page. Most people are also not tech savvy. If they happened to look in the code later on and saw Geeklog they would just think it was a product made by MindFab.
OSCommerce regularly goes after sites like this one which place their name without permission on pages generated by OSC giving a false impression. It's done very discreetly and offenders are not slammed on OSC's site. They do this to protect the product's identity. I think Geeklog ought to do the same. It's your copyright though so do what you want.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/16/03 09:38am
By: Anonymous (1gor)
IMHO you are mistaken about open source. Nothing forbids you to make modifications to GPLd code and to release it under new name, providing you give credits to copyright owners of included code. Otherwise I guess Linux would HAVE to be called GNU/Linux as RMH insists... Think of Stronghold, RH DB etc.
Looks like Mindfab are not even selling the code, they are selling the service based on GL which they support. Perfectly legitimate open source business model. I believe the more people try to make money with Geeklog the better for its future. ---1gor
GeekLook.com
Designer Themes
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/16/03 01:33pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
I am not mistaken. Nothing forbids anyone from making changes in GPL code. It forbids another person from claiming ownership though. This is what is being done by using the phrase "Made with MindFab" on every page of other sites. Not even the word "by" but "with". If you checked the sites built, they don't show any new features to indicate MindFab rewrote the core code or made new addons. Before bringing up an example like Linux to support your argument, please do some reading in this area.
I never commented about them making money. GPL allows others to make money by redistributing the software, installing, selling hosting, customizing software, providing warranty, etc. My post was on product identity and deceptively making the public think all these sites run on something called "MindFab".
It's people like you who think putting their name on someone else's work is okay is the very reason I will not contribute what I develop to the GPL community. I support open source, but I do not support this particular license. If the developers here don't care what MindFab is doing it is their right.
I never commented about them making money. GPL allows others to make money by redistributing the software, installing, selling hosting, customizing software, providing warranty, etc. My post was on product identity and deceptively making the public think all these sites run on something called "MindFab".
It's people like you who think putting their name on someone else's work is okay is the very reason I will not contribute what I develop to the GPL community. I support open source, but I do not support this particular license. If the developers here don't care what MindFab is doing it is their right.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/16/03 07:23pm
By: Creator
Also, if you guys cared to look, you'd have noticed that the title of every
one of their pages state "MindFab.com - e-Portfolio, <b>Geeklog
Hosting</b>, ..."
<p>While I agree that what they're doing is kinda deceptive, I cannot
condemn their site since they do mention GeekLog here and there.---L. Whitworth
www.finiserv.com
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 03:01pm
By: lcox
Hey folks,
I appreciate reading this thread. As one of the partners in MindFab,
it's relevant to put my 2c into the discussion so you know where we
stand. I hope you'll read this to the end.
First, there is reference to GeekLog on our site, right in the links
section of the site. As one person pointed out as well, it's in the title
of our site. We're certainly not trying to hide it.
We are however trying to get it more into the mainstream of
corporate, academic and personal sites. Coming from an e-learning
and knowledge management background, we believe there are
great KM possibilties as well.
We believe there are many in the mainstream who have no clue
about this world of OSS and easy content management, have no
ability to install this stuff and configure it themselves, and without
distributors like us and many others, would have no access to this
great software.
That said, this type of GeekLog client could not care less whether
it's open source, what technologies are used to pump it, and so on.
In fact, most of our clients would never search us out if we led with
"We're GeekLog hosts" - they have no idea what that means and
move right by.
So, if we don't have that up front and center, it's not because we're
trying to hide it, it's because it has no meaning to a neophyte site
owner we're trying to reach. If we were to plunge them directly
into geeklog.net, we'd be doing them a disservice and they'd be
completely and utterly lost as to what the next step would be.
The main thrust of the geeklog.net site and others focusing on
GeekLog is to develop the community of GeekLog developers,
primarily, and to some extent users. At a minimum to read this site
takes a fair bit of technical background and most of our clients don't
come with that and never will have it.
That said, there is no good user documentation for GeekLog that we
can point our users to here. We're planning to write that for our
own purposes, to share with this community of course, but the fact
is, we support our clients directly and need documentation to do so.
This brings up another point that's worth mentioning. We support
an entire package of services, not just GeekLog. We spend hours,
and sometimes days with a particular customer just to get them to
understand this thing. We sell cheap sites so spending any more
than a couple hours trying to sell someone a site is a total loss, and
we've got at least a 2-dozen customers that fall into that camp. So,
it's not an easy sell, it's a complex piece of software with a lot of
functionality they want to understand, and it's complex at first
blush. The bottom line is, we've spent many more hours at this
than we'll ever see returned. I've been living off my home equity
to start this business so it has never paid and is not offsetting the
cost of hosting and time we've put into it. So, we contract, we
instruct, we scrap like everyone else to make a living. That said,
the bottom line is we like this stuff, so we keep doing it.
GL is not the only thing we're hosting. We wrap other services
around it including email, mail list management, and supply
helpdesk support to them.
The point is, we could if we wanted to, say "Ok, now you have a
GeekLog site, you must get all your support over at geeklog.net."
The last thing this community would want is our clients over here
asking questions about their Ensim email because they don't
understand where they fit in the whole food chain of open source
technologies.
So, you can simply look at us like we're distributors of Open
Source, not just GL, but RedHat, MySQL, PHP, Apache, and a host of
other open source technologies that go into making these things.
I want to point out another thing I see happening in OSS software
communities:
1) of the 26 million or so web sites on the internet running Apache,
many if not most do not display the Apache feather. If you check
out geeklog.net from netcraft.com, you see:
site geeklog.net is running Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux)
mod_ssl/2.8.12 OpenSSL/0.9.6b DAV/1.0.3 PHP/4.3.0 mod_perl/
1.26 on Linux.
Of the over 12 million sites running PHP, most do not badge it with
powered by PHP. I don't know how many sites are running with
MySQL, but the same goes there as well. And of course, a large
part of most Linux distros came from GNU, not Linus, but GNU
rarely receives mention.
So, rather than putting too fine a point on it, I'll just insure that
people understand that most sites on the net, including geeklog.net,
use many, many open source technologies for which no mention or
credit is given. Part of it may be practicality in even knowing
everything you should acknowledge in OSS, some of it may be
marketing in reducing confusion and trying to present a complete
OSS package. But the fact remains, not everything OSS gets credit
even when it's the backbone of the web like Apache.
MindFab is packaging many OSS technologies so it's easy to get into
a web site. This same approach is also implied in the bottom
statement of the geeklog.net site when you read "Powered by
GeekLog" - in fact it's not powered by GeekLog alone, but a host of
OSS technologies.
So, the big things to keep in mind here are: 1) it's nearly impossible
to acknowlege all OSS contributions to any OSS package 2) to
mainstream OSS, sometimes it's necessary to package things so it's
easy to get into and to do that you have to narrow down the scope
of what the person thinks they're getting into. They don't care if it's
MySQL or PosgressSQL behind the scenes and even bringing it up
gets a raised eyebrow (they don't know, they don't care, they just
want a dynamic site.)
Back to the "Made with ****" - we badged our sites with "Made with
MindFab" in the spirit of "made in conjunction with" which is way too
long. It's obviously ambiguous and people have taken it the wrong
way. Because of that, we've changed it to simply "Hosted by
MindFab". One person wrote us saying they thought "Made by
MindFab" would be better. Personally, I think that's just as
ambiguous. But the main thing is that we're hosting many services,
not just GL, so putting powered by GeekLog on our sites is not even
accurate and doesn't tell the whole story, so we'll just leave it at
"Hosted by MindFab."
I have personally contributed a few things to this site in my GL
travels - see: http://www.geeklog.net/
article.php?story=2002080419482031 as an example of a nasty I
found and provided a solution for.
This week my partner and I are planning to start on a GeekLog user
manual because we simply spend too much time supporting user
questions from our clients about basic use. When we get that done,
we're glad to donate it - the fact is, we simply need it and it's worth
it to us to write it for our own purposes.
I want to inject a few other items, as if there weren't enough things
to discuss, into this conversation. One of the things I cover in my
PHP/MySQL training classes is the history of open source and how it
is different from Free Software and what the genesis of things like
Linux were. If you study that you basically wind your way back to
Richard Stallman who codifed his free software principles in the
GPL.
