First a declaration…

I am employed by Automattic but these are my personal opinions and not a statement on behalf of Automattic. More relevantly I am a contributor to WordPress but this is by no means a statement on behalf of that community.

Now, to the point…

I’ve been following the discussion over at pomomusings which follows a post where Adam Cleaveland listed the Thesis theme as one of the top 10 reasons for switching to WordPress. Matt Mullenweg (who can make statements on behalf of WordPress) posted an early comment where he suggested that the WordPress Theme “Thesis” was “hostile to WordPress’ core freedoms and GPL license”. The obligatory GPL debate ensued with Thesis developer Brian Clark refuting the claim. His comments so far have culminated in a statement where he indicated that he suggested to Matt that “we consider a declaratory judgment action” to resolve the question of whether the Thesis theme should by law be distributed under a GPL license.

I’m going to skip over the part of the discussion where Brian seems to get mixed up about derivative works with regard to copyright as opposed to as it is defined in the GPL (that’s intellectual property law versus contract law, conflating the two is erroneous at best and deceptive at worst). Rather I take issue with this notion of taking the whole matter to court. As I see it, the suggestion is a tactic in managing public perception.

A declaratory judgement on an ambiguous matter is not “friendly” to WordPress or the GPL, it potentially sets a precedent that will be referred to in later and less ambiguous cases without concern for the context of the original judgement. If GPL supporters wanted to set a precedent they would be better placed to do so with a more clear-cut case. It is disingenuous to suggest that such a case would benefit WordPress or the GPL by providing an answer to an unsettled question. It ought to be remembered that despite the several question marks over the propriety of Thesis using a non-GPL license there is no WordPress copyright holder suggesting legal action against it. It is only the owners of Thesis who are asking for judgement on the “unsettled” question ostensibly as a means to gain some sort of legitimacy and a more stable foundation for its business model whilst conveniently avoiding the risk of the direct and actionable consequences that may arise from a normal civil suit.

The owners of Thesis are the only party with something to gain from any declaratory ruling, and at worst they might be forced (only as a matter of prudence) to make the Thesis license GPL compatible if they lost. That would not necessarily mean refunds, just a retrospective change in license terms. WordPress would not gain anything from a GPL favourable judgement except maybe the availability of some new code from Thesis if it went GPL. That’s really not worth the cost of a legal team.

Regardless, Brian Clark misses the point that Thesis will not garner direct support from those who are influential in the WordPress community until it is distributed under one or more of a range of GPL compatible FOSS licenses. Winning an argument in court that the GPL does not apply to you is not going to make Thesis any more acceptable to those who champion the GPL approach within the WordPress community. That is a matter of preference of those people who have been in no small part guided by the larger community, and that preference will be unchanged by any such action – so they most likely won’t ever bother to participate in it.

In short the offer to settle this “argument” in court amounts to a trick of propaganda where Thesis attempts to absolve itself in the community via a manufactured silent concession, prompted by WordPress’ no-show at a court case where it has no tangible winning scenario.

Thesis’ very existence is not hostile to the GPL (even under a proprietary license), but the current actions of its owners potentially are. For damage to be done it requires someone within WordPress to take the bait and for no one to call out these actions for what they are.

Since then I’ve actually extended this method into a tool that can manage multiple /etc/hosts files. Using this new method you can have a folder that you can add hosts configurations to, and those files become available for switching into /etc/hosts straight away.

There’s no reason why an adaptation of this method wouldn’t work in Linux as well.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Create the host configuration directory

We’ll store all the /etc/hosts type files in /usr/local/share/hs.

You’ll need to do all of this as a root user. So switch to root using sudo -s first (you’ll need to be an administrator to do this).

$ mkdir -p /usr/local/share/hs
$ chmod 755 /usr/local/share/hs

Now to start with, let’s make a copy of the existing /etc/hosts file in this directory.

$ cp /etc/hosts /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.normal
$ chmod 744 /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.normal

Then make the real /etc/hosts a symbolic link to that new file.

$ ln -sf /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.normal /etc/hosts

Any additional host configurations in this folder need to be named using a similar hosts.* pattern.

