Extropia.com: A Case Study in Open Source Software

In the summer of 1994, the Selena Sol Public Domain Script Archive went on-line with user documentation and source code that I wrote for use at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) website. The Archive was developed primarily out of a desire to provide documentation of web technologies and applications that I considered fundamental to the future web infrastructure.

Initially, the archive was to be a public service for other web application developers who were facing similar problems in the early days of the web revolution.

The idea was that no web application developer should duplicate research or expend energy solving a problem that had already been solved by someone else. If all web application developers worked together, I reasoned, they as a group, could advance with far greater efficiency and build a web infrastructure of which they could all be proud.

Furthermore, releasing public domain code ensured that all developers, regardless of race, gender, nationality, class, education, or creed, would have access to web applications and technology.

Joe Web's Fish Store, I believed, should have as much right to reliable software on the web as IBM or AT&T.

The Archive Takes Off: Intellectual Property - Just Say No!

Along with the similarly-oriented site run by Matt Wright, the Public Domain Script Archive was instantly a success in the growing web application development community.

The applications, which at that time included WebStore, WebBBS, WebResponder, WebGuestbook and SiteSearch, began to show up on hundreds of web sites on every continent. Scores of e-mail letters poured in from developers who were using the code and who wanted to report feature improvements, submit bug reports AND bug fixes, or who just wanted to say thank you.

By then, I had left the Electronic Frontier Foundation to work at The National Center for Human Genome Research. There I met Gunther Birznieks, and together we further developed the initial group of web apps into a suite of CGI/ Perl applications based on the initial code as well as the code, comments, and criticisms submitted by hundreds of developers in the ether.

The suite added a Database Management and Search Application, Groupware Calendar, Banner Rotator, Site Administration and Access Control Library, Animation Examples, a real-time Chat Application, and several other miscellaneous applications and development libraries in Perl and, in time, Java.

By 1996, most of the applications on the Archive had been revised four or five times each, with every iteration based upon the feedback received from the thousands of developers now using, installing, and customizing them.

These developers sent in a constant stream of feature wish lists, benchmark and efficiency reports, bug fixes, and security enhancements, as well as third-party extension code and supporting tools.

There were also several incredibly active discussion forums on which clients could ask each other questions, find freelance support, or simply talk about common usage issues such as advertising within a WebStore or better credit card validation services.

By this time, the popularity of the site was raising several eyebrows.

The site was awarded dozens of net achievement awards, was featured in several online and offline magazines, was mirrored on five continents, and eventually attracted the interests of publishers such as WAITE, M&T Press, and Wiley.

Together, and with several other authors, Gunther and I went on to write Perl 5: How To, CGI For Commerce, Programming with AFC, CGI: How To, and the classic Instant Web Scripts with CGI/Perl that documented all the web applications in the archive.

All the while, we remained true to the ideals of information sharing. Even when we published books and magazine articles, we demanded contractually that all work would remain in the public domain. M&T Press even agreed to publish Instant Web Scripts with CGI/Perl online.

Problems Arise!

By 1997, we felt that the site had fulfilled its original mission.

However, a serious problem was emerging.

Specifically, both of us were becoming overwhelmed with e-mails and opportunities generated by the archive. For example, despite the availability of complete FAQS and detailed documentation, I received over 100 e-mails every day with questions about web application development from specific customization questions, to general questions with technologies including SQL, HTML, CGI, and Java. Also, we were both inundated with freelance turnkey installation projects that began to eat away at all their spare time.

Meanwhile, we realized that the applications in the archive needed to be rewritten in an object-oriented framework to take advantage of concurrent technologies being developed in the web application development community such as Perl 5, Active Server Pages, Servelets, Mod Perl, and other web technologies.

It also was clear that new methodologies were needed to increase scalability and enhance security. Additionally, a wizard was needed to make installation and customization more user-friendly.

To be frank, the original applications had never been designed to handle World Wide E-Commerce Web 2000.

Unfortunately, we both had full-time jobs that demanded our full-time attention. Maintaining the archive became quite frustrating as developers around the globe continued to clamor for solutions.

Extropia.com: A Case Study in Open Source Software
The Free Software Solution