Is it possible to create an open source linklist script?
 

Just for the sake of argument, what would be needed to start an open source linklist software project?

phpadsnew is open source, I gather, and so is oasis. Would there be enough of a user base to make an open source linklist practical?

I'm thinking it should be possible to write something that could handle LLs, TGPs, and hubs, with built in security systems and all the features that LL owners are always looking for but have to wait for some individual developer to write.

Probably a pipe dream - hey, wait, thats what they said about open source like linux and mozilla, and mozillla bugs get fixed in hours instead of months...

It sure would be nice. :)

I've never really understood how open software actually gets its funding.

phplinks is open source..

Thanks for the reference, Amber, that looks very interesting.

Do you know of anyone using that script to run a LL?

Anybody else know of anyone using phplinks to run a LL?

The last version of phplinks that I could find was from march 2003, and most of the domains that used to be devoted to phplinks are redirecting or show host pages. So it looks semi-abandoned.

And the active version of it that I looked at put ungodly big session ids on every link and every action, not necessarily ideal. But, like with links2, it might be simple to get it to print simple html urls to the page.

Since it's open source, and parts of it work, maybe it could be modifed to better fit the task?

This was the sample version of it running that I looked at...

http://directory.promopeddler.com/

I know of a few goth mainstream sites using it but the heavily edit it..

I'm to the point with my link list script that it is just driving my nuts trying to use it each day not to mention its database keeps on getting screwed up which is costing me lots of time spent fixing it.

So I really need to find another script to use within the next month.

I need to find out a few more things about this one but right now it is looking like the one that I will go with.
http://www.xpowerlinks.com/
Not open source and not free but not expensive either.

Would love to hear from a few people using it.

I've been looking at that one since January when it was still in beta..it looks very good for the money

From the looks of it I think it is what penisbot is using but I could be wrong.

It has a bot built into it and a search for my surfers to use which is two thing that is a must have for me. Lots and lots of other features too. :)

I need to find out if it can write out a file with no open/closing htm and body tags so that I can pull in everything into another page using php. Looks like it can but I need to be sure beforehand. I also need to see what would be involved in getting my existing database into it.

Is it bad of me to be feeling a little cautious about a russian script?

Otherwise, I am watching your study of xpowerlinks with great curiousity, Cleo.

have you set it up on a test domain to see how it works for you?

Fuck, here I thought it was just me. LOL

First time I looked at this script all I saw was
(Warning Russian Version Available)

I feel so politically incorrect now… :D



Bill the demo is just an online demo that lets you see all the admin pages, you just can't change anything.

I'm very impressed with what I saw. It really does look like what I have been looking for.

The author of the script posted on GG&J the other day saying that he is still on vacation and would come to the board and answer questions in a few days when he gets back. So I'm waiting for him to post so as I can ask him a few questions, but am pretty sure that I will buy this script this month.

My link list is built in ssi and php with my links just being an include so as long as I can have this script write out my includes switching scripts will be very easy for me.

Yeah as cleo said he will be back from his business trip soon. I know a few people using it and they like it very much. Among those people is myself :). I'm setting up my design layout now. Its pretty easy to edit once you read the manual. IMO alot easier than many other ll scripts are. Also the search feature is a major plus for me and it also has a favorites list so user can save there favorite sites. I would say I like the bot feature the best because it lets you set the amount of times a site can have say a no recip error, host down or redirect before it deletes it. So this way the submitter is happy cause his site isnt deleted just cause his host happen to go down at the time you were checking your list for dead links and you can tell right away when someone is changing there site to redirect your traffic because it sends you an email. Those are just some features in it you can use there are a few other good ones. If anyone wants to contact him for more questions just let me know.

Business, vacation, is there a difference? LOL

dubb did you have an existing database that was imported when you started using this script?

No I didn't Cleo, but two of the people I know using it had there sites intergrated into the new script by them so it shouldn't be a problem. I think it might cost extra for that tho, but then again everything cost something. I don't want to spam these LL owners so if you want to know which sites use it just let me know in pm.

All this talk of xpowerlinks is interesting, especially because it underlines some very desirable features, like a good link validator.

But I'm still interested in the possibilities of a good open source linklist script, with all the bells and whistles also.

