Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Data Captivity in WebApps

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:9/8/2000; 9:32:23 PM
Topic:Data Captivity in WebApps
Msg #:21041 (In response to 21033)
Prev/Next:21040 / 21042

David, my message was a to-do list item for the Frontier developer community. There's been some concern lately that there weren't enough things for Frontier developers to do.

I want everyone to know that there's a very juicy project sitting there waiting to be done. There are enough deeply experienced (and battle-scarred) developers now that I think they could pull this off, completely independently of UserLand.

It would be an incredible way to give something to the community, there are hundreds if not thousands of Manila webmasters who would kiss their foreheads when they realize what they're getting.

Believe me, the users are aware of the need for this. They panic (understandably) when our servers go down. What if they really went down? See how this would help all of us? (Talking to the developers now.) See how much fun this would be? I want you all to know that I would be very appreciative. I would send you flowers and chicken soup. World Series tickets.

About the differences between content systems, there are some common structures and document types. And there's an advantage to going first (setting a standard) and an advantage to going later (you can suck up the other guy's data).

The coolest thing about this project is that it would shake up our little industry unlike anything else. It would get the users thinking and acting more like users. Once they stop and think "where's my data?" there should be no stopping them. And since Radio UserLand is free (for now at least) there's no price in the way.

It would be easy to store a Manila site as a set of folders and sub-folders containing XML files. Anyone at Macrobyte for example could do it. Probably a few people at Organic. David Carter-Tod and John VanDyk. David Brown is a Frontier newbie, but I bet he could do it. David Luebbert. Eric Soroos. Jim Roepcke. Matt Neuburg. These are just off the top of my head.




This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:35 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.