ARTS & FARCES internet

Dave Winer and his UserLand team create great content management software for a fair price. Let’s get that said and out of the way. Dave also was kind enough to gift me with a Frontier license at no charge. Of course, it’s a calculated risk on his part: when my one-year free ride expires, I can continue to use the software at no charge but if I want to continue to receive what seems to be almost daily updates and feature upgrades, I’ll have to pony up US$900 per year. Good business on Dave’s part; he’s no dummy.

I’ve written some pretty glowing things about UserLand’s software in the past few months, but I get this conflict of interest twinge in the back of my neck every so often. I’m not a paid user (for Frontier; I’ve paid for two Radio licenses). Is it right for me to bitch and moan when I hit a rough spot in Frontier? I’m not sure, but I think it’s fair.

Dave is one of those kinds of people that seem to thrive on controversy. Nothing wrong with that, but the price is pretty steep in that a few of Dave’s peers don’t like him much. As for me, I much prefer people who take a stand, make their case, and then take the time and have the courtesy to listen to any response. Dave meets those criteria, in my experience, so he’s okay in my book.

So I have no qualms about pointing at Dave when he steps in it. And he stepped in it today with both feet.

In Scripting News (if it’s not the best weblog on the net, it’s in the top two), Dave criticizes Cameron Barrett’s CamWorld for not implementing permalinks on his site:

“A couple of things about CamWorld from the critics section. 1. Permalinks. Each item should have a URL of its own. This is basic practice for weblogs in 2002.”

As I wrote to Dave in email, I agree wholeheartedly. So why don’t Frontier news items have permalinks? The closest you can get is a link to the day the news item was published (unless I’m missing something; apologies if I am).

I’ve asked about this repeatedly on the UserLand support mailing lists, and have received no response. If permanlinks aren’t supported, that’s okay, but ‘fess up about it, hopefully add it to the feature development queue, and we can all get on with other things.