So, since I'm inspired by the example of space ship one and the X Prize, I'll guarantee $200 paypal plus a nice plaque or something equivalent to the person or persons who can post for open download a version of an open source linklist that's equivalent to xpowerlinks in power and features.

I know that's a pittance for development work, but think of the glory! Your name will be on the lips of adult webmasters for years to come!

And if development starts I might be able to convince some other people to throw money into the prize pot.

Tempting... not sure I have the time currently though. And if I'd code it, it'd be a difficult decision to release it open-source...

From what I can see (in the screenshots at least), XPowerlinks's strength is its admin configuration panel that looks pretty swell (and would be long to code).

Entreri.

Note: I've tried a while back PHPLinks and I really didn't like it - I even had to modify the code from Sourceforge to get it running.

Voice of Dissention...
 

Gotta chime in, please don't beat me up too bad. |waves|

Why would I, or any other professional programmer, want to invest weeks or months building a rock solid script that facilitates the people using it to make $1000's per month - just to give said script away for free?

There Are powerful scripts, like osCommerce, that fare quite well in the open source community, and it is because the same people that are participating in the future development of the application and the many hundred add-ons for it also are USERS of the it. They all share in the benefit of the script being open source and free.

I don't think it is viable to attempt the same level of benefit by offering a LinkList script under open source because 99% of the link list owners can't program their way out of "Hello World" - and I don't mean that offensively. There just is no beneficial trade off or incentive to offer such a script this way.

Applications like osCommerce have a VERY ACTIVE following of developers and users that work together daily to address issues, find bugs, develop enhancements, etc. The same will never happen with a quality link list script. There simply just isn't enough of an audience of people capable of contributing to make it feasible.

Re: Voice of Dissention...
 

For the fame and glory!

;)

Re: Voice of Dissention...
 

One model is to give away the software but sell support and consulting.

I would pluck down money today for Xpowerlinks if it was open source.

The only reason that I have not already bought it is I would hate to lay out money and even worse spend a bunch of time installing it and setting it up only to find out it doesn't fit my needs and there is no way to modify it for my needs.

That being said I need a solution now and not sometime in the future so as much as I would like an open source script I can't wait for something to be wrote.

You can arrange a demo to see how it works out. Ask him if he sells you un-obfuscated code so that you can custom fit it to your needs.

Entreri.

Hi Entreri, I thought you would have something useful to say about this idea.

I had gathered from reading the phplinks forums that the version available for public download had a bunch of flaws.

As I understand it, and I'm certainly no expert, when you are doing open source development you break the job up into parts, and work on it bit by bit over time, ideally getting different coders to write different parts, so no one person get's weighed down with the whole thing.

Now, I know there's not that many coders here, so maybe traditional open source writing won't work here. For the moment, I'm playing a "what if?" game, just exploring the idea.

(Altho I am still guaranteeing the prize I offered before, I'm serious about that.)

venturi, I know what you are saying. But if an open source linklist script were available, the business oppurtunity would be to write add-ons and do customization of the open source script.

For instance, it's probably impractical to quickly write an open source link validater of xpowerlinks quality. But if you knew dozens or tens of dozens of people were using an open LL, you could write a validator and sell it, in a fraction of the time and hassle of writing a whole linklist PLUS validator.

There are great LL scripts out there, but some aren't easy at all to modify, and most are missing handy features. The benefit of an OS LL script would be that it would be easy and legal to write for, and anybody could contract to any coder to get their list customized.

So Entreri, what if I modified the prize so that the open script has to match a souped up links2 functionality, not so fancy an admin as xpowerlinks. How doable is that?

I would participate in something like this in my spare time.

I think the thing about open source is you can create many additional add-ons to charge for, services to charge for, support, installs etc. It could also be good practice for those beginner programmers to learn how to use classes and such. If someone is interested I would be more than happy to sit down and discuss it and see what we can put together to get started on it. I on't have a lot of spare time but after programming for 13 or so years I do have some experience and I have worked on opensource projects in the past. (phpGroupware - one module and a looong time ago :)).

Andy

I’m pretty sure HQScripts is the one kid use on PenisBot ( http://www.hqscripts.com/linklist/demo/ )

I bought X-Power links like 3 months ago but haven got time to set it up yet. |yawn|

PenisBot & WetPlace using our own script, not based on any available scripts on the market. We never sold it to anybody.

I wrote a bigger version of this but lost it, buggy connection, shit!

