Here is my thought. I must have spent, like many other people, at least 60 hours of my time simply hacking links, i.e. installing all of the mods and stuff. And by now my links script is so utterly corrupted by my modifications, that half of it does not work.

Now, surely other people have found themselves in this situation. But the fact remains that many people already have perfectly modded scripts.

So the question I ask is:

would anyone - bar gerald predl (i.e. language links)

be willing to make their links scripts (the full shebang - site_htmltemplates, nph-build.cgi etc) - available in the public domain.

That way new users of links would be able to get the mythical megalinks without all the hassle.

Responses?

Nothing new here. Not just in links but on several other script forums, for some reason users keep asking the same question, looking for a packaged solution. You clearly fail to understand that most mods written for scripts have their individual owner copyrights, while Alex has his own. Neither Alex or anyone can redistibute the whole thing to make it easy for everyone. As of now Links is not open source. Even if it becomes open source then other mods may not be open source.

One persons "perfectly modded" script may not be suitable for a lot of others and we also do not want to see the same minimes all over the web. If you are trying to build something worthwhile, then it is definitely going to take some knowhow on site development and a lot more than just a modded links script. Which means, you learn as you move along - one step at a time.

I just want to comment on that last line.
I know that through modding my own version of links I have learned a lot. I have spent many many hours in creating my PERSONALIZED version of links. Yes I use others mods, but I also modify them to suit my needs. I for sure would not want my version to appear on many other websites, especially at the risk of a competitor taking my design and functionality and implementing it with no work of their own.

The fact that many mods are available and a lot of great individuals give a lot of their time to help users is by far a great deal (and probably more than anyone expects)!

If you expect a quality product, you should expect to put forth quality time in developing it. And you should be equally concerned about creating your own identity with your product. And that means learning by doing.

Just my 2 cents.

Adam

I'm about as big an open source advocate as anyone can be, but I've got to disagree with your request. The objective of Open Source software is not to give you free programs (free as in "free beer"). The objective of the Open Source movement is to give you programs that you can tweak to your hearts content (free as in "freedom"). Links, IMO, is already about as free (freedom) as a piece of software can be without placing it under the GPL. It's written in PERL so we have full access to the source, we have these forums in which to discuss modification and extensibility, and Alex actively supports people modifying his scripts by placing those modifications in the resources section.

You see, Open Source is all about having the ability to tweak your own software. What you're asking for defeats the entire purpose of opening a program up in the first place. My advice is to stick with it. I've been running Links for over a year now and have modified my installation to the extreme. Would it have been easier to simply find a pre-configured version and run it instead? Sure. But in the past year I've learned more about PERL from tweaking and modifying my installation than I learned from all of my PERL books combined. So stick with it. It may seem difficult at first, but in the long run you'll be glad you did. Besides, there's an intense feeling of pride that comes from looking at your completed website and saying "Wow, I did that!"

60 hours!!!

LOL!!!

I have spent the past 10 months modding my directory, averaging about 10 hours per week of custom programming and installing Mods. That amounts to around 400 hours.

BTW: This amounts to around 40 formal mods, and about 10 custom mods (which I will never really publicly release).



Keep going, buddy, you got a long way to go.



Good luck with your LINKS project.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
* Check Resource Center
* Search Forums
* Thinking out of the box (codes) is not only fun, but effective.

I think most of the Links modifications provide very good instructions to help you install it. I don't know much about programming but I have installed all of the popular mods. If you have a problem installing a mod, ask for help in this forum. Just by the sounds of things, it sounds like you installed many mods within a short period without installing one at a time and making sure they work properly. When I first came into this program I thought about an "Open Source" version, but I did it all myself. I did run across a few problems, but I asked for help and everything is now working great. If you have a totally corrupt version I say you start over and do everything the right way and perfect it. I have spent 100's of hours getting things to work properly and I am proud of my final product.

Just my opinion!

-Ryan

I was going to post to this thread earlier, but I think most everyone is in agreement that a mod-of-mods is likely not to happen (I personally would NOT authorize my public or private mods to be included in such a distribution). But Charlie does bring up a good point: there are other scripts that have a mod interface specification that enables them to be enabled and disabled from a central admin screen... getting the various authors to write to this specification is of course another matter. But it has been done before...

------------------
The Immuatable Order of Modding
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1. Read the FAQ, 2. Search the board, 2a. Search the board again, 3. ask the question, 4. back-up, 5. experiment, 6. rephrase question (or better yet, post solution to original question)

 
It's quite clear now that my original question was in fact out of the question.

However, I wish to make a few points
- despite the fact that "One persons perfectly modded script may not be suitable for a lot of others " it is likely to be. If a person can have the option to turn a mod on or off, then that would be a labour saving advantage.
- I do not wish to denigrate the art of modding. However, I believe if links virgins were given a modded version, then that would mean that rather than spending all their time installing mods, they could create new ones.
- Reaction to: "Open Source is all about having the ability to tweak your own software. What you're asking for defeats the entire purpose of opening a program up in the first place." -- agreed. But the application of that ideal is flawed IMO. Just because all the mods are installed does that mean that we no longer have the ability to modify it? No it doesn't . Many brilliant minds are slaving away, wasting their time on something that someone else has already done. If they were given modded versions, then they could contribute back into links.

Sure, you may learn a cornucopia of things from modifying links - but in the end nearly all of it is to do with following instructions. There's no creativity in copying out instructions and cutting and pasting code. I personally only have the time for installing the basic mods.


I believe that far from harming the links communnity, a "perfectly modded" would benefit it. However, if people are unwilling to share with the community their links engines, or if it's illegal, I'm happy with it.

At this point, I recommend you contact Alex directly from Gossamer Threads and ask him what he thinks in terms of the legal issues.

I empathesize with your frustrations and also you bring up some good points...However, the fact of the matter is that it is going to be very difficult to find LINKS Users who would agree with your request or warrant it.



Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
* Check Resource Center
* Search Forums
* Thinking out of the box (codes) is not only fun, but effective.

 I doubt it. Most likely, it would just mean one of two things: a) people would grab the script and leave, never returning anything to the community, or b) not learn anything about Links and ask lots of questions that easily could be answered by familiarizing themselves with the inner workings.
Other than commenting out sections of code, I'm not sure how you would go about turning a mod off. Furthermore, some mods don't work so well with others, so there would be potential conflicts to deal with. Unless there were an offical re-release of Links 2 (which sounds unlikely) incorporating the many mods, good luck finding a way around that problem. Trial and error is your best bet.

Besides, what you are asking has pretty much been done -- it's called Links SQL.

Lastly, most of the mods take very little time to install. The bulk of the time comes from tweaking, tinkering, and customizing. Without familiarizing yourself with the original mod, these later steps will probably take more time then you would have saved by not installing the mods....

Dan