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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
Bloke wrote #292379:
After all, someone not a million miles from this thread owns textpattern.co
I have .co.uk, too. 17 hours refresh whois on the drop date – that was…a long day.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
gaekwad wrote #292354:
Someone has to say it – everything is changing at the moment: site designs, infrastructure, Textpattern’s look-and-feel for 4.6, etc – let’s just get a new domain, some new hosting and not have to deal with this BS every time domains come around for renewal.
Glad I didn’t say it ;)
Going with Textpattern.xxx still leaves the question of who owns the Textpattern brand name, sure we could change the top level domain to whatever, but will it be OK with Dean down the line when/if/fingers crossed the project gains a head of steam and starts to knock on the glass ceiling of the loop.
If we’re re-designing, re-branding, and if Dean never relinquishes control of Textpattern.com, .net and .org, then why not come up with another name. I mean who would of thought of “Google”, or “Reddit” or any of these other names that have become common place in our connected world.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
gaekwad wrote #292384:
Reg’d today. I should keep my mouth shut.
It’s OK, I own textpattern.io, just to keep it safe in case a ‘plan b’ is needed. I’d prefer to move ahead with Dean’s blessing though, rather than steamroller a new domain name through via brute force.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
What is the attraction about “io”? Just out of curiosity. It appears to be lost on me.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
philwareham wrote #292388:
I’d prefer to move ahead with Dean’s blessing though, rather than steamroller a new domain name through via brute force.
Thank you. Textpattern.com has hundreds of thousands of backlinks (literally) and high pagerank. Jettisoning the .com would be most unwise unless absolutely necessary. It would solve one problem, while creating several new ones.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
Destry wrote #292390:
What is the attraction about “io”? Just out of curiosity. It appears to be lost on me.
It’s an acronym of ‘input/output’ that some developers think is cute, although really it was originally intended as the domain prefix of the Indian Ocean region. I have no opinion on it, but I’ve secured it since it was banded around in the thread and could quite easily have been acquired by others.
As others have said, it would be reckless to move away from .com unless some emergency happened. Like the domains just expiring and having no way of securing their future.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
hcgtv wrote #292386:
who owns the Textpattern brand name
My guess (according to the GPL) would be that any rebranding would have to be done as a code fork. As you say, I’m not sure of the efficacy — let alone legality — of just using a new domain, moving the sites over, transferring most of the link juice through 301s and then expecting the rights holder to forget all about it when it goes astro.
But we’d sort of be in the same situation using the current brand and sites. If our market share skyrocketed because we got our shit together, would Dean maintain radio silence or lay claim to his digital child? Would any of us be the same, under the lamplight of these sage words:
Money, when it travels at a certain trajectory and speed, can make anyone into an asshole.
— Dean Allen, 2008
A fork is legit, but forking and then effectively stealing all the users and links from the Textpattern universe to point at the shiny new brand, doesn’t sound very friendly. Dunno.
The path is unclear. Since we’ve lived year to year not knowing if the domains will remain, it can’t hurt to have a Plan B.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
This really isn’t about who owns what – I don’t want to go there particularly, the Textpattern brand is vaguely legally still owned by Dean Allen even though he walked away from the project 10 years ago and never looked back.
In my opinion the project should have forked at that point and started again as a new project with a new brand – which is perfectly legitimate under the license we have in place (as long as people are credited for their past work). After all, WordPress was a fork from a previous project.
Unfortunately that is the distant past and nothing can be done about it now. The domain situation is hopefully solvable without a brand or domain name change – that is drastic and not desirable to me. I might have a different opinion if Textpattern actually generated income, but since it doesn’t I’m happy to continue as-is. Albeit with the comfort of having the domain name registrar under our control, or failing that, DNS records.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
philwareham wrote #292398:
I might have a different opinion if Textpattern actually generated income, but since it doesn’t I’m happy to continue as-is.
There in lies the rub, once “Themes” are a reality, I can see making monies from “Themes”, at least I’m hoping that to be the case. Building all this up takes time and effort, I wouldn’t want to lose all that momentum one day.
Whatever you all decide, I’ll live with, but I’m skeptical. My “Projects” folder is littered with work done on projects that have fallen by the wayside and lost their direction, this is work that you learn from, but it’s wasted time nonetheless.
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#70 2015-06-30 15:11:29
- candyman
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
philwareham wrote #292398:
In my opinion the project should have forked at that point and started again as a new project with a new brand – which is perfectly legitimate under the license we have in place (as long as people are credited for their past work). After all, WordPress was a fork from a previous project.
There was xpattern, if I remember well.
Let’s keep Textpattern, at least we can ask Dean if he agree to pass the domain to someone of the actual developers.
Edit: here it is xPattern! The domain leads to textpattern.com!
Last edited by candyman (2015-06-30 15:17:49)
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
If things ever reached the breaking point we could always try one of these choices… but hopefully it won’t come to that.
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Re: textgarden.org expired - backup plan needed
candyman wrote #292400:
After all, WordPress was a fork from a previous project.
Yes, WordPress started it’s life as a fork of b2evolution, from what I’ve heard, had Dean licensed Textpattern under a GPL license from the onset, Matt would of gone the Textpattern Tag route.
From my posts, it may seem that I dislike WordPress, that’s not the case. I admire what Matt Mullenweg has done with the b2evo code, because it’s equal parts code and sweat. The code may have existed, but Matt sweated in those hot server rooms to get WordPress off the ground. His dedication to what he believed in is why WordPress dominates, the code base was somewhat irrelevant.
Edit: here it is xPattern! The domain leads to textpattern.com!
Here is the Community driven SVN branch thread that started us down the xPattern road.
When we decided to fork, I setup the sites and Manfre handled the SVN side of things. In a matter of days I had a nice static front page, generously mocked up by Alex of TXPmag fame, a support forum and a wiki. We spent all day on IRC, shooting the sh*t, talking bad about the TXP core devs, that is until Ruud would show up ;)
Though the xPattern domain points now to a Dean Allen owned property, what I learned from that experience was invaluable. I’ll not make the same mistakes.
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