After Firefox Sync, Status.net is the second application to join this month La Distribution growing list of supported applications.

For those who don’t know it, Status.net is the leading open source Twitter alternative. It allows users to install their own microblogging service for their company, their community, or simply for a personal use.

How did we integrate it in La Distribution?

As always, we provide one click install, one click updates, Single Sign On with La Distribution accounts, a default theme that integrate nicely with other applications.

For this first version, we also deactivated Status.net default plugins. We prefered to start with a very simple user experience, and see what’s needed based on user feedback and real world scenarios. We’re pretty sure the needs of a La Distribution user are not the same as one of an Identi.ca user.

Open Source collaboration

Good citizens, we maintain our own Git clone, keeping our modifications documented and ready for merge into Status.net mainline when needed.

For instance, we submitted our Table prefix support. At first, it was rejected due to code style issues, and we definitely understand why. We later proposed to contribute an enhanced version, at the condition the Status.net team promise to integrate it when it’s done. Like everyone, we don’t have time to waste ;-)

Supported != bug free

In La Distribution, Status.net is now a supported application, but this doesn’t mean there is no issue, or bugs with it. This actually means we commit to investigate every reported issues, fix bugs when it’s possible, and when needed, collaborate with 3d parties (status.net, the various clients supporting status.net). This also means we’ll make sure the package is systematically updated to the last version in a reasonable timeframe.

We’re big fan of Status.net and are really enthusiast to now have this application in our catalog. Their commitment to web decentralization is totally aligned with our objectives. Guys, keep up the good work and long life to the Open Web!

Thank to our brand new plugin support, and a selection of 3 plugins (all bundled by default) you can now keep 99,9% of spammers out of your web applications.

What are this magical plugins?

Bad Behavior

Coming from the WordPress ecosystem, Bad Behavior act as a first line of defense.

It pioneered an HTTP fingerprinting approach. Instead of looking at the spam, it looks at the spammer. Bad Behavior analyzes the HTTP headers, IP address, and other metadata regarding the request to determine if it is spammy or malicious.

Bad Behavior deny access to your site to tons of bad bots, spammers, harvesters and other suspicious agents. As of today, we advise to always have this plugin activated.

Akismet

Also coming from the WordPress ecosystem, Akismet will help you protect your blog/forum from comment spam. How does it works?

When a new comment, trackback, or pingback comes to your site it is submitted to the Akismet web service which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and returns a thumbs up or thumbs down.

To activate Akismet, you first have to get an API key. As of today, e recommend to switch this plugin on if you have a public blog with comments open, or a forum open to everyone.

reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is a system, originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University that uses CAPTCHA to help digitize the text of books while protecting websites from bots attempting to access restricted areas.

In La Distribution, the plugin add captchas on registration forms to prevent automated account creation. To activate it, you first have to get an api key on the reCAPTCHA website. We recommend to switch this plugin on when you allow user registration, which is not the case by default.

Conclusion

What’s great, is that this plugins are only to be configured once, and will then work for every applications installed on your website.

As technology distributors, we think it’s our mission to give the best tools to our users, in this case helping them to protect efficiently their website from the plague that spam is. And if that was not good enough, we’re also currently developing new innovative solutions, that we’ll bundle in future versions of La Distribution. But that’s another story.

If you don’t know Firefox Sync, it’s a Firefox extension that allow you to save and synchronize all your Firefox related data (bookmarks, passwords, history). It’s an essential extension for people who use Firefox on different computers.

We’re now proposing in La Distribution the server part, where the Firefox extension actually store the data.

This is an important package for several reasons:

• It’s not a traditionnal web application but a web service. It’s interesting to have pure web services available, because this change a little bit how you see La Distribution and what it is useful for.
• Mozilla imagined their Sync offer with this scenario in mind. The service is made available primarily on Mozilla servers, but from day one, it was also released as an open source project, installable by anyone.
• In contrast with application like WordPress, Firefox Sync is, for various reasons, not that easy to install by default. A package for La Distribution is then a real opportunity to make it available to more users, the one with limited time or limited technical knowledge.

We’re following Firefox Sync progresses since its early versions and waited it reach maturity before integrating it in La Distribution. It’s the case since the 1.2 version and even more with the rebranded version 1.3. How did we succeeded this integration? Here are a few technical details:

• We use our own authentication system and we had to provide our own PHP class to do so. Was it difficult? Really no, 5 lines in the middle of a 50 lines file. Well done Mozilla!
• We wrote small patchs to include our libraries, fix an issue when detecting the application path, and provide support for custom MySQL ports.
• We built a simple home page with some explanations and statistics.

How to start using it right now?

1. First install the application on your La Distribution installation, it should not be too hard.

   

2. Then, install the Firefox Sync Extension from Mozilla Add Ons, you will be asked to restart your Firefox.
3. Finally, set up the Firefox Sync extension:

   You first have to choose between “I’ve never used Sync before” and “I’m already using Sync on another computer”. This wording is a bit problematic because you have to choose “I’m already using Sync on another computer“.

