LINUXCOVERCOMMUNITY USERSTORY SchlagwortSchlagwortFree Software sollte sollte Projectshier hier stehen stehen Schlagwort sollte hier stehen COVER STORY

An up-to-date look at and its makers PROJECTS ON THE MOVE

Free software covers such a diverse range of utilities, applications, and assorted projects that it is sometimes

difficult to find the perfect tool. We pick the best of the bunch. This month we cover blogging – the latest buzz, the latest on the DPL elections, and more trouble at

Debian. BY MARTIN LOSCHWITZ

he EU is entering the second use, install, and configure. For example, extensible. B2 Evolution also has themes round of the battle over software administrators do not need to create a to allow users to design their own . Tpatents. While supporters have or waste time trying to set one Like the other solutions, Serendipity successfully had the directive passed by up, as Blosxom uses simple text files. [3] aims for ease of use. Themes and the EU Council of Ministers, opponents Entries can be created in the web inter- skins allow users to modify the soft- of patents are increasing the pressure face and uploaded via FTP or WebDAV. ware’s appearance. Version 0.8, which is prior to the second reading. The number Plugins add all kinds of functionality to still under development, even supports of pages warning about the danger of Blosxom. The default package supports framework [4] templates. software patents continues to grow. And RSS feeding of blog entries, and themes Serendipity can also manage multiple it appears unlikely – although by no give the Blosxom blog a pleasing appear- user accounts. The comment function means impossible – that the European ance. adds threading on top of B2 Evolution’s Parliament will pass the directive. offering, and this makes for less clut- Comments Wanted tered, longer discussions. Again, a spam Diaries All Round? The B2 Evolution ([2] blogging applica- filter removes the junk ads from the More and more, communicative people tion is an alternative. In contrast to blog; and if that is not enough, bloggers have adopted the idea of using a blog Blosxom, B2 Evolution can manage mul- can stipulate that they want to view to let other users share their ideas, tiple user accounts and even groups if comments first before manually manu- thoughts, and feelings. Blogs are typi- required. B2 Evolution has been trans- ally approving the comments for pub- cally edited in a browser. The blogging lated to many languages and has a com- lishing. software on the server then creates a ment function that supports interactive website to match the users' entries. communication. A blocker removes the Multi-Language Support Users who prefer to run their blogs on spam put there by pesky robots. The web interface is available in English, their own servers will need blogging B2 Evolution is the result of a com- Czech, Danish, French, German, or software – luckily many free blogging plete overhaul of B2. The software is Spanish. Administrators have a choice of applications are available. slightly more difficult to install than database back-ends, including MySQL, Blosxom, as B2 Evolution needs a PostgreSQL and SQLite, which is quite Flowery Creations MySQL database. Just like Blosxom, B2 simple to install. Serendipity also sup- The authors of Blosxom [1] claim that Evolution can generate an RSS feed from ports a wide selection of output formats. their blog management tool is easy to the blog entry headlines, and it is plugin Rather than just reading blogs in your

92 ISSUE 56 JULY 2005 WWW. - MAGAZINE.COM SchlagwortFree Software sollte hier Projects stehen COVERCOMMUNITY STORY

browser, you can opt for an RSS feed, took several hours for the good news to BB-Code [5] as used by PHP-BB, various hit home. wiki formats, or ASCII text in addition to The Debian developers have put their the standard HTML. trust in Branden as one of six candidates If the word syndicate makes you think who applied for the job of steering the of the Mafia, think again. A syndicate Debian project. Last year there were only can be, and frequently is, a neutral word two genuine candidates. Some of this meaning any kind of lobby group. In the year’s candidates election campaigns context of blogs, syndication refers to were fairly similar, although there were the idea of collecting RSS feeds from some diametrically opposed views in blogs and displaying them on a common some cases. Jonathan Walther, who homepage. gained notoriety by propagating conspir- acy theories, came last. Martin Michl- The Syndicate mayr, the previous Debian Leader, did Figure 2: The DPL Branden Robinson beat The Planet Planet [6] project creates syn- not run for re-election. Anthony Towns by a short lead. dicates. It was originally designed to col- Branden Robinson sees the election late and display RSS feeds from blogs result as support for his idea of putting wanting to run Debian on other architec- belonging to a few Debian and Gnome the tasks assigned to the project leader tures would thus be forced to move to developers on the Planet Debian [7] (see into the hands of a team headed by the the unstable tree. Many developers fear Figure 1) and Planet Gnome [8] home DPL [10]. This new idea for organizing that these “second class architectures” pages. the Debian management process will could soon become neglected. Now the software is freely configu- have ample time to prove its value rable and will collate arbitrary feeds. before the next DPL elections take place To be continued… The RSS standard ensures that Planet in April 2006. Projects on the Move will be back – Planet is capable of reading and seam- hopefully with even more sensational lessly integrating feeds generated by Quicker Debian Releases? software from the FOSS scene, but we do blogs or other pages. Many projects use Debian Sarge will be released, some have one request before we go: if you Planet pages for internal communica- time! Until that happens, the release can recommend a program that you tions or for public relations work. managers have put the interim period to would like to see featured in Projects on good use speculating on improvements the Move, why not mail me with your New Debian Project Leader at the fringe of a conference in Vancou- suggestion [12]? I look forward to your Elected ver, Canada, which was initiated by a comments! ■ The perennial number two has finally Norwegian Unix user group. This is made it: Branden Robinson (Figure 2) where they drew up the so called Van- INFO won this year’s election to become the couver Document, which was then Debian Project Leader (DPL). With just a posted on the Debian developer mailing [1] Blosxom: http:// www. blosxom. com short lead over former Debian Release list for discussion [11]. Less important [2] B2 Evolution: http:// b2evolution. net Manager Anthony Towns, Branden Rob- things have led to battles in the past, so [3] Serendipity: http:// www. s9y. org inson took the top notch, and nobody it comes as no surprise that the posting [4] Smarty: http:// smarty. . net seemed more surprised about the result gave rise to an intensive debate, includ- [5] BB-Code: http:// www. phpbb. com/ than Branden himself. In fact, he said it ing some fairly intense flaming. phpBB/ faq. php?mode=bbcode The bone of conten- [6] Planet Planet: http:// planetplanet. org tion was the idea of not [7] Planet Debian: http:// planet. debian. net offering Debian releases for all eleven of the cur- [8] Planet Gnome: http:// planet. gnome. org rently supported archi- tectures, but restricting [9] Thank you message from Branden the official release to Robinson: http:// lists. debian. org/ debian-project/ 2005/ 04/ msg00087. four architectures in the html current release cycle: the [10] Branden Robinson’s campaign plat- 386 family, the PowerPC, form: http:// www. debian. org/ vote/ Intel’s IA64, and the 2005/ platforms/ branden AMD 64. Although sup- [11] Vancouver Document by Steve Lan- port for other processor gasek: types would not disap- http:// lists. debian. org/ debian-devel- pear completely, it would announce/ 2005/ 03/ msg00012. html no longer be a manda- [12] Tips and suggestions: tory part of the Debian projects@linux-magazine. com Figure 1: Planet pages collect, collate and display RSS feeds. stable release. Users

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