FUD used to "save" proprietary/closed-source Soapblox from extinction
After software developers at Soapblox waved the white flag and said they were ceasing operations Wednesday, and despite many peoples' offers of advice and free help to get Soapblox siteowners onto something more robust and open, some have decided the best thing to do was to, well what else, embrace Soapbox even more. They've started a fund raising drive for it, and at the moment have raised almost $10,000 to "Save Soapblox".
There must be a good reason right? Naturally.
As cited in Why SoapBlox Matters Soapblox must be saved because:
"SoapBlox includes all the major features of a community blog -- namely, user diaries and other community-building features. These features are NOT readily available in any other software platform WordPress, MoveableType and others make it exceedingly difficult to do things like diaries and frontpage promotions, and SoapBlox makes it easy."
Got that? Soapblox needs to be saved there aren't things like user diaries (e.g., user-blogs) in other software platforms. (...)
Dude, come on
Call me a panzie, but I found the whole saga of soapboxto be kind of touching. An unimaginable disaster for small niche platform that while maybe not the most advanced modern CMS on the market, had a loyal base of customers and friends. People are actually chipping into put there baby back together. Its a reminder that yes, sometimes actually do grow to love a piece of technology -- even when it hurts them (heh... of course maybe the users have a problem with abusive relationships... okay that was cheap...)
What threat do they pose to us? Is drupal better? Sure, but think about it: how many man hours have gone into making drupal what it is, vs this guy and his home brew system. I'm guessing we're talking in the neighborhood of thousands of more development hours.
I'd like to know more about what made the lil feller worth saving. Maybe there's something drupal can learn from it.
Regardless, yeah -- they are exaggerating their marketing copy. What was drupal redesign's marketing copy? "CHANGE THE WORLD"? Pfff... we sometimes put things a little on the strong side too.
I don't know, its seems kind of bullyish.
oh, sure...
...now, *I'm* a bad guy. ;-)
Yeah, I guess, but my only point (if I have one at all) is that there are REAL differences here - important ones for a site's long term health and wealth.
Being fairly familiar with Soapblox (and knowing how easy it would be to recreate in Drupal) I just can't imagine why anyone would go through all the effort of reinventing the wheel - a wheel that even if reinvented will still lack the extensibility and mobility of an open source package (don't forget - they're locked in to their specific host - the one that has already throw the towel in once!).
Nah, this is more like a
Nah, this is more like a good cop show where you never know who are the good guys or the bad guys. Its really all about who has the best one liners... (come on, beat "maybe the users have a problem with abusive relationships". Don't make me call a fight at the flag poll) The scary thing is, I'm only 25% kidding.
I had a knee jerk reaction, I admit. Its mostly due to reading drupal vs wordpress duels in the DailyKos comments, and getting really annoyed with the various communites having a classic 80's movie foodfight over mundane pointless nonsense. I came in here heated. I'm starting to really despise snobbery in the web community, and the aggression was unfairly directed.
The fact remains you're right about everything except it being FUD, imho. Really, what you quoted was just classic steaming bullshit. And I overlooked that.
There is NO rational justification for the platform; but the fact remains, they raised $10,000 out of the blue, after having the kind of catastrophe that usually results in lawsuits, not fundraisers. THATS DAMN INTERESTING. Especially to a CMS that is starting to raise money for these variosu codesprints for CCK, and the redesign. They could use 10,000 dollars. That ain't chump change. Obviously, I wouldn't suggest drupal orchestrating a massive security breach to get funding, but at the same time, maybe we should think about making closer friends with groups like the progressives. I mean, way back in the day, there was this thing called civicspace, and that's what it was about. While it didn't work, maybe the idea was just ahead of its time?
Maybe the only answer is progressives are batshit crazy, and will support each other to the death, not matter how little it makes sense (I'm a progressive, so I'm aloud to make fun of them... i think).
$$$
New fund raising idea for Drupal.org: Accidentally delete everything, then ask for donations to fix it.
That's a good laugh
That's some definite FUD! Soapblox is so lame, I can't believe it's even lasted to this point. Goes to show people really are scared to leave their comfort zone.
SoapBlox users have raised
SoapBlox users have raised money to save it? Well, what does this show about the blogging platform?
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