announce: mod_jsmin

Posted by Ian Holsman Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:51:00 GMT

it’s been a long time coming.. this has been a side project since feburary. Thanks to David for nudging me to finally finish it.

 

mod_jsmin is an apache module (filter + handler) that can minify your javascript on the fly. In my tests it shrinks a file by 30% on average.

the idea is to concat the javascript together as a single file, and then minify it. Obviously if you can do this things before you put the file on the server it will be better, but in large places life is never that organized.

 

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Open Source economics

Posted by Ian Holsman Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:57:00 GMT

TED recently released the talk Yochai Benkler did in 2005.where he talks about crowdsourcing

both the ASF and DMOZ gets a mention

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The Microsoft of Open Source

Posted by Ian Holsman Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:16:00 GMT

In a discussion about a recent proposal to the apache community, someone mentioned that the ASF is becoming the ‘Microsoft of open source’.

I’m sure the point was not made in a positive light, but I’d just like to reflect on this.

In my eyes Microsoft is:

  • large and competitive
  • known for producing a shitty v1, but slowly and surely making it’s product superior
  • known for squashing the competition through extensions and incompatibilites
  • known for using it’s dominance in one area to gain dominance in another.
  • it’s arrogance at the deal table
  • it’s ease of use
  • has a grand plan to take over the world (in business speak a corporate strategy where it would like to be in 3-5 years time)

I don’t honestly don’t think the ASF is any of these. if anything the ASF I know is exactly the opposite. It follows standards to a INSANE level of detail, is fanatical about code quality, and sadly to say un-ease of use in most things i’ve tried.

Sure.. when the ‘ASF’ sponsors a project it makes news, and CIO’s have heard of ‘apache’, but a Microsoft?

I just don’t see it.

I see it more as a collection of tribes. most of the time they agree, sometimes one of the tribe might go on a ‘rescue mission/raid’ and implement something already out there, and piss off the people who did it before hand.

I belive this is a healthy thing. You need innovation and competition in the open source world. It creates better products (and more choice) at the end of the day.

What do YOU think? is the ASF the Microsoft of opensource?

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allowing apache to authenticate django apps

Posted by Ian Holsman Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:45:00 GMT

This allows you to use regular apache authentication methods to set the user-id in a django application.

This allows for easier integration with the existing security architecture in your enterprise. Currently it creates a ‘user’ record inside of the auth table. This is done so that regular apps which expect a user record wont fall over. Hopefully it will get integrated into the core.

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Apache Marketing & Economics Blog is up

Posted by Ian Holsman Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:11:00 GMT

I’d like to welcome Susan Wu (Apache’s CMO ) to the blogosphere.. you can see her thoughts (and others shortly) on The Feather.

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mod_rewrite cheat sheets

Posted by Ian Holsman Tue, 04 Oct 2005 18:10:00 GMT

for anyone who has used the swiss army knife and came out with one less finger… mod rewrite cheat sheet.

hmm. how do we get this onto the offical page?

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