Geek news warning: sane people and anybody for whom such acronyms as PHP or GPL merely evocate some brand new drugs the kids might be into these days: you are probably better off skipping this one.
I’ll try to keep it short.
Spam Karma 2 is now released as GPL v.2. This essentially means you can do anything you want to it, except claim you made it (copyright and attribution notice must remain there). You should also note that any attempt at deriving some ill-deserved profit from it through harebrained web marketing schemes will earn you both my long-standing scorn and a nut-shriveling decrease to your actual karma.
I suppose another angle to that post’s title could be:
Officially discontinuing Spam Karma’s development: so long and thanks for all the fish
as this is what this truly is about.
But, such a title would be slightly misleading (and no doubt heavily quoted out of context): Indeed, I am hereby officially announcing that I will no longer support, maintain or further develop Spam Karma (beside some very occasional, very limited poking, until the transition to a self-maintained project is completed). However, thanks to the magic of free software, all the unsung heroes of the Open Source world will soon rise to take over and bring you a stronger, better, more closely supported version of Spam Karma!
Okay, what’s more likely to happen is that nobody will really bother taking over, except perhaps a handful well-intentioned but utterly clueless beginner coders who will quickly find themselves overwhelmed by the task and next be seen running away screaming at the top of their lungs. Hey, I’m not blaming anybody: I wouldn’t waste my time on a non-paying, open-source community project either…
But on the off-chance that you would (and trust me it won’t do anything to help you get laid either), I have set up a Google Code repository, which could become the jumping point to some magnificent community-based development effort (or not). If you are interested in participating in any way, contact me (mail or contact form) with a *brief* description of who you are, what you can do and what you wanna do. I don’t need a resume (I am not hiring), just a very quick idea of what level of responsibility you’d be willing to take on the project. I’ll put in the first couple people that seem to know what they are doing (and do not sound like they’ll be selling everything to Russian mafia-owned spam sites) as administrators of the project, and hopefully from there on, things will work by themselves…
If you think you’d like to tackle any aspect of SK2 development (including possibly porting it to other platforms), here is your chance. Speak now or go back to more fruitful and life-rewarding endeavours forever.
Oh, and as for the “reasons”, well, here they are:
1) Life.
Much as I love the challenge and excitement of coding an anti-spam filter and thinking up new tricks to defeat parasitic life-forms of the web, I just don’t have the time anymore. And to be honest, if I did have the time, I probably would have other challenging, exciting new projects I’d rather tackle. I’m fickle like that.
2) WordPress
I will really try to keep that one short, because I could probably write a novel of that. And it wouldn’t be a very interesting read.
In a word: WordPress kinda sucks nowadays. Its retarded upgrade rate makes it nearly impossible to keep up, in turn making it a constant security threat on my servers. And each time I finally cave in and install one of those “mandatory security upgrade”, it also installs 600 Ko of other theme compatibility-breaking fluffy crap that I never asked for in the first place. Usually setting the ground for the next cycle of security-exploit-rushed-upgrade. To sum up, it’s become incredibly bloated and tedious to support. Replacing it on my own servers is very high on my list of things to do (which means somewhat in the first 1000 items).
Having no interest for WordPress anymore, I have thus very little interest for WordPress-related development.
As for WP coming bundled with its own anti-spam plugin, I could also go on for hours on that. The fact that a community-based open-source project is used to distribute a commercially licensed piece of software doesn’t make me particularly happy. But frankly I haven’t cared and still don’t care enough to even raise a stint. At any rate I know lots of people (me included, obviously), aren’t convinced by the way Akismet works and are happier doing the filtering on our own servers, so there is definitely room for SK2-like plugins out there.
Anyway, thanks everybody for your support all these years and let’s gather a round of applause for our brand new Spam Karma GPL Edition!
Update: in addition to the Google Code-hosted project, there is now a dev mailing list set up on Google Groups, go check it out and feel free to sign up if you are interested in SK2’s future development!
Spam Karma was one of my favorite plugins. Thanks man. And someone please tell these WordPress guys to cool down their update rate….
I’ve also used Spam Karma for years. Just wanted to say thanks for the good work, and great call on making it GPL. Best of luck to you in the future.
You’re so right. WP is getting too overloaded. Every update makes some plugins worthless and WP simply cannot expect from all those plugin writers to keep up their pace without getting anything out of it. So much hassle. Anyway, thanks a lot for your contribution. Peace.
Thanks to SK, I haven’t gone on a massive homicidal rage and killed everyone.
Seriously though, I probably would’ve deleted my blog YEARS ago if SK hadn’t saved it. This is one of only two factors keeping me on WP, the other being automated updated from the WP subversion repository. I’ve been using WP for long enough (first installed version was 1.1x line), I know how bad the upgrade cycle has been lately.
Lately I’ve been exploring the feasibility of Habari instead of WP – I have it installed to my test domain, and so far I’m fairly happy with it. Should be a good software once it ‘grows up’, hopefully soon someone will port SK2 over to Habari…
Dave, What software will you use to replace WordPress? There are so many: http://cmsmatrix.org/ As a WordPress fan, I’d love to know where you are going.