The essence of Stallman's definition of free software comes down to
4 freedoms (essays available on fsf.org):
Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and
adapt it to your needs (Access to source is a precondition)
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
neighbor
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
(Acces to source is a precondition.)
So, the GPL is used specifically to codify legally the above
principles. He goes on to say:
"Thus, you may have paid money to get copies of free software, or
you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of
how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and
change the software, even to sell copies."
And
"Free software" does not mean "non-commerical". A free program
must be available for commercial use, commercial development,
and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free
software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is
very important.
He also goes on to write "Selling Free Software - Many people
believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not
charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should
charge as little as possible - just enough to cover the cost. Actually
we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as
much as they wish or can."
All these essays are available on the fsf.org web site and form the
philisophical basis for GPL.
So, ultimately the question for anyone who is using OSS for any
purpose, modifying, redistributing, or even selling it, "Have you
violated these 4 tenants of the GPL?" Many people on this site fall
into the camp of using it, many fall into the camp of modifying it, a
few us fall into the camp of redistributing it. I know of no one
selling it, but there is nothing in the GPL that restricts someone for
charging for the software if you read the Stallman essays on GPL.
Anyway, part of me is wanting to defend our efforts to distribute
OSS, part of me is thinking there's no reason to defend, so rather
than taking a defensive approach, I wanted to take an explanatory
approach.
I hope you appreciate what we're trying to do and now understand
some of our thinking behind the company.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 03:37pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
Yawn, you really need to do some reading about the php, mysql, and apache licenses before using them as examples to support your case. Like Geeklog, those projects and their licenses do not require anyone to visibily post on our sites we are using them. At the same time, none of us has rebranded and claimed them as our own work like you have done on every site you installed. Please don't give us the BS you are doing this for the greatness of the community and these poor people would just get confused. By your own admission, they are neophytes and most likely won't be contributing back just like you haven't and you won't.
The least you could is not insult us with a long sappy post and be honest. You are doing this all for your own profit and don't care about furthering the community. You put your own name on each site for your own selfish reasons. If people are wise, they will stop releasing any more plugins and blocks for free. If you think it's okay to plaster your name on their work, then I think the developers should charge a fee so it's not a total insult when people like you replace it with yours which is a brain.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 04:19pm
By: lcox
The relevant things here are:
1) I made my posting and identified myself to the community and
made a genuine attempt to talk about the issues in a serious way.
You are happy to remain anonymous and I think that speaks for
itself.
2) Time will tell whether contributions are forthcoming. No need to
speculate about it - either you will be right or I will. We have
contributions to make that are ready now, but as you might know it
takes more than just having something ready to contribute it.
As a result of this thread, though, because I think you're being silly
to accuse when you know nothing about me, as a few proof-points,
I'm going to contribute some skin variations - one was heavily
"fixed" which had a lot of problems when it was w3c validated, but
was a good starting point. Over the coming days and weeks, I'll
start posting links to user docs we'll churn out. We'll chip away at it
and our contributions will add up over time.
Whether you care about those things or not, I don't know, but we
see these as aspects of promoting and pushing GL further into the
mainstream, which is one of our goals. They are valid
contributions. You as an anonymous poster, might be Dirk or Tony,
but I suspect not; because you're anonymous we can't now
"compete" to see who's going to contribute more going forward.
Would be a curious exercise though.
Here's an example question I got from a client just this morning:
---
"I created two users, Miguel and kitz from within the portal. I
wanted both of them to be able to add stories, so I checked "Story
Admin" as a group they belonged to. However, when they go to
submit a story it says they aren't authorized:
"Sorry, you do not have access to the story administration
page. Please note that all attempts to access unauthorized features
are logged."
I thought maybe I had to create the User in the abc.net/Admin
(name withheld) interface. I tried this with kitz and she was still
unable to enter a story. I've checked the faqs and tutorials and
couldn't find any help with this issue. I have to be able to let my
users add stories and events.
Can you help?
Also, I wanted to ask what is involved when I am ready to add/
change the domain name to the xyz.org (name witheld) domain. I
only have the abc.net (name withheld) so that I can work with the
site now... eventually I will probably want to use just the xyz.org
domain since that is the original one."
