We here at OSNews take open source software seriously. That's why, today, we're making our site's source code available to the public. While some sites have inline SQL statements, embedded passwords, afterthought modules, and sensitive data embedded into their pages, at OSNews, we have a strict system that employs no hacks whatsoever to extend functionality. This is why our site rarely changes look-and-feel and rolls out new features slowly, only after they've been rigorously tested. This code is offered under the BSD license: feel free to use it as you wish! So, today, we're proud to offer you the code that powers OSNews.com. Be sure to start with the README file to get started! Enjoy responsibly.
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Member since:2005-11-24
I totally agree. I hope I haven't my sense of humor, but I don't think this is funny at all. Is the idea of opening the code to a website so ridiculous - especially one that is very supportive of open source software? Besides, Slashdot does it... http://www.slashcode.com/
OSNews is a great site - share your work with the world!
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:2005-07-06
My interpretation was that the joke is at the expense of some of the more rabid/fundamentalist free software/OSS supporters - the people who consider software licenses to be more important than basic practical considerations (like whether not the software works worth a damn / does what it's intended to do).
Member since:2005-07-06
There have been a few posts on Adam's blog comparing the OSNews CMS to WordPress, pointing out that the OSNews software is fairly well-tuned for heavy load, large amounts of data, etc.
Granted, most of the functionality of OSNews could probably be implemented using most of the popular open source CMS / blogging apps. But, I can certainly see the appeal of having something that's specialized for a particular set of needs.
Having having worked with several of the popular CMS systems out there (WordPress, MovableType, Expression Engine, Drupal etc), it often seems that I end up wasting a lot of time trying to turn off/remove functionality that I don't need.
Edited 2009-04-02 20:18 UTC
Member since:2005-07-24
As opposed to that majority of FOSS software advocates who believe in Open Source, but retain a realistic perspective. Tend not to be as vocal. But are too often lumped in with the loonies.
Member since:2005-04-01
I'm glad you've noticed, really. OSNews is written to be high-volume from the ground up. It makes use of incredible amounts of pre-cached data. Cron and pre-generated files play a very large role in constructing the site you see, and future bits will almost certainly make use of JSON and jQuery to hand off some of the work to the client. Anyone who dissects the osn javascript library will immediately see it was not architected with a framework in mind, and as a result, the next generation of improvement will come from condensing our scripting and making better use of the jQuery foundation.
Understanding WordPress internals is my passion of late, but WordPress is definitely a swiss army knife, so to speak. In this case, it would require incredible amounts of work to make WP do what we want to do. The current OSN codebase is incredibly flexible, both extendable and moddable on the fly, so it's very easy for me to add new features and even change the live system. I am very careful about writing code for performance, not beauty (Kroc and I have great debates because my code is based on utility and his on art, and I think we're both better at our jobs because of our spirited discussions). I choose functions and rewrite inefficient portions all the time to measure page load. We used to require multiple servers to withstand the load (many here may remember the janitor or the soup nazi errors), but now we run with little load on 1, due to better SQL, much better code, etc. OSN has withstood a simultaneous digging and slashdotting, so it's highly tuned for load.
I may write a piece one day, if people are interested, on where the differences between conventional CMSes and OSN lie, but we've made several architectural decisions that are for performance: I've very intentionally written procedural code (no objects at all) and rigorously tested our SQL. Sometimes, it's faster to run lots of small queries than to execute one big motherf'er. And again, we offload what we can.
Also, we make changes to things all the time, such as the trust algorithm. We always have changes in the pipeline - for example, right now, we're discussing changes to the mod system, which will mean lots of work to preserve valid and appropriate user history. We treat the site like a community, and hope that's reflected in code.
I've gone on for far too long, but there are quite a bit of major reasons why we'd not be interested in modding something like WordPress or Joomla, and one of them is primary focus on serving high load.
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move."A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Member since:
2006-01-06
Well, that wouldn't be supprising when lots of services use open source engines, and there's nothing really that interesting in osnews from technical side to keep it secret etc. Just do it guys!