   It actually means “Yes, i already have an account“, which is the account you’re using on your La Distribution installation. If Mozilla can fix this wording issue, we’ll be very glad :-)

   

   After that, choose “Use a custom server” then enter your server URL, your username and your password. You will be asked to customize your synchronization parameters. After confirmation, the synchronization will start shortly in the background.

4. If everything goes well, you’ll have some statistics about your current usage:

   

We’re very enthusiast to have this new application in our catalog, and we’ll warmly receive any new Mozilla attempt in the domain of server side applications.

When everyone is discussing about privacy and decentralization, Mozilla understand deeply this issues and back it with an inspiring exemplary behavior. Everyone can take notes.

Today, Danube, our new release is officially ready for prime time.

It’s obviously our best release to date, and it’s amazing, you should definitely try it!

The new features were covered in an earlier blog post, here are the most interesting improvements:

• Status.net package
• Firefox Sync package
• WordPress 3 package
• Global Plugins: Akismet, reCAPTCHA, Gravatar, Memcache, …

We plan to cover most of this features in separate posts, so keep an eye on this blog in the next days.

I wish you a nice summer and long life to La Distribution!

How to get it?

Fresh install

To do a fresh install, retrieve the web installer, upload it on your server as installer.php, then execute it through your web browser. You can find more detailed instructions on our wiki.

Upgrade

“Concorde”, our previous release, is now discontinued and you are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible.

To upgrade, retrieve the updated web installer, upload it on your server as installer.php (replace the earlier one if you haven’t erased it before), then execute it through your web browser. It’s still that simple!

Sandbox

Finally, for the lazy guys (yes, you), we set up a sandbox to quickly test La Distribution. It’s available over this URL http://sandbox.appslots.com/ with sandbox/sandbox or demo/demo as login/password. Warning, having multiple users playing with it at the same time can result in strange things, and we’ll reset everything on this install as necessary.

Thanks !

Thank to this people for their nice support during Danube development cycle: RETFU, keusta, François Bureau, Charles Nepote, Pierre-Antoine Champin, dcoeurjo, the Upian team and especially Hans Lemuet, Maxime Q., Krome. Be sure your feedback is always appreciated!

Photo: Mode2 Mural Art by urbanartcore.eu (licence CC BY-NC-SA)

Today, we think it’s time for beta testers to start giving it a try! Help us hunt bugs, use it in improbable environments, give it a hard time :-)

So, what’s new in this release? First, as always, ton of bug fixes, performance enhancements and UI tweaks. But also:

Plugin support

Instead of bloating La Distribution with functionalities not everyone needs, we implemented a very simple plugin support. This simple plugin API is inspired from the one WordPress and allow developers hooks into La Distribution using actions and filters.

7 plugins are already bundled with the default install covering features like antispam (akismet, recaptcha), security (bad behavior, ssl) and performance (memcache).

As a developer, if you wonder how to plug into La Distribution, or you’re missing something, let us now! We’ll keep adding new hooks based on real world scenarios.

New Applications

I will not enter into details there because i think this new applications deserve a proper blog post, but here the info: Mozilla Weave and Status.net will join WordPress, Dokuwiki and bbPress as stable supported applications. That’s a big step forward, as we think Microblogging and Browser syncing are very important features of a personal information system.

How to give it a try?

For new installations, install the edge version of La Distribution, grab the last version of the installer, upload it as installer.php, adjust directory permissions and run it through your web browser.

For existing installations, if you’re using the edge version, just update everything using the web interface. If you’re using the concorde version, update to edge using the last version of the installer.

So, if you’re reading this, please, please, give it a try, send us your feedback, and help us make D****E a better release. Thank for your time!

In October/November, i was very occupied relocating from Paris to Berlin, and December was all about family and friends. In January, back on track, i didn’t work on a new major release but small updates on top of Concorde: package updates, security, performances, stability.

The name for this release is Concorde 2 and you’ll find a detailed changelog on an external page.

La Distribution is currently used in production on a few websites, and I’m learning a lot from this experience. Near all latest improvements come from real world usage and that’s a terrific thing.

For the future, Concorde will continue to be maintained, and if needed we’ll release a third version. Also, as soon as possible, we’ll start working on the next major release.

The focus of this next release is to code what we need to deploy our appslots.com service, which represents what we think a mainstream hosting provider should be in 2010. To achieve this goal, the main features will be ‘multi domains’ support and hackability (through plugins, hooks, filters, …). Cool uh?

La Distribution is an open project, so feel free to join the fun :-)

Happy New Year !

Last night, our last release Concorde (aka 0.3-42-3) was pushed to the stable repositories. It’s now officially available for everyone !

The new features were covered in an earlier blog post, but for the end user, quickly, the 3 most interesting improvements are: Localization (french now available), OpenID (consumer and provider) and UI enhancements.

