Steve’s Blog

July 21, 2015

Almost no developers understand the GPL. We need boilerplate GPL terms.

Richard Best has a really interesting post about how few WordPress developers understand the GPL: Theme and plugin shops deploy a range of approaches as to how they describe the GPL-licensing of their products, from good to not-so-good to bad. I’m not suggesting that all theme and plugin shops whose terms fall in the not-so-good or bad camps are deliberately misleading customers. I suspect the reality is that some are doing this, for economic reasons, while others or their lawyers have either misunderstood the GPL or used language which just isn’t quite right, if not quite wrong. This is true.…

May 28, 2015

Ecosystems vs Platforms

Stratechery does a good job of distinguishing between a platform (often very closed) and an ecosystem (open source software): I think there is an important distinction between platforms and ecosystems. While these words are often used interchangeably, I think of a platform as, well, a platform: something that is built upon. In the case of the iPhone, iOS is the platform on which apps are built. An ecosystem, on the other hand, suggests a more equitable relationship: different pieces that work together to mutual benefits. This is why I love working with open source software, rather than app stores.

October 26, 2014

Should I take part in this Twitter discussion?

June 20, 2014

Saying Goodbye to Georgia

Next week we leave Georgia after 10 years. My first experience of Georgia was as a kid. My grandparents loved, loved, loved “Gone With the Wind”. They had it on 4 or 5 VHS tapes and watched it almost weekly. Every 40 minutes the movie would stop, they’d get up and put in the next tape.

June 1, 2014

Blues documentary: You See Me Laughin’

From England originally, I’ve lived in the Deep South for the last 10 years. The South has forced me to change my mind about a lot of things, blues music being one of them. I couldn’t have cared less for the blues before arriving here. It took a while, but the music has turned my mind around 180 degrees. Here’s a brilliant documentary called “You See Me Laughin’”, filmed in 2002, just before I arrived here. It’s about the blues players on Fat Possum Records in Mississippi. All four parts are on YouTube:

March 21, 2014

Some quick thoughts on certification

Yesterday, Acquia announced that it was starting a certification program. Joomla is in the process of doing the same thing, although through the community rather than a company. This will likely have a noticeable impact on us at OSTraining, so I’ve a few initial thoughts:

March 15, 2014

Open source has won the battle but is losing the war

I’ve seen this graphic many times on Twitter over the last few days:

March 13, 2014

Joomla cover article in Web Designer Mag

I was approached by Web Designer Mag a couple of months ago to write an article about Joomla. I’ve written for them before, but this was a much longer article which gave 20 reasons to use Joomla. It’s just been published and it ended up as the cover article:

January 17, 2014

Never be seen working on the weekend

I’ve always thought of myself as teacher. But, as OSTraining has grown in the last several years, I’ve found myself moving into the role of a manager rather than a teacher. Still, the two roles have a lot in common. One of the biggest similarities is that you really need to be careful about the behavior you model. For example, I often used to work weekends. Some Saturdays and Sundays, I’d send emails, make site changes and be noticeably busy.

December 31, 2013

A card from Chiara

This year, I had the pleasure of doing some work with Chiara from UntilSunday.it. Chiara helped redesign our logo and brand at OSTraining. At the end of the year, we got a card from Chiara. If you’ve ever met Chiara, you know that she has a unique and artistic flair. She put all of that talent into one of the most unique cards we’ve ever receieved. I apologize if my photos don’t do the quality of the card justice, but I thought it was worth sharing: