[Project] UbuLand.org - the free web hosting service for humans

[Zdravko]

Hi there!
As you know from my past thread, a small team of us is going to build a free web hosting service for everyone. I am starting a separate thread here to track the project's status and further spread the spirit of freedom as embodied in the private web space we offer!

Links:


Older thread about the project (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=750344)
Launchpad account (https://launchpad.net/ubuland)
Discussion forums (http://www.spocore.com/ubuland/)
IRC channel at: #ubuland on irc.freenode.net

So far the project is taking shape as more and more ideas arise. Unfortunately, our small team lacks developers. We are in need of software programmers (PHP, MySQL and Python) as well as art designers to paint with vivid colors the starting page of UbuLand.org, for example ;)
Interested? What are you waiting for? Just jump in and start participating in this great project! Who knows - some day it may turn into something really big and significant, as Wikipedia got or something ;)

Cheers!

[madjr]

sounds good :)

[Michael.Godawski]

I would be happy to help you with the design of the the page. I have some artistic skills I guess, so if you need some logos or backgrounds just tell me. :)

[Zdravko]

Michael.Godawski, (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=541281) have a look at the irc channel, or better - look at the blueprints in the launchpad. Currently the project developer is offline and he will come online at Wednesday. Note that the service name is not decided yet. "UbuLand.org" is just a working draft. I was thinking of yet another Zulu word, but my proposal didn't meet wide acceptance so far. Anyway, you can use our forums to post mockups with graphical art and eventually become one of the official team developers in this project! :)

[blithen]

Hey, I could try to do some python work. What do you need? (Would be a good challenge for me)

[Zdravko]

We will highly appreciate any help of any kind! Python will be needed for the front end module - the one that is actually present to the end user. It is built on several interface classes. So far, I see only PHP code uploaded in launchpad. However, the project developer can show up again soon and I will ask him about Python.

Cheers!

[Zdravko]

The project leader is missing. We have one free work place.

[kvk]

I like the feel of that idea! My development skills are so rudimentary as to be useless, but let us know when things are up and running, and I'd be delighted to switch my hosting to you folks and specifically point it out on my site! :)

[jonabyte]

I would be interested in lending a hand with php mysql and python..skills are intermediate at best.

[Zdravko]

Very good! We need skillful programmers too!

[-grubby]

I'm an amateur at php and good at (X)HTML and CSS..how could I help?

[Zdravko]

Just give moral support. That would be enough for a good start.

[bobbocanfly]

Anyone interested in any way (Using or Developing or anything else) should jump into #ubuland on irc.freenode.org at 7pm BST (London Time) tonight (about half an hour after this post).

We *really* need an artist to create logos etc for the project, and a PHP developer with MySQL experience.

[Zdravko]

Anyone interested in any way (Using or Developing or anything else) should jump into #ubuland on irc.freenode.org at 7pm BST (London Time) tonight (about half an hour after this post).

We *really* need an artist to create logos etc for the project, and a PHP developer with MySQL experience.

Cool! My dream will be realized finally!

[-grubby]

Anyone interested in any way (Using or Developing or anything else) should jump into #ubuland on irc.freenode.org at 7pm BST (London Time) tonight (about half an hour after this post).

We *really* need an artist to create logos etc for the project, and a PHP developer with MySQL experience.

Coincidentally, I have 2 friends that could do this. One of them is excellent at graphics, and the other has much more PHP experience, and can do MySQL. Unfortunately neither of them would be able to make a meeting at that time

EDIT: Nevermind, the one with MySQL experience is apparently already on the project

[Swarms]

Hey I would like to know what the purpose of this is, I know its a place that people can get there webpage hosted for free, but what should pay the costs, ads or donations?

[bobbocanfly]

Hey I would like to know what the purpose of this is, I know its a place that people can get there webpage hosted for free, but what should pay the costs, ads or donations?

We aim for this to be ad free. Donations are always accepted but we are planning to run it mainly out of our own pockets.

Basically we think everyone in the community should have somewhere on the Internet that is free of ads, uses as much free software as possible and is just somewhere to voice their opinions, post some photos of their cat or whatever they want really. Just someones free (beer and freedom) place on the Internet.

[FlyingIsFun1217]

Well, I guess I could donate my image gallery code that I've been working on... not anything too useful, but if you want it for an automatic installer.

Only reason I say I can't really help you with too much PHP is because I like working in flat-file databases :D

FlyingIsFun1217

[Swarms]

We aim for this to be ad free. Donations are always accepted but we are planning to run it mainly out of our own pockets.

Basically we think everyone in the community should have somewhere on the Internet that is free of ads, uses as much free software as possible and is just somewhere to voice their opinions, post some photos of their cat or whatever they want really. Just someones free (beer and freedom) place on the Internet.

Ok so its paid by you the developers, thats nice.
But what its form, is it a social network where you can chat, upload pics etc, or are you able to host whole webpages?

[d.kusummmanth@gmail.com]

don't use such big font...we are not visually impaired

[bobbocanfly]

Ok so its paid by you the developers, thats nice.
But what its form, is it a social network where you can chat, upload pics etc, or are you able to host whole webpages?

No it will be like a proper paid for hosting service with FTP etc. for hosting pretty much whatever you want (obviously there are some limitations)

[bobbocanfly]

Alpha One has just gone live. If you could take 5 minutes to register a test account, confirm the account and make sure you can login and logout it would be greatly appreciated!

If you manage to find any bugs please report them here https://launchpad.net/ubuland/+filebug

The test link is http://ubuland.bobbo.me.uk

Thanks a lot everyone!