2. Create the host switching script

Take the following bash script and save it to a file located at /usr/local/bin/hs

#!/bin/bash

if [ $1 ]; then
	HFILE=hosts.$1
else
	HFILE=hosts.normal
fi

# Change this if you put your host files elsewhere
HPATH="/usr/local/share/hs/"

echo "Attempting to switch host file to $HPATH$HFILE"

if [ ! -e $HPATH$HFILE ]; then
	echo "--> File does not exist!"
	echo "--> Exiting with status 1"
	exit 1
fi

if [ -d $HPATH$HFILE ]; then
	echo "--> File is a directory!"
	echo "--> Exiting with status 2"
	exit 2
fi

if [ -h $HPATH$HFILE ]; then
	echo "--> File is a symbolic link!"
	echo "--> Exiting with status 3"
	exit 3
fi

if [ ! -h /etc/hosts ]; then
	echo "--> Current hosts file is a real file!"
	echo "--> Exiting with status 4"
	exit 4
fi

# Link it up
sudo ln -sf $HPATH$HFILE /etc/hosts

# Flush the system-wide DNS cache
if [ -x /usr/bin/dscacheutil ]; then
	# Mac OS X 10.5
	/usr/bin/dscacheutil -flushcache
elif [ -x /usr/bin/lookupd ]; then
	# Mac OS X Less than 10.5
	/usr/bin/lookupd -flushcache
elif [ -x /usr/sbin/lookupd ]; then
	# Mac OS X Less than 10.5 (alternative)
	/usr/sbin/lookupd -flushcache
fi

echo "--> Done"

The script does some basic validity checking on the file and also makes sure that /etc/hosts is just a symbolic link and not a real file.

You will need to adjust the permissions on this script so that only admins can run it.

$ chmod 750 /usr/local/bin/hs

You also need to make sure that /usr/local/bin is in your PATH so that the hs command can be found. We can test that.

$ echo $PATH

… will output something like …

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

If it’s not there then you need to add it in your users ~/.profile file. Add the following line to that file, you can create the file if it isn’t there.

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Now reload your profile and the hs command should be available.

$ . ~/.profile

You could also just close and open your terminal window to reload your profile.

3. Trying it out

The hs command takes one argument. The argument is used to specify the hosts configuration file to be loaded from /usr/local/share/hs. If no argument is given, then the assumed file is hosts.normal.

So for our first test we should add another hosts configuration.

$ cp /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.normal /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.test

Edit the new hosts configuration file to your liking.

Now we can try the switching command to switch to that configuration. You will need to supply your password if you are not already running as root.

$ hs test
Attempting to switch host file to /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.test
Password:
--> Done

The symbolic link at /etc/hosts should now be pointing to /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.test.

$ ls -l /etc/hosts
/etc/hosts -> /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.test

Now try switching back to your normal configuration.

$ hs
Attempting to switch host file to /usr/local/share/hs/hosts.normal
Password:
--> Done

Any more configurations that you add to /usr/local/share/hs are available this way.

Neat, huh?

4. Fancy schmancy tab completion

So that’s all great until you have 10 different hosts config files and you can’t remember their names.

The simple solution is to register additional commands so that command line tab completion can be used. The following additional script registers all the available hosts configs as separate commands. So instead of typing hs test we can type hstest. More importantly we can type hs then hit the “tab” key twice and get a full list of all available commands (one per configuration file).

Hard to explain, easier to just do. Add the following lines of code to the end of your ~/.profile file.

# Setup hs* commands
HSPATH=/usr/local/share/hs
if [ -d $HSPATH ]; then
	HSFILES=(`ls $HSPATH`)
	HSCOUNT=${#HSFILES[*]}
	for (( HSI=0 ; $HSI < $HSCOUNT ; HSI=$HSI+1 )); do
		HSFILE=${HSFILES[HSI]}
		HSFILE=${HSFILE:6}
		alias hs$HSFILE='hs '$HSFILE
	done
fi
unset HSPATH HSFILES HSCOUNT HSI HSFILE

This script loops through all the files in /usr/local/share/hs and adds a command for each. Once that is added, reload your profile to make the script work.

$ . ~/.profile

Now you should be able to type hs then hit the “tab” key twice and get a list of the available commands.

$ hs TAB TAB
hs            hsnormal      hstest

If you add any new configuration files to /usr/local/share/hs you need to reload your profile for it to turn up as a new command (or just relaunch your terminal window).

Enjoy!

So the hotel owner is being a jerk, a jerk acting within his rights, but clearly some people think it’s time for some righteous indignation and political populism. I’ve never heard of Labour MP Trevor Mallard before, but I’ll remember him now…

“It’s stupid and very, very unfair. It shows the sort of blind prejudice I thought we didn’t have in New Zealand anymore.”

