| Textswap - Open Source Initiative - updated : Nov 17, 2000 |
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The code is now available! Details in the signup email. |
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Introduction
Welcome! I'm planning to give away the source code for TextSwap. The whole shebang. Free. Do you have to be a techie to use the code? Yes and no. This is pretty complex system and it will require some skill. If you have the skill, excellent! If not, you may want to have someone on the team that has the skill. What's happening now? At this time, I'm trying to gauge interest. I'm planning for a tiered release as the code isn't documented yet. The code can be accesed by registering and you will obtain further instructions via email. Only high level documentation is available. Hopefully, with your help we can have a more reasonably documented code-base. I cannot hazard a guess when it would actually be fully documented. What are the terms? This is being release under the BSD license. Basically, this means you're free to use the code however you wish as long as you give proper credit to the developers. At the moment, it's only me but over time, as people, as you contribute code, more and more. Why am I giving the TextSwap source away for free? After many years keeping TextSwap up and running, I find that I do not have sufficient time to continue developing this service. I figure, why not give it away and see other people benefit. I cannot run this on a global basis alone. That's where you come in. What can you do with the code? Anything you want. The most obvious is to just go play with it. See how it works. Use it in your projects! The next step may be to set it up in your school. Have your friends use it. Test it out. You can run it for free as a service to your fellow students. That's how TextSwap started. Or even better. Get a group of friends together and run it as a business. See if you have the mettle to be an entrepreneur. See if you can work in a team or run one. I've interviewed many college students for my previous job (Scient), trust me, appropriate real practical experience is a strong differentiator. At the very least, it's resume material. You will have your own reasons. So.. as the Nike commercial goes.. Just do it!. Sign up and keep in touch |
Timeline - Estimated
Sep 01st - Initiative unveiled Sep 16th - Limited release ???????? - General public release Current Architecture Prog Lang : Perl/CGI Database : mySQL Operating System : Unix/FreeBSD Web Server : Apache Web Host : Pair Networks n.b. You can run Apache, mySQL, and Perl on a win9x machine. Haven't tested the code with that yet though. p.s. While waiting for the code, you may want to get your technical environment ready. Get familiar with Perl, CGI, SQL, etc. TextSwap Features/Capabilities Account System - edit personal information - change password Books System - automated course/title data capture - scan of Amazon for latest book price - by Course - by Title - by Author - by ISBN - daily inventory status of books wanted - edit/delete books Messaging/Contact System - you can't see the seller's email address. Course Eval Systems Upsell/Cross Sell Systems |