---
I answer questions like this all the time because people see their
entire site and service wrapped together and don't usually
distinguish their questions by what's a PHP, MySQL, GL, email,
domain question. They want to go to one place to get their
questions answered - that's one of the values we offer people.
So, if you think about it, maybe it takes 2-3 hours of sales work to
talk someone into a site, they buy a year for $120, then you
support them with questions like this for a year. You tell me - have
I put my effort, money and time where my mouth is? I'm so far in
debt because of this now, it's not even funny. So, if my
"rebranding" efforts (as you put it) were profiting me so much, I'd
be a marketing genius. As it is, I'm not and I've got the red-ink to
prove it. In the end, just so people like you wouldn't get the wrong
idea we've changed our badge.
On the contributions side:
I've got an entire email list/contact management package I've
written that I'm considering contributing as open source as a good
starting point (See www.phpsoapbox.com ) It's currently
commercial and we host it on mindfab.com as an exclusive (now.)
SoapBox could certainly be used as a basis to add capability to GL.
Who knows? Point is I have stuff to contribute that I've built. I just
pull the trigger and it's OSS.
So, as I said, time will tell on the contributions. Either you'll be
right, or I will. I'm not worried.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 07:08pm
By: lcox
Ok, just so you know I'm not blowing smoke in the other comments
in response to your attack about not being willling to contribute or
to give credit, I've released 3 new theme colorizations (variations
on existing) for your use. You can download the new themes:
3 new MindFab.com variations on themes - http://www.mindfab.com/ filemgmt/index.php
There's more where that came from - no one has asked us for any of these, so we never published them. Guess to make sure you know we're not trying to hold back, just have limited time like everyone else, I've uploaded a few of these.
Also, so no one thinks we're trying to hide the credits, I added a "credits" topic and story.
Enjoy the new themes. We'll publish more as we have time.
Landon Cox
3 new MindFab.com variations on themes - http://www.mindfab.com/ filemgmt/index.php
There's more where that came from - no one has asked us for any of these, so we never published them. Guess to make sure you know we're not trying to hold back, just have limited time like everyone else, I've uploaded a few of these.
Also, so no one thinks we're trying to hide the credits, I added a "credits" topic and story.
Enjoy the new themes. We'll publish more as we have time.
Landon Cox
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 08:31pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
Well, whether the guys here care about credit or not, there is something pretty freeking sleazy about even IMPLYING that something someone else did is your own product.
I've heard the Apache, MS WORD analogy before. It's deeply flawed. Apache serves what the user sees. WORD does likewise (in the form of a printed page). No one hands in a copyrighted report typed in Word, imlying that not only are they responsible for the report, but also for the program whereby the report was developed.
The folks at Mindfab are very sleazily (at least right on the edge of sleaziness), implying that THEY have developed the core tools whereby the content we see is served. It would be one thing were they to simply leave off mentioning Geeklog, but copyright the pages they do (just as I do not mention that I use Word or that my page is running on Apache). But they go much further than that. What they do is analogous to my claiming that I largely wrote Apache as well as the content it serves. Sleazy - no freeking way else to look at it.
I wish the Geeklog developers would not call Geeklog 2.0 "Geeklog 2.0". These folks have obviously worked very hard on this product and if they aren't going to charge us for it (for which I thank God in Heaven- cause I can't afford what its worth), they ought to at least get some sort of kudos from it - and not have to endure leeches who lie and cheat for a freekin' buck. They should rename the product because I understand the need for business people not to present clients with a product named "Geek"(anything). Business people need to present an image of strength and professionalism. That name does not quite get there.
The developers should rename Geeklog 2.0 and then release it under some other license, forcing acknowledgment of its use in EACH and EVERY product, just as Macromedia does with its products.
I see why guys are angry here. Here is what does it for me:
When I see poor Dirk, Blaine, Tony and others here day-after-day, week-after-week, month, year-after-year, patiently answering the same dang questions over and over again, and constantly developing this thing to be what it is -- all for free (!) --, my conscience starts bugging me. So for some guy to then come along to up and lie about what I have seen every freekin' day with my own eyes strikes me as very cold, pretty dang heartless and stinky to high heavens.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 08:41pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
Icor said: >>>On the contributions side:
I've got an entire email list/contact management package I've written that I'm considering contributing as open source as a good starting point (See www.phpsoapbox.com ) It's currently commercial and we host it on mindfab.com as an exclusive (now.) <<<
Brotha, this ain' no contribution. As it now stands, it is only a POTENTIAL contribution. Flip the switch and let this wonderful thing of yours beef up Geeklog.
