What did he do this time? (Just joking )

What happened? Is this a Protector thing or a logon problem (Catz try clearing all the sessions and cookies etc out of your browser, I thought I had been banned for a while too but there is an occasional glitch somewhere that will go away if you clear it out).

Or did someone get nasty? I hope not. I thought there was now a public process for reviewing proposals to ban people and that it was not done arbitrarily.

Please download the Guide to Essential XOOPS modules from here. It recommends mainstream, stable modules to perform most functions, and has links so you don't have to hunt around too much.

Personally, I think there is a need to bundle a few mainstream modules with the core package, to make it easy for new users to get started with XOOPS, or at the very least to make some pre-packaged bundles available on the main download page.

By removing the bundled modules, and with the current state of the repository, it has become unreasonably difficult for new users to find safe reliable modules to begin making their first XOOPS site.

This doc is intended to help overcome this problem, but it is no substitute for having module bundles available or packaged with the core IMHO. I would like to propose this to the council or whoever is responsible, but I do not know how to get suggestions seriously looked at. If someone can help me out with this I would appreciate it.

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All of them. They were all shipped with xoops.org. I put it to you that they are all GPL.

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If you're using or modifying GPL code written by someone else, yes, you're bound by GPL. If you wrote the code yourself and whatever it is performs its intended purposes 'stand alone' then you can probably claim copyright for it. To me (and the rest of this is just personal opinion and I have to say I am somewhat persuaded by biteronboard's rims analogy) if your theme is explicity written for xoops, and doesn't work with any other system, then its dependent on XOOPS to function. (You could of course write your own dynamic website that uses the same css styles and whatever else in which case I would no longer argue that it wasn't an independent work but I can't think of anyone that has actually done this).

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Sure. But fact is that most themes in the past have been made by someone that took the default theme and started changing it. Case in point, the current xoops.org theme. You can't tell me this one isn't based on the original default theme. And if a theme can't display data without xoops, can it really be considered independent or to be performing its intended use?

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That I can do. It is my pleasure to reveal to you...the System Module!!!! Other modules written by other people that depend on the system module in order to function are bound by the GPL, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, baby.

I contend that a theme or XOOPS install that is not displaying normally and/or prettily is not functional The intended operation / normal use of the theme (or XOOPS system) should be taken into account (but, that's just my view).

Edit: Happy to be proven wrong by the way. XOOPS desperately needs professional themes, and if that means I have to pay for them I don't mind.

One thing to bear in mind is the copyright status of the *original* XOOPS theme. Many (most?) themes are hacked versions of that, especially the older ones. It doesn't have a copyright notice (I checked) but it doesn't have to carry one, since copyright is automatic. But what license?

Personally I think the default theme has to be considered an integral part of XOOPS (in that XOOPS won't function without it out of the box) so it would be reasonable to consider it issued under the GPL as per the rest of the software, although maybe this is something worth clarifying (Foundation?).

What I'm saying is that if a new theme is based on the default, I don't think it could be distributed under anything other than the GPL. But if a theme is really written from scratch maybe things are different? Not sure about that.

However, I still think its arguable that a theme is a necessary part of the XOOPS system, not an independant work. A XOOPS theme requires a running XOOPS behind it in order to display/function.

This is the best thing anyone's done for XOOPS in years. Outstanding

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Why not set up a XOOPS security email list that people can subscribe to? Not only could it be used to provide timely security patch announcements, it could also be used to advise users of xoops.org downtime and similar issues. Ideally should not be on the same server, of course.

It should be trivial to set up, inexpensive to run and provides the single launch point for the admins. If its opt-in there'd probably only be a few thousand users max, so bandwidth would not be onerous. People that care can subscribe to it, and people that don't won't have many grounds to complain about being uninformed.

Dave, I don't think your comments were entirely fair. The perpetual flame wars are a symptom of a problem, not the cause. Get the teams set up, give them access to the tools and authority they need to do their job, let people who want to participate do so, and provide some kind of mechanism to interface the community with the management. And then let it run.

Trying to run the project from the top down is a mistake. It hasn't worked before, its not going to work now. No offense intended to anybody, its just what I think.

Thanks again - I am using these to bang together my first module :)

KaotiK

Just wanted say THANKS for your excellent tutorials. I read a few PHP books but have been struggling to get started in module writing with XOOPS due to the lack of documentation on this kind of thing. Your tutorials are the 'missing link' I needed to bridge the gap between PHP and XOOPS module development. The style is very clear, I hope you will do more :)

I also hope your tutorials can be shared with docs.xoops.org, they are key documents to the system IMHO. People have been asking for this for years, so thanks :)

Look, its just way too hard to contribute to this project. I just don't understand why it must be made so difficult for people to collaborate.

Anyway, I've had enough. I give up.