[FlyingIsFun1217]

My suggestions:


On the 'Contact Us' portion, give a form that allows a direct mail to the developer mail list, etc.
Try working with relative (percentage-based) widths. It seems VERY skinny compared to what my monitor is capable of displaying.
Have a logout confirmation page.
Make a nice shiny logo ;)


Nice work so far!
FlyingIsFun1217

[Nessa]

Up for this!

[bobbocanfly]

My suggestions:


On the 'Contact Us' portion, give a form that allows a direct mail to the developer mail list, etc.
Try working with relative (percentage-based) widths. It seems VERY skinny compared to what my monitor is capable of displaying.
Have a logout confirmation page.
Make a nice shiny logo ;)


Nice work so far!
FlyingIsFun1217

Thanks for your feedback!

* Bug filed about this, see https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuland/+bug/237096. Should be fixed in alpha-two

* Bug filed: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuland/+bug/237102. Will hopefully be done for alpha-two but we wont release alpha-three without this :)

* Bug filed: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuland/+bug/237106. Will be fixed in alpha-two (EDIT: Just committed a fix for this)

* This is currently in progress. Should be ready for alpha-two or three.

[FlyingIsFun1217]

If you need any non-mSQL PHP stuff done, I can try helping out, since I've just finished with my own PHP stuff.

FlyingIsFun1217

[Lostincyberspace]

Ok Bobbo I found an error not sure if you know about it it is a permissions error.

I will file a bug on launchpad just letting you know.



SELECT command denied to user 'bobbo'@'localhost' for table 'users'


Also unless I talk to you before you read this I have a semi updated image that we could use that looks nicer then the plain ubuland title image, so how do I get it up to the site.since we now have a working test bed the Gui work will go a lot faster.

[Zdravko]

Hi! I feel sorry for I can't contribute to this amazing project. I would like to help somehow! So far I am the person that came up with this idea and I initially started the whole project going.
I will register myself just to see if the service has severe bugs.
Btw, I see that my earlier participation is shown in the launchpad page, which is very good. I am proud of what this project happens to be!

[Zdravko]

Let's see whether we make it for an alpha 2... ;)

[Zdravko]

Today alpha-2 was supposed to be released. However, due to lack of time and mostly - developers this won't happen. The whole project needs infrastructure and more coding. Any programmers are welcomed toi join our team!

[fluteflute]

I'm playing with the looks. Any thoughts?

Old (first) and new (second) attached. I've also made it percentage based (kind of).

[Zdravko]

I'm playing with the looks. Any thoughts?


Teriffic! Just keep drawing! :)

[coastdweller]

www.ubuland.org doesn't load.

[bobbocanfly]

www.ubuland.org doesn't load.

We havent bought the domain yet as we are still pretty early on in developmnet. We will have it by beta stage.

[FlyingIsFun1217]

I guess I could help a little with PHP-MySQL stuff. I'm just about finished with my own Blog software.

FlyingIsFun1217

[Lostincyberspace]

We have another image that ii in the bzr I know I made it I haven't been able to see it up yet on the test site since it hardly updated right now.

[bobbocanfly]

We have another image that ii in the bzr I know I made it I haven't been able to see it up yet on the test site since it hardly updated right now.

Main test site sticks to alphas/betas at the moment (and is currently down). My bzr (ubuland-devel branch) mirror is also down at the moment, due to computer bannage.

[Lostincyberspace]

Just an update we will soon have a rolling release Server so changes can bee seen faster (especially the GUI).

[Zdravko]

Just an update we will soon have a rolling release Server so changes can bee seen faster (especially the GUI).
Lovely! There is only one little problem, though - my account at launchpad was suddenly disabled. I sent an email to the launchpad mailing list, but still got no answer. I'd like to start testing :)

[bobbocanfly]

Just a quick bump to say we have released Ubuland Alpha Two and we desperately need testers to make sure everything is working, and file bugs if it isnt.

If you have a spare few minutes jump over to http://ubuland.bobbo.me.uk, register an account and just play around, clicking links, filling in forms etc. If anything that looks out of the ordinary pops up, contact details are available on the Contact Us page.

Thanks a lot everyone!

(Mods: I hope its OK i keep bumping this at releases?)

[Zdravko]

Of course it is okay to bump this thread! This is a way to promote our project! Btw, I am astonished to see alpha 2 released! I always knew it will be done! Now it is a fact! Now it is time for testing! :)

[fluteflute]

Just to mention, when we say 'alpha 2' - we really mean alpha. What works generally works well (although please file bug reports / say here if it doesn't). However it is far from usable as a hosting solution! :)

[bobbocanfly]

Just to mention, when we say 'alpha 2' - we really mean alpha. What works generally works well (although please file bug reports / say here if it doesn't). However it is far from usable as a hosting solution! :)

Hehe yeah. We have the backend stuff (logins, database class etc.) 95% finished and the theme, control panel links, logo, icons etc. 95% done. Now we have to write all the actual hosting functionality and tie it into a server (python scripts to create directories and ftp accounts etc.).

[Saint Angeles]

this is an exciting idea!

just wondering if you are using any open source content management systems (CMS)? or is the entire site being hard coded from scratch?

i myself have used drupal to make my personal site as well as a site for a company in norcal that is designing a brand new 100+ mpg alcohol-fueled engine.

i'll be following this closely! good luck!

[fluteflute]

It was coded from scratch, thats where a lot of the work has been so far.