I wish I could contribute something. I certainly would. I'm trying, but the time where I will be able to contribute meaningfully is a bit off. But just because I am "thinking" about contributing doesn't mean I have contributed a **bleeping** thing.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 08:46pm
By: lcox
I'm simply boggled by your attacks. In order to make it even that
much more obvious, I've added a specific credits section to
mindfab.com. The link to GL was always up on the links page with
a description and credit.
I've put up
some new themes you can download[*2] . I've
contributed workarounds when appropriate to this community.[*3]
I support GL users as part of the packages we host so Dirk, Blaine, Tony, and all don't have to answer user questions from people I host.
I'm not sure what else can be done to appease you, I've made a good faith effort to credit GL, I've spent a lot of time, effort, and my own money trying to take GL into the mainstream, so I shall leave it at that. It's possible you may never be convinced of my intentions even after all this.
I've never anonymously posted and always attempt to maintain the highest levels of integrity when I deal with people. Everyone reading the thread can now make up their own mind - I've done what I can to put my cards on the table.
I support GL users as part of the packages we host so Dirk, Blaine, Tony, and all don't have to answer user questions from people I host.
I'm not sure what else can be done to appease you, I've made a good faith effort to credit GL, I've spent a lot of time, effort, and my own money trying to take GL into the mainstream, so I shall leave it at that. It's possible you may never be convinced of my intentions even after all this.
I've never anonymously posted and always attempt to maintain the highest levels of integrity when I deal with people. Everyone reading the thread can now make up their own mind - I've done what I can to put my cards on the table.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 08:46pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
Icor said: >>1) I made my posting and identified myself to the community and made a genuine attempt to talk about the issues in a serious way. You are happy to remain anonymous and I think that speaks for itself.<<
There are a few anon posters here. I just came on. On this issue, the identity of the poster is completely irrelevant. There is only one issue of true relevance here: whether the accusations of your accusers have merit.
If those accusations do not have merit, then fine. If they do have merit then fine again - and the identity of the accusation means nothing at all. This is not a court of law, wherein the character of the accuser need by brought into question. No one even needs to know you. Your web page tells the story well enough.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 08:55pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
Lcox said >>I'm simply boggled by your attacks. In order to make it even that much more obvious, I've added a specific credits section to mindfab.com...<<<
You've only done these few dinky things because a few guys here have set some fire under your tail. Prior to that, you were as content as a fly in a dead horse to leave your "Made WITH Mindfab" in place. The fact is, Geeklog is SUBSTANTIALLY part of what everyone sees in your work. This "Mindfab" that you "pseudo used" is wondrously small - so small, in fact, it does not even exist.
If you wish not to link "Geeklog" to your work, just take the word off of the work. But don't go around claiming some 'speshul proprietary product' (that doesn't even exist), was used to develop your products. That is just sleazy, fella.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 08:58pm
By: lcox
Layout the accusations:
1) I'm supposedly rebranding GL, but I'm actually packaging and
distributing a lot of OSS technologies. In order to completely
satisfy that accusation, I've simply changed the badging to be
"Hosted by MindFab." Is that okay?
2) I'm supposedly taking credit, but I've put links to GL on the site
from the beginning. To make it even more obvious, I've added a
credits section to the site so there's no doubt.
3) I'm supposedly leaching, but I've contributed fixes, themes, and
user support and have spent a lot of time and effort to push GL
more into the mainstream.
That's all stuff that's been done to make sure there's no shadow of
a doubt that I support this effort.
