an open source version of the tiddlyspot server
Daniel Baird
I've got an announcement, some rhetorical questions, and a couple of
REAL questions I'd love to hear answers to. If you get bored, please
scroll to the end where I ask 'em.
The Announcement:
================
Imagine if you could just download and unzip some PHP files, and
instantly have a tiddlyspot-type server running behind your corporate
firewall, on your school server, or just on the Mac Mini in the back
of your broom cupboard.
That's the goal of a new project that we kicked off a couple of weeks ago.
I've tried to anticipate some questions below...
Q> What's tiddlyspot anyway?
Simon and I have run a free TiddlyWiki host at tiddlyspot.com for
several years. Tiddlyspot makes it really easy to create and save
TiddlyWikis to the web, using BidiX's UploadPlugin and a smattering of
sweet, sweet Ruby goodness. Try it out at http://tiddlyspot.com if
you want to see how it works.
Q> *We* kicked off a project? Who's *we*?
Well, Simon and I have wanted to clean up and open source tiddlyspot's
server code for a while, but haven't really had time. Then recently
friend and colleague Robert (known locally as The Amazing Rob)
mentioned that he was looking for an open source project to get into.
Sha-bam!
Q> Why PHP?
Much as we love Ruby, we figure it's still a little dicey getting Ruby
code to work on free and low cost web hosts. PHP on the other hand
seems to be supported everywhere, and it's a major goal to make the
thing install and run with a minimum of messing about. So PHP it is.
Q> Easy-to-deploy huh. Any other "major" goals?
- Easy to deploy. Ideally setup-free -- unzip, then browse there.
- Easy to understand. TW goes in, TW goes out. I'd love to fix the
simultaneous edit problem, that's pretty confusing. Might be out of
scope here though :)
- Easy to create sites. Like tiddlyspot, or better. Plus support for
uploading an existing TW.
- Easy to enhance. We imagine fancy backup arrangements, printable
PDFs for your GTD lists, etc. might all exist as things you can just
dump into the addon directory.
- I can't think of any more, but we'll keep you posted...
Q> What stage is it at?
Early. Robert has the basic site creation and hosting working. Still
to come is the selection of site flavour, theming & branding, getting
UploadTiddler working and tested, site and server control panels,
fancy backups, and whatever other stuff comes up.
Q> I've got some time to kill right now. Got something to look at?
We don't have a working site to fiddle on yet, but the code's here:
http://github.com/brimstone4814/tiddly-speck/tree/master
You don't need git to grab it; just click the 'download' button to get
the source as a zip. Dump it into an Apache directory and see what
happens when you hit index.html.
Q> What's the volume of a pizza with radius of z, and depth of a?
pi z z a (an old joke but a good one).
The Questions
=============
There's a few pressing issues I'd love some advice on.
Licencing:
BSD? GPL? Maybe LGPL? I have a vague sense of the difference
between these, but I have no idea what the real ramifications are of
each. Will GPL get in the way of corporate use, even just
psychologically? And I'd like to allow some kind of plugin
arrangement that permits non-open source addons. Any advice?
Naming:
Currently we're calling it TiddlySpeck, but actually I'd love to think
of a name that's not related to tiddlyspot, and maybe doesn't even
include the word "tiddly". Or is that blasphemous?
I'd love to hear your opinions. I expect Robert will be along in a
little bit to introduce himself.
Cheers
;Daniel
--
Daniel Baird
I've tried going to the XHTML <bar /> a few times, but it's always closed.
chris...@gmail.com
On Feb 12, 11:58 am, Daniel Baird <danielba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Imagine if you could just download and unzip some PHP files, and
> instantly have a tiddlyspot-type server running behind your corporate
> firewall, on your school server, or just on the Mac Mini in the back
> of your broom cupboard.