Upgrade

July release, “Barbès”, is now discontinued and you are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible.

To upgrade, retrieve the updated web installer, upload it on your server as installer.php (replace the earlier one if you haven’t erased it before), then execute it through your web browser. It’s just that simple!

Fresh install

To do a fresh install, retrieve the updated web installer, upload it on your server as installer.php, then execute it through your web browser. You can find more detailed instructions on our wiki.

Sandbox

Finally, for the lazy guys (yes, you), we just made available a sandbox to quickly test La Distribution.

It’s available over this URL http://sandbox.appslots.com/ with sandbox/sandbox or demo/demo as login/password. Warning, having multiple users playing with it at the same time can result in strange things, and we’ll reset everything on this install as necessary.

Thanks!

Thank specially to this people for their support: julie, srcmax, krome, benfle, abrachet, CharlesNepote, bblfish, karlpro, davidbgk, rgaidot, xibe, greut, sunfox. Be sure your feedback is always appreciated!

Photo: CC BY-NC-ND DarkB4Dawn Concorde, Paris

La Distribution current policy is to release a new version every three months. This allow us to regularly showcase our progress, giving opportunity to testers and enthusiasts to submit their feedback and influence the roadmap.

The end of September approaching, it means a new release is coming its way. It will be named Concorde, after the Parisian Metro Station, no link with a defunct aircraft ;-)

So, what’s new?

Localisation

The localisation strategy is now in place. The first language officially supported is French and everything should be correctly translated en français. If not, it’s a bug!

You just have to add the French repository to your Repositories:

Then enable the locale in the Locales panel:

CLI

A good one for advanced users or system administrators, you can now control your La Distribution install from the command line. A detailed documentation is available on Trac.

Here is an example of how to install the command line with SVN:

And then, we use the new command line to init La Distribution in a new folder and install WordPress as our first application:

OpenID

The OpenID strategy has slighty changed. Now, applications are encouraged to share the same login interface in which users are being able to login using their standard credentials (login and password) or their OpenID.

There is also an OpenID provider included by default into La Distribution, you can now log in everywhere with your LD account. How cool is that?

Default application

Now, you can define a default application that will be used as the homepage of your website. A dokuwiki, a wordpress, the administration panel, you choose!

UI Refresh

Covered in a blog post a few weeks ago, the UI had been refreshed to look more polished and professional. Of course, it can still be improved in many aspects, but it’s an interesting step forward.

How to install it ?

The Concorde beta version is currently available through the Edge repositories.

So, to update from Barbès (release from July), you have to change the repositories to:

Another option is to test a fresh install using the web installer: drop it in a folder, fix permissions and launch the script in your web browser.

Finally, for advanced users, you can try the subversion install covered in an earlier blog post or on the development wiki.

Please!

If you find the time, please test the new features, send your feedback, and help us make Concorde a better release. Thanks!

When i reviewed the available PHP powered solutions, it seemed that Gallery2 was the most serious solution: pretty well commented code, solid installer, good community. Other evaluated packages were Zen Photo and Coppermine Gallery, but as a developer & maintainer, i decided to focus on one.

And actually, Gallery2 was not the final choice … Few months ago, the team behind this application decided to rewrite everything from scratch aiming to build a better, simpler and more modular app. While I’m always suspicious about people that believe they need to restart their project from zero, it seems in this case it was not a bad idea. As of today, development had been relatively quick and the current beta is really promising.

What do i like about Gallery3?

• simple MVC code (powered by the Kohana framework)
• mass uploader (in flash)
• efficient organizer
• support for GD or Image Magick (with appropriate detection)
• out of the box Cool Iris support
• installer available as a PHP class
• modular
• it works

You can test it from the “edge contrib” repository. The package is already pretty good, it supports Single Sign On and UI integration, but it’s still in development, our quality guidelines being pretty rude.

I believe we should be able to have something excellent for (or during) the next major release. Exciting, go Gallery team!

While, it was not on the roadmap for the next version, it’s part of a background effort, aiming to always have a simpler, easier & nicer user interface.

So, how does-it looks? (On the left, earlier version, on right, updated).

Hmm, what changed? Well:

• The Super Bar (on the bottom) start to looks a little bit like a dock, far better.
• The Top Bar is much simpler, with a small logo on the left, and user/session informations on the right.
• In the admin application, bread crumbs are now in an expected place, just bellow the Top Bar.
• The application list is completely refreshed, more colorful, looks fresher.
• The application settings panels now feature tabs to navigate between different sections
• Generally, the default width is now simply 1000px instead of the old weird value calculated in ems.

It’s of course not a final version. For example, we’ll likely add a bit of color before next release. Also, maybe we’ll rely more on ajax/javascript to offer a more responsive feeling, and accelerate some user scenarios.

You can already test the updated version, you just have to use the SVN or Edge flavor. As always, we’re waiting for you feedback!