What other accusations are there left that I can take care of? I'll do
what's in my power, I'm well within the pale of OSS roles as a
distributor, but at some point the unfounded attacks need to stop.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 09:02pm
By: lcox
I've never made that claim and have explained myself ad nauseum
about the mainstreaming, support, and yes marketing purposes of
aggregating a bunch of OSS technologies in one service. If I was
trying to be sleazy, I would have ignored you from the beginning
and tried to evade the issue.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 09:11pm
By: lcox
Once I read your comment, I added a GL link to the site. I wasn't
attempting to avoid attribution. The purpose of the site was not to
promote GL, but rather training.
That said, when I delivered the class, I gave them a rundown on
GeekLog and showed them what it could do. I told them exactly
where to find it, what its name was, how it worked to help manage
sites and get them set up fast. I used it as *one* example of what
people were doing with PHP/MySQL to promote PHP/MySQL and why
its good technology.
So, I promoted GL by name during the course I taught on PHP/
MySQL even though that wasn't at all the thrust of the course. Just
wanted you to know that.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 09:13pm
By: lcox
I've also contributed my modifications made to Simple Orange to
get the Chalk Talk theme. It's downloadable on mindfab.com along
with numerous other customizations I've made to various themes.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 09:15pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
Lcox said: >>. If I was trying to be sleazy, I would have ignored you from the beginning and tried to evade the issue.<<
In truth if you were trying to be sleazy, what you would do is exactly what you are doing. You would try to spin sleaziness so that the naive might accept it as good. This is precisely what sleazy folks do when they are caught. Clinton absolutely did not have "sexual relations" with that woman. It was just a misunderstanding---until the purple dress showed up. THEN all the spin stopped because even the simplest people knew the truth.
We are just still in the spin phase here. Everyone knows the truth, but there is no purple dress. By making small changes here and there to your site, putting a few themes up and making a few empty claims of releasing code to the community, and by publicly stating you didn't have "relations with that woman," one might artfully claim one was not lying. But the page was pretty obvious, Icor.
There reason this sort of behavior matters is that it is false. We perhaps cannot stop you, but if we were to allow it to happen with impunity, without calling what it is, we might well end up cutting our own throats. The Geeklog gods may simply stop the good weather and bountiful seasons - since we are by implication claiming to produce them ourselves.
Made with ******
Posted on: 06/21/03 09:38pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)
>>lcox said: 1) I'm supposedly rebranding GL, but I'm actually packaging and distributing a lot of OSS technologies. In order to completely satisfy that accusation, I've simply changed the badging to be "Hosted by MindFab." Is that okay?<<
That's fine (though I have not revisited your site). But you only made these changes because we stomped you here. You act as if the accusations had no merit at all - and that is just a bunch of spin, playa.
>>lcox said: 2) I'm supposedly taking credit, but I've put links to GL on the site from the beginning. To make it even more obvious, I've added a credits section to the site so there's no doubt.<<
You put the links on the site, granted. But your initial "Made with Mindfab" completely obliterated the significance of those links. Your recent "clarifications" were made only because of the anger you have seen here. I'm happy you've changed (though I have not seen these changes). That says a lot about you - a lot of good things. But you must remember that those changes occurred because of pressure. The accusations against you had merit.
>>3) I'm supposedly leaching, but I've contributed fixes, themes, and user support and have spent a lot of time and effort to push GL more into the mainstream.<<
Riiight, and you did all of this from the goodness of your heart - like the real developers of "Mindfab" do every freekin' day. Give me a break, guy. You gave this "support" for money and you are pushing GL into the "mainstream" for money. That's cool, but don't go running around here acting as if your prime motive is to do us all a favor. Its just more stinkin' spin.
And your themes were given very recently - in response to criticism. That is great. Give more. I assure you, if I make any claim about your work, I will NEVER claim I made it.
Lcox said: >>That's all stuff that's been done to make sure there's no shadow of a doubt that I support this effort. What other accusations are there left that I can take care of?<<
That's up to you. I would ask you to consider the feeling you would have had you stayed up till 3:00AM very many mornings working on a project that you want to give to people so that you can see them use it and see your creation spread, and then all of a sudden you started to see your product showing up over and over again with the claim "made with Barfbag" on it. You would not like it at all. The Geeklog guys may not say anything against it, but it could not have been pleasureable for them to see what you were doing.
>>I'll do what's in my power, I'm well within the pale of OSS roles as a distributor, but at some point the unfounded attacks need to stop.<<
Yeah. I really don't give a **bleep** about the pale of OSS and any other kinda pale. I'm talking just plain decency. If folks are gonna let us have use of something great, the very least we can do is not lie - not even get close to lying - by claiming we created what they in fact created.
I'm gonna stop now. I'm not interested in hurting you. I hope you do a good business.
Re:Made with ******
Posted on: 08/16/03 07:50pm
By: emagin
Geez everyone, CALM DOWN.
Don\'t start a flame-war here.
1) You have notified creators of Geeklog to a potential \'issue\'
2) We all think it\'s great Geeklog is spreading -- the more the merrier!
3) If any kind of GNU is being violated, let the Geeklog guys take care of it.
After all, if Geeklog spread by fairly honest means, we should all be cheering. Pretending to be something you are not usually comes back to bite you, especially in the development world. These guys will get their due if they are misrepresenting anything.
Any semi-intelligent client would figure out it\'s Geeklog!
Re:Made with ******
Posted on: 08/19/03 10:49am
By: DTrumbower
and according to GPL, they are not doing anything wrong. Nor was it ever attemepted to do anything wrong.
Re:Made with ******
Posted on: 08/19/03 12:30pm
By: tracker900v
well, intentional or not when this thread was started, the changes have already been done on their site and contribution efforts are made..
forums serve a better purpose when it is used constructively (for building, improving) rather than destructive.
If topics of such are to be discuss, I think it\'s best to be in the clear than to be a shadow hurling insults on one that you can identify..
that shows the level of responsibilities and openess one can assume..
\"Opensource\" now has a new meaning besides software..
Re:Made with ******
Posted on: 11/02/03 04:48pm
By: Anonymous (WorthyDan)
I'm with Icox - for this kind of thing to grow and spread, it has to be packaged and passed on to the kind of users that don't understand all the complex and technical issues but want a good, working website. I should know - I'm one of them, converted to Geeklog by a friend and not looking back to my old websites. And I'll contribute what I can along the way, too. Good work, Icox.
Re:Made with ******
Posted on: 11/02/03 11:25pm
By: samstone
nteresting discussion on what is legal or not and who is spinning or not. Looking at GPL, LCox has not violated any law, but was really guilt-tripped by that anonymous guy.
As for me, I really don't like an anonymous person--especially one admittedly contributed nothing--to speak like a big boss. This guy is a real spinner; he played with the tender conscience of LCox so well. Plus, he could neither control his anger nor his language. Well, the spin stops here!
One thing we can benefit out of this conversation might be to continue the discussion about how to market Geeklog based sites, just as LCox has revealed that he wasn't quite successful in doing that. Maybe we should start a new thread with that topic.
I started out being hired by a non-profit organization to develop and maintain their web site and as I was looking for a core engine, I stumbled into GL. Now, since the economy has been bad, they cut my hours and I was trying to find a way to fill the income gap (for the time being, I am living on my home equity also) by using this wonderful piece of software to develop sites for others. But I have not found a successful route. Small companies don't need such complex site, and bigger companies have their own web developers. Individuals can't afford our time, and I ended up developing for them free.
The guy at WebBadass.com has got some nice clients. Don't know how he markets it.
Think this will be an interesting topic?
Sam
As for me, I really don't like an anonymous person--especially one admittedly contributed nothing--to speak like a big boss. This guy is a real spinner; he played with the tender conscience of LCox so well. Plus, he could neither control his anger nor his language. Well, the spin stops here!
One thing we can benefit out of this conversation might be to continue the discussion about how to market Geeklog based sites, just as LCox has revealed that he wasn't quite successful in doing that. Maybe we should start a new thread with that topic.
I started out being hired by a non-profit organization to develop and maintain their web site and as I was looking for a core engine, I stumbled into GL. Now, since the economy has been bad, they cut my hours and I was trying to find a way to fill the income gap (for the time being, I am living on my home equity also) by using this wonderful piece of software to develop sites for others. But I have not found a successful route. Small companies don't need such complex site, and bigger companies have their own web developers. Individuals can't afford our time, and I ended up developing for them free.
The guy at WebBadass.com has got some nice clients. Don't know how he markets it.
Think this will be an interesting topic?
Sam