At your leisure I think it would be great for you guys, Simon, Cool
Cold, BidiX, Frank (of WikklyText) and me and Fred to have some chats
about where, if anywhere, there are overlaps between TiddlySpot,
TiddlySpeck, ccTiddly, TiddlyHome, WikklyText and TiddlyWeb. They all
have slightly different goals and attitudes but I've never seen a
single location that delineates all that. Might be useful.
> Much as we love Ruby, we figure it's still a little dicey getting Ruby
> code to work on free and low cost web hosts. PHP on the other hand
> seems to be supported everywhere, and it's a major goal to make the
> thing install and run with a minimum of messing about. So PHP it is.
is Python there are moderately onerous requirements for install that
are easy to satisfy if you have your own host, but somewhat less so if
you are using a shared server (not impossible, just takes some work).
Since easy to install everywhere was not one of the main TiddlyWeb
requirements I went for a language I actually like. :)
> - Easy to understand. TW goes in, TW goes out. I'd love to fix the
> simultaneous edit problem, that's pretty confusing. Might be out of
> scope here though :)
the others: it thinks in terms of tiddlers going in and out, not
(just) tiddlywikis, and it _does_ solve the simultaneous edit problem.
> Licencing:
> BSD? GPL? Maybe LGPL? I have a vague sense of the difference
> between these, but I have no idea what the real ramifications are of
> each. Will GPL get in the way of corporate use, even just
> psychologically? And I'd like to allow some kind of plugin
> arrangement that permits non-open source addons. Any advice?
I'd suggest BSD.
> Currently we're calling it TiddlySpeck, but actually I'd love to think
> of a name that's not related to tiddlyspot, and maybe doesn't even
> include the word "tiddly". Or is that blasphemous?
don't there might be a schism in the church that last decades, perhaps
centuries.
FND
seeing what you guys are gonna come up with.
As for the license issue, I'll poke Andrew so he can share his
(considerable) expertise.
Personally, I tend to prefer BSD just because it feels simpler and is
more compatible with other licenses - but if you want to force any
modifications* to be fed back to the project (a valid concern), GPL is
the better fit.
FWIW, BSD seems to have worked well for TiddlyWiki.
-- F.
* well, at least those those that aren't just applied internally
Pseudo Realname
>
> Q> Why PHP?
>
> Much as we love Ruby, we figure it's still a little dicey getting Ruby
> code to work on free and low cost web hosts. PHP on the other hand
> seems to be supported everywhere, and it's a major goal to make the
> thing install and run with a minimum of messing about. So PHP it is.
>
In that case Python is it too.
Because googles appengine is free for everyone. (who is willing to
tell them their cellphone-number).
Could be wrapped in a big download (python + sdk) and people entering
some things in a console-window (name, password, appname).
Has no sub-subdomains AFAIK, so hosting untrusted javascript is a problem.
I hope i am right: mywiki.tiddlyspot.com does not share cookies with
tiddlyspot.com? Own set of cookies?
But if everyone hosts only own stuff that should be ok.
I have done the guestbook example and some experiments. My python/php
is trial and google, but for setting up appengine i may be of help.
> Q> Easy-to-deploy huh. Any other "major" goals?
>
> - Easy to deploy. Ideally setup-free -- unzip, then browse there.
Appengine-sdk can do that for small loads. Login lacks passwords, but
someone skilled could add that. (someone did with an old sdk).
>
> ;Daniel
>
-Pseudo
ccahua
> On Feb 12, 11:58 am, Daniel Baird <danielba...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Imagine if you could just download and unzip some PHP files, and
> > instantly have a tiddlyspot-type server running behind your corporate
> > firewall, on your school server, or just on the Mac Mini in the back
> > of your broom cupboard.
>
> This is very cool. I think it will be very useful to lots of people.
>
> At your leisure I think it would be great for you guys, Simon, Cool
> Cold, BidiX, Frank (of WikklyText) and me and Fred to have some chats
> about where, if anywhere, there are overlaps between TiddlySpot,
> TiddlySpeck, ccTiddly, TiddlyHome, WikklyText and TiddlyWeb. They all
> have slightly different goals and attitudes but I've never seen a
> single location that delineates all that. Might be useful.
streams in the serverside river.
I'm really enjoying the TiddlyWeb metaphor of TiddlerExchange, so
hopefully your serverside discussions will lead to some fruitful cross
fertilization or thee holy grail of TiddlyUniverses.
As for the easy to install question, the unzip and go works for me!
A good example of ease is tweebox at http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/.
Back in the day you could download php5, twee, and go forth on a usb
drive, but Chris Klimas has done a nice job of packaging up all that
story engine.
That ease of install (or having to explain how to other ppl) is what
makes TiddlyWiki so attractive and hopefully can be reflected on these
other serverside incarnations as well.
As for finding a non-local host, add another vote for the Pseudo's
suggestion of python + GoogleAppEngine like http://code.google.com/p/tiddlyhost/
under BSD
Silly Names:
TiddlyMote
SpeckMote
SpeckMode
Specky
SeeSpotTiddler
HTiddlyML (c)(tm)(r)
if that last name goes big, feel free to send remittance to tony
at ...
:-)
Best,
tony
Måns
I really like your idea.
I have a BidiX's Tiddlyspot set up on my server - and I don't dare to
make it official or invite others to use it - because I cannot make
the paswordfunction work properly.
I've made some aestetic changes to the mainpage - but it's really just
the same site as Bidix's TiddlyHome.
I'm sure You must know about TiddlyHome?!
It's administrated through 2 TW's one for the mainpage and another for
administrative tasks - I really like the concept of using TWs as a
place to publish other TWs.
It's easy to make changes to layout and have a setup that is tweakable
for the administrator and intuitive for users.
I have some difficulties administrating the sites. I can't even delete
sites not made by the administrator - which makes it useless for me...
I'm sure it's due to my lack of server skills that it doesn't work as
it should - according to the documentation.
I look forward to try your TiddlyspecSetup.
I've copied it to my ftp - and tried to make a site with it. It didn't
work.
Heres the errormessage (I wonder - should I create directories named
after the sites I plan to publish beforhand?):
"Site id, Testing, valid.
Password valid.
The template, test tiddly wiki, is valid.
Validation successfully completed, creating site.
Warning: mkdir(): SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose
uid is 5500 is not allowed to access /var/www/xn--mns-ula.dk/xn--mns-
ula.dk/TiddlySpot/sites owned by uid 48 in /var/www/xn--mns-ula.dk/xn--
mns-ula.dk/TiddlySpot/createSite.php on line 190
Couldn't create the user's site directory. This was likely caused by a
bad TiddlySpeck install.
Site creation failed."
If you want to have a look at my TiddlyHomeinstallation - I will send
you a link... My version is in danish - but you should be able to
navigate anyway -
YS Måns Mårtensson
Eric Shulman
> of a name that's not related to tiddlyspot, and maybe doesn't even
> include the word "tiddly". Or is that blasphemous?
"ties all the needed parts together in a bundle"
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios
Pseudo Realname
>
> As for finding a non-local host, add another vote for the Pseudo's
> suggestion of python + GoogleAppEngine like http://code.google.com/p/tiddlyhost/
> under BSD
>
Will try to make that run locally with the sdk. Down to install
python, unzip, run.
Would that be ok? Or are you interested in doing it, or together?
>
> Best,
> tony
>
> >
>
Brimstone4814
I am Robert, Daniel spoke of in his initial post.
Firstly, I should mention that I am by no means a php expert, so I am
not certain of what the full impact of you having SAFE MODE turned on
is.
That said, I believe your problem has been caused by the
createSite.php script creating a sites directory which does not have
the same "user id" as the script.
I have modified the git repository source code to include a sites
folder in it. This should mean that
when you upload tiddly-speck, you get a sites directory with the same
"user id" as the script.
I 'think' that in your case you could do one of three things:
1. Download the new .zip distribution and see if that works. ( In
doing so, also letting me know if my "user id" theory works :D )
2. Set the UID of the sites directory to 5500, thus making it owned by
the same user as the createSite.php script.
3. Modify the permissions of your sites folder to allow a different
"user-id" to write to the directory. ( e.g. permissions = 777 )
If none of these options work, feel free to let me know and I will
look into this problem further.
Thanks,
Robert Pyke
Daniel Baird
<pseudo....@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> 2009/2/12 Daniel Baird <danie...@gmail.com>:
>> Q> Why PHP?
>> thing install and run with a minimum of messing about. So PHP it is.
>>
>
> In that case Python is it too.
> Because googles appengine is free for everyone. (who is willing to
> tell them their cellphone-number).
Still too much trouble, I reckon. And not useful to the guy who wants
to have a TW host behind his corporate firewall (which is probably the
most popular reason people give when they email tiddlyspot.com asking
for our code). Yeah, he can download Python and set up a server, but
if he has that much time to spare he probably should install TiddlyWeb
or tiddlyhost or whatever.
> I hope i am right: mywiki.tiddlyspot.com does not share cookies with
> tiddlyspot.com? Own set of cookies?
Yep subdomains solve the shared cookies problem. That's one of the
reasons we went to subdomains at tiddlyspot.com (initially sites were
made using a subfolder). Not sure yet how this project will handle
it; I'm pretty sure setting up wildcard DNS would kill 90% of our
potential user base.
There is a group of potential users who will want to host their own TW
server just so they have one to tinker with. But I feel like those
guys are gonna want something like ccTiddly or TiddlyWeb. We're
aiming for the people who just want something that works, and don't
wanna fiddle with it.
Daniel Baird
>
> TWINE: TiddlyWiki Intranet Environment
> "ties all the needed parts together in a bundle"
>
Now that is a GREAT name. if twine.com or .org were available, i'd
grab it right now.
Any other suggestions, anyone?
Jeremy Ruston
Mario
As an aside, this is just the thing I've been waiting for to restart
my internal office tiddly campaign. I've shown tiddlywiki around the
office a bit, but among non-wikiers the name is a turn off and the
single-user bias doesn't work well for what we need.
On Feb 13, 5:56 am, Jeremy Ruston <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Chiming in rather late to say congratulations to The Amazing Rob, Daniel and
> Simon, this is all very exciting. I like that the Tiddlyverse has serverside
> options that between them cover a lot of different (and sometimes
> conflicting) goals. It's good to be able to welcome PHP, Ruby and Python
> developers alike.
> Cheers
>
> Jeremy
>
>
>
9600
> BSD? GPL? Maybe LGPL? I have a vague sense of the difference
> between these, but I have no idea what the real ramifications are of
> each. Will GPL get in the way of corporate use, even just
> psychologically? And I'd like to allow some kind of plugin
> arrangement that permits non-open source addons. Any advice?
Roughly speaking you have permissive licences at one end of the
spectrum and strong copyleft licences at the other, with both capable
of inspiring love or hate depending on where you sit. Permissive
licenses such as the BSD are about the freedom of the implementer to
do as they please, whether that be to just use the software or to make
a proprietary derivative version to sell for profit. Whereas the GPL
series are about ensuring the freedom of the software in perpetuity.
If someone modifies GPL-licensed software and sells binaries for
profit, they must also make an offer to provide the corresponding
source code to those in receipt of said binaries. This positive
obligation only comes into effect with redistribution, and does not
come into effect with own use. So if a company used a modified version
of your software internally, they would not have to give anyone copies
of the changes they made. Although there is a variant of the GPL
called the AGPL, that regards service provision as redistribution, and
this aims to safeguard the intent of developers producing 'free' (free
as in freedom,e.g. GPL-licensed) software, in a world that has moved
from sales of the software artefact itself, to a SaaS model.
