Dear Casey Bisson
Casey - you're an impressive guy and we're all waiting to see what you do next. We've been hearing you talk about your plans for Scriblio since, well, at least since code4lib 2006, which was in February 2006, and your ideas were as exciting back then as they still seem to be today. But if we can't have the Scriblio source today, it's not open source today.
You can say it "will be released as open source". You can say "you intend to release it under a free software license". Ideally you'd even say when you think it will be released to let us know when it will be open. But until you do release it under a free software license, it's not "free and open source", no matter how many times you repeat that it is.
[Update (2007-08-23): You can get Scriblio now.]
Peter Murray (not verified) on July 26th 2007
It probably wasn't intentional, but your posting inspired a similar posting of my own based on some thoughts that have been bubbling in the back of my brain for a while.
Thank you, I think. ;-)
dchud on July 26th 2007
You're welcome, I think. :)
Step (not verified) on July 26th 2007
I agree, but.... This is a nifty project that is based on free and accessible tools. It's open in the sense that the tools used to develop it are open. But are you nitpicking? Just encourage Casey to release any code or scripts currently unavailable. Are there any? What is the difference between software and its applications? Programming vs. scripting? Just encourage the initiative. His work is a delight to watch as it is clever and generates both debate and curiosity. A good thing in libraryland. It's out in the world and doing good. Nearly ready to be shared as a package ready to go and with which we can play to our heart's content.
dchud on July 26th 2007
Hey Step - I thought I made it pretty clear that I'm interested in the project and am keen to see what comes of it. But I'm not nitpicking - you don't get to say your work is open source if it isn't open source. By any definition, it's not, today, and I'd just like to see Casey replace his repeated claims that it already is with some more usefully worded explication of when it will be.
Ross (not verified) on July 26th 2007
He doesn't even have to formally 'release' anything. Just read access to a source repository would do. I'm woefully bad about ever getting around to actually packaging things up for general consumption, but I do make sure my subversion repository is always freely available to checkout whatever I've written.
Of course, I also don't generally crow about the 'opensourcedness' of my projects, either.
Joe Malik (not verified) on August 11th 2008
The next step is to make an content management system based ILS! I think some people are already working on this in Drupal. This is completely possible and would offer incredible flexibility.
Joe Malik
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