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- Written by Mike Feng
The latest JomSocial version (1.6) has just been released! Codenamed "Brillo", it is major upgrade from the previous 1.5. If you were impressed by the jump from JomSocial version 1.2 to 1.5, be prepared to be blown away by 1.6!
More information and screenshots after the break.
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- Written by Mike Feng
Came across this tweet from @albertlo today:
My interest piqued, I took a look at both Albert Lo's and the offender's sites:
Albert's website
Offender's website (no free linkback! The URL's in the tweet screenshot above)
This is so outrageous, it's maddening! It's been more than 2 days, and still nothing's done. Such behaviors have no place in real world business/commerce, so why is it so rampant on the internet? I urge anyone who is concerned to contact the offender's registrar and host and get them to do a force takedown until the issue has been rectified. More information about the offending site can be found here .
My heart goes out to Albert. What a way to start the year.
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- Written by Mike Feng
This is probably interesting to some:
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- Written by Mike Feng
A while ago, I came across a tweet (can't remember who it was from) that illustrates the differences between the 3 major opensource CMS's (Joomla!, Drupal and Wordpress), specifically on how they allow logo use by the public. I've never really thought of blogging about this, until I read this rant by Guido Janson today (there are parts I disagree with, but that's another story).
First and foremost, this isn't a rant but more of an observation. Have a quick look at this Joomla! page , this Drupal page , and this one from Wordpress , each describing the respective project's logo-use.
On the Drupal page, the only reference to licensed use is a single line of text:
The Druplicon image is licensed under the GPL License which covers all items on cvs.drupal.org.
It provides a link to a standard GNU GPL license that most should be familiar with. I should add that Drupal also has a separate trademark page which covers, well, its trademark.
The Wordpress page does not even have a license agreement on their logos page. A short sentence describes that the "W" used in the logo is set in the "Mrs Eaves " font, licensed by Emigre. A separate link on the side panel points to a standard GNU GPL license, which presumably oversees logo-use as well. Another interesting Wordpress page: their domains usage guide . Note that all it says (in a nice, friendly manner, I should add) is that users should refrain from using "wordpress" in their domain names:
For various reasons related to our WordPress trademark, we ask if you're going to start a site about WordPress or related to it that you not use "WordPress" in the domain name. Try using "wp" instead, or another variation.
This means you are free to have domain names like wp-products.com, wp-plugins.com, wordypress.com, pressword.com, wardpress.com, wardpress.com etc (you get the drift). This is the same for Drupal, as illustrated on its trademark page.
Compare these with Joomla!'s logo-use page: 80% of that page is some form of legal text that users have to adhere with. The entire top section is covered by a list of conditions, and every section has its own requirement(s). I'm sure many will find parts of the material questionable, but my "favorite" is this:
Your extension name and logo are always larger and more prominent than the Joomla sticker or logo and either your extension name does not include Joomla!, Joomla, J!, Joom, Jom, Joo or any other similar string OR such name use has been pre-approved by Open Source Matters in writing.
Note that this applies even AFTER your site has been approved as "compatible" by OSM.
Anyone can draw his/her own conclusion based on these comparisons. However, what really gets to me is that the legal entity behind the Joomla! project is so huge, that it actually requires its own ginormous organization , and an entire website filled with rules and regulations . Really, bureaucracy should have died with Max Weber, especially in the software world.
That said, I believe SFLC's FOSS Primer (last paragraph of section) describes it best with this:
If there is a lot of objection to your policies, you might want to examine them and see if there are ways to allow use while still protecting the project’s name.
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- Written by Mike Feng
Finally, it seems that hope is on its way and we may finally be rid of the Mootools 1.1 "curse". Have a look at this discussion:
In light of these recent developments, in seemed that the obvious way forward was to aim for a solution in Joomla 1.5.16 (or later if nec.) based on Mootools 1.2 with the newly developed compatibility layer. This gets us a lot in terms of allowing developers to work with MT1.2 while greatly reducing the chances of breaking existing sites using MT1.1 scripts.
I am currently in conversation with Darren, and from what I hear, the layer is almost done. I hope to get a test copy as soon as possible! When this happens, we can (hopefully) kiss all the Mootools problems goodbye.