OSWD.org is online again!
Today, both Frank Skettino's OSWD.org and Aaron "MonkeyMan" Nikula's OpenWebdesign.org was launched. This quickly raised a question about which "camp" that the designers would jump into. I want to state my opinion about the current situation, which I also posted in the now well-known SitePoint thread:
Comments can be only posted for 14 days after the post date. If you have comments about an older post such as this one, feel free to send me an e-mail!
Comment from nMatt
Time: November 12, 2005, 21:52
It's awesome. I loved OSWD. I don't really like the new layout, though. :(
Comment from Ryan Cheung
Time: November 12, 2005, 22:34
If you loved OSWD then go to openwebdesign.org. OSWD.org has only 700 of the original 2000 templates. Any users that joined in the last 2 years are deleted. Any templates submitted in the last 2 years are gone. Frank cares only about making money. Aaron cares about everyone, designers and users, and his site is the place to be. The regulars have returned to openwebdesign.org and I doubt that many will bother registering at OSWD.org after having their accounts deleted.
And have you read Frank's rules? No designs can be re-distributed on other sites. You can't use templates for web apps without a link to oswd.org, and it's 'recommended' that you link back to oswd.org when using a template.
Comment from Andreas
Time: November 13, 2005, 4:21
I just read the "usage agreement". OSWD.org is not open source any longer, and the good spirit of the site is killed. Sad to say, Frank is hurting a good trademark there - and also letting template users down.
Again, I will support all sites that is launched in the same spirit as the original OSWD.org. Sadly, unless the rules at OSWD.org are just a mistake done in anger over the whole situation, OSWD.org itself is way out of bounds and not reborn in its own spirit. The fact that the templates are still provided by Template Monster (non-standards, require expensive software, costs much) and not 4Templates (XHTML/CSS, handcoded, costs less) also shows that the template users are not the main priority… I hope it changes, because I still believe in new life for the original OSWD.org (and I will do so until the site proves me wrong).
In any case, I will support Aarons site as well. But I sure hope that he
Comment from nmatt
Time: November 13, 2005, 20:01
The usage agreement seems pretty normal to me. It's just saying you can't use OSWD's layout for your own, but using the others is just fine.
Comment from Frank Skettino
Time: November 13, 2005, 22:28
I changed the Usage Agreement. I am also in the process of restoring the last two years of designs.
Comment from Matt
Time: November 13, 2005, 22:42
Looks like Frank updated the usage agreement http://www.oswd.org/site/usage/
I actually was able to speak to Frank and he told me that he was working on getting a backup and the rest of the templates up so hopefully they will be back soon.
Comment from Marty
Time: November 12, 2005, 20:41
I totally agree with and I admire your spirit and the spirit shown by the oswd.org template designers.
I only want to point out that from what I have learnt from reading the sitepoint forum and elsewhere is that one or both of the owners/admins of the original oswd.org have acted very childish and unprofessionally for various reasons.
I am not naive enough to understand that everything is always as it seems and done in the "spirit" that we would like.
I haven't seen this "spirit" displayed by the owners/admins at times (I mean what's the deal with publically trashing the reputation of Aaron "Monkeyman" Nikula on the frontpage of a very popular website?). To me this is inexcusable.
Whichever way, somebody is making and has made A LOT of money from oswd.org through harnessing this "opensource spirit".
Cheers! Marty
(nice website Andreas!)