Entreri, do you have a version of phplinks that works? If you do, could you make it available for download or get it to me so that I can make it available for download?

I haven't tried installing it yet, because I gathered the version available was buggy. But I'm planning on installing it on an undeveloped domain I've got to use as a demo and a test bed.

Acidmax, have you looked at phplinks? Would you take a look at it and let me know what you think?

I think the first task should be to examine phplinks and see if it could be the core of an open source adult links package.

Then define what we would need to write as add-ons and changes to make it equivalent to a good links2 setup

I think phplinks is probably good enough to use as a core.

We should look at phpadsnew and phpbb, and those related scripts, and see if they can be integrated into this package, so that adult webmasters couyld download one set of scripts and be pretty sure of them working well out of the box.

I can provide a site for demo and downloading, and on that site have generous links to the coders who work on this project to advertise their own scripting businesses.

This post isn't as nice as the first one I wrote, but I'm in a hurry now, ha ha...

Oh, and BTW, I want to encourage anyone else who's interested to set up their own demo version of this open source link list package, whatever it turns out to be, and we'll link em all together.

The thing to do is to scan source forge and other script sites, for a variety of open source scripts and functions that can be duct taped together to form one large powerful script. As long as you give credit to where credit is due, it should not be a problem.

I agree with Venturi on the fact that there is very little motivation for a pro scripter to get involved. Damned capitalists! When I installed OSCommerce on a site a couple years ago I was astounded by the damned thing. It still amazes me something so powerful and useful is free.

I am not a big fan of open source anything that deals with files, databases, etc. Way to easy to teach people how to hack - the source code is there for all to see.

Secured source freeware is much nicer.

Alex

That's quite the opposite for me. I feel quite at home with an open-source product because I know many people have seen the code before me. I can audit the code myself to see if there's anything I don't like and strip down anything I don't need. The history of the open source project is also invaluable - if the project as an history of SQL injection issues, I know what to keep my eyes open for (and where I need to harden the code).

Plus, it would be difficult to have "secured source" freeware when it comes down to a PHP script. I recall on Windows that cart32 software (which is commercial) that we had at work and a backdoor was found in it - they were using it to provide support to their customers. Yuck!

Entreri.

I have never seen phpLinks but my suggestion would be to use a seperate product entirely and start from scratch. I think making it use entirely opensource products like Smarty & Pear would be the way to go. Provides the flexibility of modules that come with PHP and a template system (Smarty) that is so phenomenal its unbelievable and gives the end user the ability to customize their pages however they see fit. I am using it on my link list software and because I am in such a hurry to get it working on my sites it still lacks a bunch of features but I think the base is fantastic, and although we may not use it because it was rushed the principle behind it is a good start I think. As I said I would be more than willing if other programmers had time to help out on this project, but I don't have a ton of time unfortunately.

Andy

Yes, but it is at work. We've been using it to store our team's favorites. ;) Otherwise, I could re-download it now and fix it a bit.

I don't think phplinks would be appropriate as a "core" - it's not well-designed to start with. You might "borrow" certain aspects of it (with credit) if the license permits it but that's about as far as I'd go if I were to code a would-be powerful linklist. If you want something that's going to be solid and flexible, you have to design it first before you start coding it.

That said, I haven't been able to give it a thought recently because I've been very busy at the office lately. However, Venturi's words of wisdom ring true - I doubt there'd be many (adult) developers willing to lend a hand... :(

Entreri.

Note: I just noticed AcidMax's message while I'm writting this - I too would suggest the use of Smarty & PEAR.

Entreri, I wouldn't run anything "mission critical" on windows. That is just asking for trouble. I laugh every time the local corner store's business comes to a grinding halt while they have to reboot their cash register.

Oh well!

Alex

The OS is irrelevant here - we were talking about closed versus open source. Anyhow, back to link list... |bananna|

Entreri.

It sounds like building a link list with smarty and pear is kind of a "snap-together" operation. If I am understanding what you ae saying, these are open source(?) programming tools with prebuilt modules to accomplish programming jobs.

How much would it cost to have someone use these tools to snap together a rugged open source link list core?

How much would it cost if we outsourced it to some Indian programmer?

Tell me more about smarty and pear, if you would?

And, ultimately, beggars can't be choosers, so if none of you good coders can help, I guess we are stuck with phplinks.

What was wrong with phplinks, Entreri? If we rip out somthing like that time-wasting hits in-hits out subroutine, would that make it better?

Smarty & Pear isnt snap together anything there is still coding that needs to be done.

Smarty: http://smarty.php.net
This is nothing more than a template engine. It is etremely reobust and works well between programmers and designers. You can pretty much accomplish any layout objective you want with this templating set of code. It even has built in page caching to help reduce overhead on database query calls (of course you need to program that in.) It is also very expandable by writing modules/functions etc to extend the use of their existing template classes.


Pear: http://pear.php.net
Pear is a set of classes that can be used for numerous things, from DB abstraction to logging, ftp etc. Again you can extend PEAR with your own classes and take advantage of the base functions. I mostly use the DB abstraction layer so that the code is cross RDBMS compatible.

Even though you use these functions there is still coding, design, db structure process and organization that needs to be done. Creating an opensource application needs to have a few things.

1. A good gameplan.
2. A good infrastructure and updating/release scheme.
3. A good project manager.
4. Programmers

Sure once person could do most of this work and I would be more than happy to lend a hand as I said, but it would have to be more than just me to do it. Realistically if we could get 3-4 programmers and 1 project manager the project could probably go pretty fast. The reason I say 3-4 programmers is because 1, you could get it done faster, and 2 because most of us are already super busy you would need 4 of em to keep progress moving.

As far as outsourcing to India that could be something you might want to do but that wont work imho for a typical open source project.

Andy

I loaded phplinks in the background of one of my sites through fantastico. Outside being ugly, it doesn't horrible. It seems manageable enough. But I don't run a link list. I am not fully aware of the features a ll webmster wants and needs in their interface.
There is a fair amount of garbage to be pulled out of phplinks. For example, it plants the national flag of the submitter next to the approved link. Simple-minded shit like that.
What are the must-haves?

Thru fantastico? What is that? (he said, revealing his horrible ignorance of the scripting universe...)

So the version you downloaded worked out of the box? What's the link to that version?

Yes, the first thing to do is rip the useless dreck out of phplinks, like the countries thing and the hits in-out counter. And whatever else on further examination is useless for adult.

Then we need to make sure it's output is search engine friendly. This means the links urls shounld be standard, no "jump" codes. And the pages it outputs have to be highly editable, so that it's easy to control the page titles and text and adverts on the pages.

Possibly bypass templates or whatever it uses altogether, and move purely to having it output raw html of the links that can be included with ssi or the like in handbuilt category pages.

At that point we have something equivalent to a patched up links2.

Then, we need to decide what else to add. A blacklist, a partners system, and a link verifier suggest themselves.

But, I'm hoping Entreri or Andy or somebody else will dissect phplinks first and tell us what's wrong with it. If it's too weak for a moderate sized linklist we should consider some other approach.

It would help if I knew it weaknesses. A couple of folks have pretty much stated that it is shit. But why? I've begun toying with the admin section for the hell of it. The admin was all frames, which was annoying as all hell. So I've plucked out the frames. It's a tad prettier. I've also eliminated most instances of sesson IDs in the admin links. I'm still hunting for some of them. One of phplinks HUGE weaknesses is the use of session IDs in its linking. They will have to be plucked for it to be search engine freindly, as well as nervous surfer friendly. It does have a built-in link verifier, but no recip tester. There isn't a black list of any type. Otherwise it has site configuration, site specs, edit categories, related categories, and you can add sites via the admin as well.
The submit page asks for a username and password, but you can still submit without entering anything. Apparently, if you choose a username, a submitter can go back and edit their site's description and link. That doesn't sound like such a smart idea to me on an adult link list.
BTW, I am not programmer, just a bit of hack with too much spare time.
The version I am working with is 2.1.2.
Fantastico is an automatic script installer often bundled with CPanel. This is the first time I have used it. Pretty cool really. It installed the dbase too.

Ahh, yes, now I remember, phplinks puts these ungodly huge php session IDs on everything that it does...

And that is, as far as I'm concerned, unacceptable for general adult use.

If that session ID thing can't be stripped out, then phplinks is probably useless as a core of an open source adult linking system. But it may not critical to function, so maybe it _can_ be ripped out.

That password thing that let's you modify entries is clearly one of the first things that has to be ripped out. We don't want submitters to be able to modify anything.