Permissive licenses tend to carry some obligations, but typically just
to attribute the code to its original author(s) (e.g. in licence
notices contained in derived source, a boot message or 'Help -> About'
menu etc) and such.
Note that if you own copyright to all the code you can dual-license
also, e.g. GPL + commercial. With this example you could sell someone
a commercial licence if their use is incompatible with the GPL, e.g.
they want to modify your code and distribute it to a 3rd party, but
are unwilling/unable to provide source, or alternatively they want to
combine it with software furnished via a licence that is incompatible
with the GPL. With those who are happy with the GPL using the software
at no cost, under its terms.
The GPL as-is does not preclude business use, rather instead I would
say it encourages companies to build value on top of providing a good
service, instead of relying on revenue from simply software sales.
There are a lot of common misconceptions surrounding the GPL, which
can admittedly hinder adoption at some organisations.
You'd be advised to do a bit more digging yourself, but I would
suggest that if your goal is to just get the software out there, then
to use a permissive license such as the BSD. Whereas if you want to
ensure the continued freedom of the software, and to be say guaranteed
access to the source corresponding to a commercial 3rd party
derivative, then GPL might be a better option.
Another consideration is the community's preference. If the TiddlyWiki
community has a history of using the BSD, then this might influence
your decision... Then again, it might not (nor warrant doing).
Hth (and hasn't served to further muddy waters).
Cheers,
Andrew
roger
a lot of TW users. I know I'd like to try it out on our intranet.
TWINE is a terrific name. I'd suggest TWINS: TiddlyWiki Intranet
Server, but it just doesn't sound as good as TWINE, and feels like
plagerism of Eric's suggested name.
FND
ybabel
great work. I have tested it quickly on my computer !!!
It seems pretty usable right now. I noticed that you use the Upload
plugin.
That leads me to some questions :
could it possible to préconfigure the tiddlywiki with the right upload
parameters (since the TWINE create everything, I think it's possible
to fill theses fields).
I wonder if your TWINE will have the same problem that UploadPlugin
(altough I'm wrong) : it seems that the passwords and username are
stored inside the same cookie for all tiddlywiki on a computer, making
impossible to handle multiple "spots" on a computer.
To bypass this problem I used the CookieManagerPlugin but maybe you
have proposed another solution (I have not tested so far).
regards,
Yoann
Daniel Baird
>
> FWIW, this might be of interest:
> http://tinyurl.com/cfbk3f
Wow, great link, thanks FND. Looks like the Affero GPL 3 license does
what I want, but I can't decide between that and the BSDish
free-for-all that TW itself uses.
Still open for comments...
On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 2:00 AM, ybabel <yba...@ideia.fr> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> great work. I have tested it quickly on my computer !!!
> It seems pretty usable right now. I noticed that you use the Upload
> plugin.
> That leads me to some questions :
> could it possible to préconfigure the tiddlywiki with the right upload
> parameters (since the TWINE create everything, I think it's possible
> to fill theses fields).
Yes, definitely. Making it effortless for the user is the secret
sauce. Expect that to get sorted out real soon.
>
> I wonder if your TWINE will have the same problem that UploadPlugin
> (altough I'm wrong) : it seems that the passwords and username are
> stored inside the same cookie for all tiddlywiki on a computer, making
> impossible to handle multiple "spots" on a computer.
>
> To bypass this problem I used the CookieManagerPlugin but maybe you
> have proposed another solution (I have not tested so far).
The tiddlyspot method is to use the parameters the "upload" macro lets
you supply to specify the username. Not sure how uploadtiddlers works
in that regard.
Obviously you don't want to have the password encoded in the TW...
Ken Girard
opening multiple gmail accounts at the same time. What ever that
method is should be convertible to TW as both use cookies to manage
accounts (as does my bank, social sites, etc).
