

Social Networking Goes Open Source With Insoshi - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/social-networking-goes-open-source-with-insoshi/

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mtts
This may be just the TechCrunch blurb, but if they really want to be the
WordPress of social networks, using Rails will be a problem for them.

Part of the success of WP is that it uses PHP and MySQL, two technologies that
are ubiquitous, and that installing it is a simple matter of dumping some
files on some shared hosting space.

Installing a Rails app, on the other hand, is nothing to sneeze at.

~~~
mhartl
Our model will probably end up being more like MySQL than WordPress, but
that's a harder analogy to understand. In any case, though, we think Heroku
(<http://heroku.com/>) is a game-changer when it comes to hosted Rails apps.

~~~
mtts
A MySQL model actually makes more sense. Thanks for clearing that up.

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garbowza
This could be a lucrative space, especially in the enterprise. While the field
is a bit crowded, I think Insoshi differentiates themselves by providing the
source code, and for secure intranets that is a necessity.

~~~
jsdalton
I know of two other open source social networks that also offer their source
code: Loved By Less and Buddypress.

Here's the problem I have with Insoshi and Loved By Less: They don't seem (as
yet) to offer any kind of architecture to modify and extend the code base. If
you want to customize, you are altering source code.

Contrast this to Wordpress, which has an awesome plugin architecture and an
extensive system of hooks to allow for customization, all without touching a
line of source. Though I haven't seen BuddyPress source, I am hopeful that it
follows Wordpress's suits.

It is the ability to customize and extend, coupled with a super powerful and
slick admin system, that has made WordPress such a successful venture.

That's my opinion at least, from an admittedly cursory review of the source
code on these projects.

~~~
mhartl
_They don't seem (as yet) to offer any kind of architecture to modify and
extend the code base._

That's part of the plan. Remember, WordPress wasn't born with plugins and
hooks; it grew them.

"Release early, release often", right? This is the "early" part. :-)

~~~
jsdalton
Awesome, go get 'em. I think you'll have some stiff competition from
BuddyPress, particularly since they've got a head start on the extensible
platform, but I wish you guys the best... it's anybody's game at this point.
Ning is really the platform to beat, in my opinion at least.

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neilcauldwell
Congrats on TC, Michael, Long - and thanks for helping me to get up & running
with Insoshi a while back.

As far as I'm concerned, a business like this (mysql/wordpress for social
networks) was bound to happen. I'm just glad it's written in Ruby, running on
Rails, version controlled via Git, and founded by the guys who taught me Rails
(via RailsSpace).

There's loads of enterprise social networking consultancies popping-up, and
they all want their own custom made platform , written in the latest web
development framework, to sell straight in to the SMEs. Insoshi should fit the
bill quite nicely. The only major question is how hosting services fit in to
this (WordPress.com?), but I'm sure the guys already have this planned out.

As for the WordPress plugin comparison; Rails already has a convenient plugin
architecture, so there's no reason why Insoshi can't piggyback this, at least
for the time being.

------
subwindow
"the code he released under an MIT License in July 2007 should be considered
the first RoR open source code."

I hope that's a typo. If the writer honestly believes that sentence, he has no
business writing for TechCrunch (or anyone, really).

I think he's talking about "the first RoR open source code for a social
network." But even that is a sketchy claim. I've contributed to open source
RoR projects that were loose social networks as early as 2005.

~~~
mhartl
He meant the latter. RailsSpace was to my knowledge the first open-source
source social networking platform in Rails (with the profiles, friending,
avatars, blogs, etc. that we associate with a modern social network). Mark
certainly didn't mean to imply RailsSpace was the first open-source project in
Rails.

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simianstyle
Can someone explain the difference between this and <http://lovdbyless.com> to
me?

~~~
1gor
Lovdbyless is impressive, but it is mysql-specific and depends on some non-
standard plugins to work (one of them is proprietary, somebody correct me pls
if I've understood it wrong).

Insoshi on the other hand is DB agnostic, works beautifully out of the box
with sqlite3 (or mysql) and does not require any esoteric plugins.

Elimination of unneeded dependencies is a major requirement for me so I
consider Insoshi a winner.

~~~
stevenbristol
I am pretty sure that lovd is db agnostic. And it uses no proprietary or "non-
standard" plugins. Can someone tell me what a "non-standard" plugin is? For
that matter, what is an "esoteric" plugin? This smells like fud me.

~~~
1gor
>And it uses no proprietary or "non-standard" plugins

It does. [http://ostatic.com/158658-blog/is-lovd-by-less-really-
open-s...](http://ostatic.com/158658-blog/is-lovd-by-less-really-open-
sourcess):

"Lovd by Less touts itself as an open-source platform for social networking.
And indeed, the software itself is released under an open-source license, and
provides some useful functionality. However, restrictions on some of its
essential plug-ins raise questions about its actual licensing status."

------
wheels
There was also a German Open Source (CC licensed) social network that launched
last week: [http://inside.gruenderszene.de/2008/04/18/open-
socialnetwork...](http://inside.gruenderszene.de/2008/04/18/open-
socialnetwork/)

------
jasonlbaptiste
as much as rails isnt my weapon of choice, i really think this could be big.
anyone have a demo setup somewhere to play around with?

~~~
mhartl
The developer site for Insoshi is here:

<http://dogfood.insoshi.com/>

It's not just a demo site, though; we're using it to coordinate the project
itself. Contributions should be incorporated into the live site within a week
or two. You can find the source code at GitHub:

<http://github.com/insoshi/insoshi/>

------
kul
well done dude, remember talking to you at the Joe Kraus dinner, nice to see
the execution!

~~~
mhartl
Thanks!

