Finally, Course Aggregation Made Easy
Jim Groom, bavatuesdays, May 19, 2008.

Jim Groom writes, "Henri Simeon's MuTags plugin and the $50 extension we bought from him gave UMW Blogs a RSS feed for each and every site wide tag." Well good. My site has done that for a while now. And it's free. When it's released. Which will be this week. No more dithereing - I have to get that code out this week. (Hits Today: 0 Total: 630) [Direct Link] [Tags: Research, RSS]

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Re: Finally

Les Nessman, May 20, 2008

It will be great to see your code. I admire you immensely for experimenting in code with the various paradigms you espouse. It is an exemplary practice.

How many other adopters of the code are there? Has it been coded by anyone else but you? No? Fair enough, everyone has to start somewhere, but maybe a slightly less snide commentary on this being done within the free and open source Wordpress framework, developed by many and used by millions, might be in order, even if the plugin does cost $50. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Finally

Stephen Downes, May 20, 2008

I'd have more respect for him if he developed his own system and charged $50 for it.

Instead, he just rides on the backs on the many developers who have made WordPress a great *free* resource - what makes him so special, he's the only one who gets $50 for the work.

And the point of my pointing to my own code is to trivialize his accomplishment - what he did isn't such a great advance, it's no fantastic thing so special it deserves the cash that nobody else gets.

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Re: Finally

Stephen Downes, May 20, 2008

> How many other adopters of the code are there? Has it been coded by anyone else but you?

p.s. I don't expect many adapters, if any. Because it's in Perl, it won't be popular. But I expect the concepts to be picked up... [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Finally

Anymouse, May 23, 2008

Stephen,

I couldn't agree with you more about the thorny issues of this developer getting $50. We shelled it out to illustrate the site wide tag feeds as a kind of proof of concept for the eportfolio stuff we have been imagining. A small amount which may save the university thousands and allow us to further foster an open source space for publishing more generally (excuses, excuses - I know :) ).

Fact is, it wasn't necessary to pay the money, but because we are not so much coders as conceptual edtech folks, I pushed for it to see if it wouldn't actually work to make a point for our specific campus. The plugin isn't perfect by a long shot, and I guess I celebrated it (as I often do) with no real occasion, but it is more as a way to remind folks it might be easily done with WPMu (or any other system for that matter as you point out). And hopefully this will push others to make it available and free, which may work given this post was picked up.

Nessman's point about the vast number of people working on the WP code is important, if edurss gets a community around the code that could save you some of the work that would be key. And while a fanboy of WP, I'm not married to it, it has just been the easiest way to make my points and allow others at our university to publish with no real fanfare.

I often get confused about living a wrong life rightly (or vice versa), $50 may have been wasted as you suggest, but I can only try and reproduce what you have been doing with edurss for years now with the paltry tools I have, the most prominent of which is hyperbole.



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Re: Finally

Anymouse, May 23, 2008

That previous comment was from me, Jim Groom, sorry I forgot to sign it. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Finally

Anymouse, January 28, 2009

Hello, this is the creator of MuTags and the rss-plugin and I just want to clarify a few things.

The rss-plugin was created because someone hired me to do some custom work for a wpmu install, and one requirement was to create an rss-feed for each tag.

I completed the task and was paid.

Afterwards I got several, requests about the rss-plugin, but it didn't feel right to share it with everyone for free, since It was originally the product of work that someone had paid for.

My goal was not to make money with the rss-plugin. I just tried to be somewhat fair to the person that originally paid me to make the plugin.

I guess I didn't do all the right things, but I hope there's no big grudge towards me...

Best regards.

Henri

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