Spam Karma has been a life saving plugin. Many thanks for your great work! I do hope it lives on.
Sorry to see you go, but you got to do what you got to do. I too have not always been updating WP as I should be, and was worried about breaking SK, but I’m happy to read it still works with current WP versions. And when you think about it, that’s really amazing considering you have not updated SK in so long. I guess it’s a testament to your good coding… and a little luck. I’ve used SK for a year or so and it’s eaten over 90,000 spams on one blog alone! Good luck and thanks Dave!
Everybody:
Regarding a potential choice for a WP replacement: this is a lengthy topic, and probably warrants an entry of its own, some day [2010-2011, by most estimates].
The short version is that I can’t blindly recommend any platform at the moment, though I see a couple very worthy alternatives starting to reach maturity. As for me, it will likely be homemade and not for public consumption. For which I am sorry but have no choice.
To (sorta) sum-up the rationale:
1) WP *still* is the best compromises around. For a couple reasons, most of which have nothing to do with current lead dev: long dev history, huge volunteer base, massive plugin/theme/hacks repository… The pros are so huge that it’s hard for the cons to outweigh them (though it’s been doing a great job at filling the gap lately).
2) There are a couple alternatives out there (including quite a few, started by people fed up with the way WP was handled). Most still lack maturity, but they are on a good path and will likely give WP a run for its money in no time…
3) When I finally manage to drop WP, it will likely not be for any of the currently existing solutions. While some are nicer than other, absolutely none of them (WP included) seem to justify in my eye the investment I like to put in the software I use (diving into the code and contributing/hacking my way through). Until a truly groundbreaking new platform arise (see 5), I am more likely to stick with my own hand-rolled piece of software. A solution I wouldn’t recommend to most (see 4).
4) Rolling your own web software often seems a good idea to people fed up with the way all existing software doesn’t comply to their every need. It’s even somewhat of a recurring joke in the OSS world (cue 35454 different implementations of Hello World-style PHP scripts). Although there are cases where it all works out (SK2 being one, hopefully): more often than not, it’s a complete waste of time.
A one-man effort in such a large project as a blog platform is likely to get dropped before it even reaches a usable stage. A better idea is to try and gather a team around your idea and start an actual OSS project (see Habari). Unfortunately, in those days where everyone is full of ideas but utterly devoid of time or skills to realise them, finding that team isn’t easy either.
There can be cases, however, where rolling your own private version of a large public software means infinitely less code (since you do not have to tailor your code for mass use and can only work with the features you need) for a very similar result. It is still a “waste” of time, in that your time would probably be better spent coding reusable code that serves the community, but しょうがないね.
5) I won’t spend hours tinkering with any new blog platform (WP included) because it is completely unexciting. The reason most existing blog software, when not outright sucking, is just boring, is that it is completely outdated.
If you look at it, blog systems are over 10 year old now. Their UI have barely evolved since the first versions. Their backends only kept up with technology in the most pavlovian way (usually sticking to bells and whistles while ignoring actual useful stuff), their frontends merely managed to stack heaps upon heaps of useless boxes that nobody clicks or looks at anymore. There is a bad need for a groundbreaking platform that would get rid of ten years of accumulated UI habits and bring something else than a 200th variation on the original Movable Type/LiveJournal interface…
I once started jotting down a couple ideas in that direction and toyed with the idea of launching my own project last year. Then I realised that web dev wasn’t the direction I wanted to take with my life for the foreseeable future, and that I had to make a few choices, pick one thing and do it right. So it ain’t happening from my side. But I have every confidence that I am not the only one thinking that way and, soon enough, somebody will come up with tomorrow’s way of blogging that makes WP, MT, Blogger and every other appear as the quaint legacy tools that they are. It will happen, as it always does… as Apple, Google, etc. have happened: when everybody thought they were doing fine with what they have.
I’m sorry to see an end to your era. I’ve gained a lot from SK, and as a faithful adherent I’m sad to watch it pass on to other hands. Many thanks for all the years you’ve put into it, and all the best you in your other projects!
Many thanks to you for all the work in the past and probably the most useful wordpress plugin ever!
Hey Dave, just wanted to leave a comment to express my gratitude. SK2 has been my favorite WordPress plugin for years now and I’m sad to see you go. Best of luck in your next projects!
Just got my WP 2.6 upgrade done and looked under SK settings, saw the link to this news. Thanks for the plugin. I hope it keeps working because I’m planning to stick with WP even though I don’t like the frequency of updating either. Thanks again for all the time you put into this.
OMG. I feel like I am being broke up with. “It’s not you, it’s me…”
Oh the things I have taken for granted and Spam Karma was top of the list.
no matter what u do. it’s ur chose and great . and thank so much i use spam karma in day 1 up now.
thank you .
Hi Dave,
Really thanx for SK2! I dod NOT want to use the bundled Akismet because I wanted to use a stand-alone anti-spam and SK2 is THE plugin I wanted…
So, I understand your choice, I’m not a developer and I can not help for anything in SK2’s future, I just hope its development will keep on going on. As long as SK2 will work with WP and will do its job well, I will keep using SK2..