… well done Sir, a strong principled statement. Clearly pre-judgement of people based on where they live is completely unfair. It’s an idea that belongs in a by-gone era. Let’s see what the member for Hutt South had to say in his very next sentence…

“I’m not surprised the [owner's] Australian.”

… idiot.

browser = ucase(request.servervariables ("HTTP_USER_AGENT"))

inputwidth = "24"
textareawidth = "26"
fontsize = "9pt"
displayfontsize = "24pt"

if left(browser,12) = "MOZILLA/4.08"
or left(browser,12) = "MOZILLA/4.73" then
	inputwidth = "12"
	textareawidth = "12"
	fontsize = "9pt"
	displayfontsize = "24pt"
end if

if (left(browser,12) = "MOZILLA/4.73"
or left(browser,11) = "MOZILLA/4.0"
or left(browser,12) = "MOZILLA/4.61")
and right(browser,4) = "PPC)" then
	inputwidth = "24"
	textareawidth = "20"
	fontsize = "12pt"
	displayfontsize = "32pt"
end if

if left(browser,12) = "MOZILLA/4.61"
and right(browser,4) = "PPC)" then
	inputwidth = "24"
	textareawidth = "20"
	fontsize = "12pt"
	displayfontsize = "32pt"
end if

if left(browser,16) = "MOZILLA/4.0 (COM"
and right(browser,17) = "5.0; MAC_POWERPC)" then
	inputwidth = "29"
	textareawidth = "26"
	fontsize = "9pt"
	displayfontsize = "24pt"
end if

if left(browser,16) = "MOZILLA/4.0 (COM"
and right(browser,17) = "4.5; MAC_POWERPC)" then
	inputwidth = "17"
	textareawidth = "15"
	fontsize = "12pt"
	displayfontsize = "32pt"
end if

From the same site code I’m also finding the following gems:

• MMMMMMacromedia inline JavaScript – onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore();MM_displayStatusMsg('');return document.MM_returnValue"
• Weird indenting due to white-space randomly screwing up the layout.
• Quite a few of these <br>&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;

Yummy.

* ASP not ASP.NET – .NET didn’t even exist so I refuse to call it ASP Classic.

I’m speachless.

After a long time as a boring old Kubrick blog, the WordCamp Australia site is now flying it’s full colours.

Many thanks to Dan Callaghan for getting the theme finished for us.

Also now available on the site is more information about the actual conference including a speakers list.

If you are in Australia or New Zealand are are looking for a good time in late November, you should give WordCamp Australia 2008 a look.

This humble site has been included on the new WordPress Showcase. Apparently the screenshots there update automatically…

Colin Powell has provided the most succinct commentary of the election so far. Putting aside the fact that he has endorsed Barrack Obama, which is neither here nor there in my mind, he makes some very pertinent points about the Republican campaign so far. I’m specifically interested in his opinion of the disconnect between John McCain’s character and the actions of the Republican presidential campaign.

It seems more and more evident that Senator McCain is not in control of his own party, his own campaign or his own message – and if he can’t lead his own campaign, it seems unlikely that he is capable of leading his country. This is in stark contrast to the impression I get from Senator Obama, who seems to be setting the direction of not just his campaign but the whole Democratic party – at least most of the time. Putting aside the issues, I think it is evident which of these two candidates is showing leadership at the moment.

I’m less convinced by Powell’s credentials as I am by the fact that he knows what it is like to be led up the river by the neo-conservative lobby. He provides an interesting perspective, and if you look past the actual endorsement and take his words in the context of his experience within the U.S. political machine it’s quite an enlightening assessment.

I’ve just finished my hastily re-factored presentation for WordCamp San Francisco and I promised a few people afterwards that I would make it available online in some form.

The presentation was titled “Hassle-free upgrades for WordPress”. I kind of shoe-horned in a large chunk of my presentation from WordCamp UK on Upgrading WordPress using Subversion into the end. I’ve removed that last part of the presentation in the file here and uploaded the more detailed presentation from WordCamp UK as well.

That’s about as clear as mud…

Here are the presentations converted to PDF.

Hassle-free upgrades for WordPress

Managing a WordPress 2.6 installation with Subversion

Thanks to Sheila Ellen for the photo and for taking it during one of my prettier slides.

The WordPress iPhone/iPod app is now available from the iTunes app store. It’s free (as in beer) and within a few days it will be free in the other way too, with the release of the source code.

Keep your eye on the official WordPress iPhone website for the latest.