OK, kind of scratch that idea: All the solutions are pretty much where
we are at. The best one I saw was a Firefox extension that lets you
use a dropdown to pick between accounts. I think it would then
autorefresh so that you got into the new account.
Ken Girard
On Feb 18, 6:29 am, Daniel Baird <danielba...@gmail.com> wrote:
Harald
> In regards to username and password, I seen some articles about
> opening multiple gmail accounts at the same time. What ever that
> method is should be convertible to TW as both use cookies to manage
> accounts (as does my bank, social sites, etc).
I've noticed that TW explicitly specifies the path=/; name-value pair.
This results in all TWs made available from the same site to share
their option settings.
I would like to suggest the following method. Please forgive me if my
proposal should be inappropriate. The idea is as follows: provide a
configuration setting which could be stored or rather overwritten
using a tiddler which controls the path to use. The default should be
the common "/" setting so compatibility is preserved. When required, a
TW could be reconfigured by permanently setting the configuration
option in a tiddler.
The functions saveOptionCookie(), loadOptionsCookie(), and removeCookie
() would needed to be modified accordingly.
-- Harald
manoflinux
Your code seems to have gone missing?
Any more work on this? it ever get there?
Matabele
Mat
Andrew Singleton
Birthe C
Birthe
Mark S.
T.W.I.S.T. : TiddlyWiki Internet Server Technology
Daniel Baird
With TW5 the need for a simple, stable web host for TiddlyWikis continues. The biggest problem with producing an open source tiddlyspot is time. Simon and I now live in different cities, and we have kids, work etc to deal with. We both *want* to make a modern version of ts, but actually allocating tinkering time is super hard.
- Don't compromise on the SIMPLE FOR USERS part. Either swallow the complexity completely, or skip the feature. User options are sign that you're failing to make it simple.
Your code seems to have gone missing?
Any more work on this? it ever get there?On Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 6:58:01 AM UTC-5, Daniel Baird wrote:Hi all,I've got an announcement, some rhetorical questions, and a couple of
REAL questions I'd love to hear answers to. If you get bored, please
scroll to the end where I ask 'em.The Announcement:
================Imagine if you could just download and unzip some PHP files, and
instantly have a tiddlyspot-type server running behind your corporate
firewall, on your school server, or just on the Mac Mini in the back
of your broom cupboard.That's the goal of a new project that we kicked off a couple of weeks ago.
objoke: I had a problem and decided to solve it with threading. Now, have problems. two I
Atul Grover
On Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 5:28:01 PM UTC+5:30, Daniel Baird wrote:
Hi all,I've got an announcement, some rhetorical questions, and a couple of
REAL questions I'd love to hear answers to. If you get bored, please
scroll to the end where I ask 'em.The Announcement:
================Imagine if you could just download and unzip some PHP files, and
instantly have a tiddlyspot-type server running behind your corporate
firewall, on your school server, or just on the Mac Mini in the back
of your broom cupboard.That's the goal of a new project that we kicked off a couple of weeks ago.
I've tried to anticipate some questions below...
Daniel Baird
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Jan
I just discovered this https://github.com/robertpyke/tiddly-speck amazing version of tiddlyspot...which is in deed working on servers also for TW5.
One single regret is that it obviously was created before the shift to TW5 why one interesting feature I discoverd in this distribution just works or seems to work for Twclassic.
There is an UploadTiddlerPlugin in the Template wiki and a storeTiddler.php.
Now UploadTiddlerPlugin is able to Upload a Tiddler even if TiddlyWiki is located on a local file.
It would be great to have something like that could save single Tiddlers to a folder in the wikis directory...or to a sort of "IncomingTW" which shows you the uploaded Tiddlers and allws to drag them over after they were checked them.
Cheers Jan
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/CAATMBzH7VDPWGDKTSx9gPHRRKMoKFnxmrRi4Xi1GLXWbKVQdpQ%40mail.gmail.com.