Thanks Dave 😉
Regards,
Johan
Bisous, mon ami. Et merci …
I’ve always loved Spam Karma, ever since I found it long ago. Thanks for all your time and effort over the years – it’s been very much appreciated. Good luck with further projects!
For anyone wondering, I think it is worth taking Habari for a spin. It continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
Most importantly, Habari is built with the latest technology in mind, which means complete OOP and PHP5. Definitely ripe for extension and development.
it is also worth taking a look at 0.5 which introduces a completely revamped admin.
http://habariproject.org/en/0-5-released
Thanks for your hard work on Spam Karma. I’ve really appreciated all of the work you’ve put into SK, making it one of my favorite WordPress plugins.
I wish you the best of luck on your future projects. 🙂
Thanks for all your support over the years. This has been one of the rockin-est plugins ever…really.
I wish you the best in whatever you get into next.
– Sean
Oh this is a shame 🙁 You’re plugin is great! I hope someone picks it up
I just caught onto the news, and I wish it wasn’t so. However, your previous posts from many moons ago also had you venting about how WP was making it harder for you to do a good job. Yet you still continued to do a good job, despite the difficulties!
Thanks for all the protection from the spam all these years, and good luck with all your future projects! : )
I’d always turned to Spam Karma over Akismet. I hope someone does continue with the project. Thanks though for all your time and effort over the years Dave – Good luck with your future ventures.
Thanks for the service & contribution Dave
All the selfless coders who help hopeless non-techies (me)
are a tribute
SK2 is great – I’ve never had the urge to try any of the other anti-spam options out there.
Really sad to hear this, but thanks for the hard work Dave. Hope any capable programmers out there will pick this up…really don’t want to see SK die just like that~~~
keep on your good work, and thanks for everething!! 🙂
Thanks so much for SK, Dave. Your plugin has stopped nearly 19,000 spams in less than a year. The time you spent writing and publishing this free software has been saved a million times over by everyone who uses SK and we all appreciate it greatly. Best of luck to you.
Thanks for what you’ve done. Though you didn’t profit from this financially, you saved thousands of people, including me, from the perils of spambots, erectile dysfunction, teen porn and who know’s what other kind of spam. You’ve got a major positive credit in the karma department in my book.
I’m not a coder so I can’t help, but I just wanted to say thank you for this wonderful plugin, it’s been saving me from spam for many years now. Best wishes for whatever you do next….
Dave, thanks so much for your work on this plugin. I’ve had it for many years now… it was my first and last answer to spam on WordPress since I started blogging. I will continue use it until it is no longer compatible with a WP update (and yes, I agree, there are so many friggin WP updates flying out so often it feels like I’ve only just finished one round of updating all my blogs and then it starts all over again. Thank god I’ve now got Automatic Update installed and it works like a charm.)
With much love and gratitude and I wish you all the best in your endeavours.
May the Open Source community carry this baby of yours along for many years to come.
Jonathan
I also wanted to add my thanks for all of the hard work. Your plugin has kept my blog site(s) spam free for years and I can’t thank you enough. I agree with your genral sentiment on WP and their updates. It is frustrating as a user, and I can’t imagine how it must feel as a developer trying to hit that moving target.
Dr Dave, many thanks for what you did, my website is small and not very useful but I know that I don’t have to worry about spam much – only if whoever it is is posting is an actual human writing spam does it get through – so far only five posts out of Zark knows how many thousands…
I also installed another plugin that is meant to deny spam robots automatically and that has drastically reduced SKs workload to around 10/day from 100+.
Re WP becoming bloatware – what frustrated me the most is that the promised photo integration is frankly, carp. I don’t have the time to write my own code to do these things but it looks like that is what is needed. Nextgen is too bizarre (but it works :), WP2Gallery is just total junk. so I am not sure about bloatware, but I think flapware, lots of strange stuff going on in a not necessarily well thought out fashion.
Good luck with the future endeavours, sayonara, domo arigato!
I’ve always preferred your sk and sk2 over others. I am sorry to see you go as yours is probably my most valuable plugin. I can understand your reasons and wish you all the best.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one a tad annoyed w/WP as of late. I still prefer it over the rest but it each addition seems to get less and less useful to me.
It’s notable that Matt “The Steve Jobs of WordPress” Mullenweg has said:
“Very glad to see this plugin get some much-needed attention and become
GPL. Maybe now we can look at integrating bits of it into core…. ”
I think a plugin-based antispam framework for WordPress would make an awesome addition to core. And what nicer fate for SK2 than to become the official antispam?
(On the wp-hackers mailing list, a whole lot of people said they use Akismet only as a plugin for SK2. I am included in that number….)
Although I never got a lot of traffic or gigantic wads of spam on my blog, it was SK2 that did keep me from nuking the whole thing when Akismet’s “success” rate was topping no more than about 65 percent. I can certainly understand all the reasons why you’re retiring from active SK2 development–but your contribution to blogsters has been great.
Thanks for all the work you’ve done on Spam Karma!
I have used Spam karma for a long time and love it.
I hope some qualified people takes over developing it, “we” don’t want it to shade away.
However I fully understand your reasons for not spending the time and energy it takes to keep it up to date.
Thanks!