Publii – Open Source CMS for Static Websites
getpublii.com
getpublii.com
We'd love do ditch WordPress but our users demand a web-ish interface to work with static sites. This could be it.
Also, what's the strategy for plugins?
- We built https://forestry.io to get away from WordPress. We support Jekyll & Hugo and a Git-based workflow :)
Two suggestions that would really improve my life:
1. A better wysiwyg editor. I've taught her some markdown but every time you switch to wysiwyg and back and make a change I get loads of spans injected into my md.
2. A better media manager with: - folders - image resizing (maybe integrate filestack.io as they have some image manipulation)
I love the simplicity of forestry and it's really close to perfect for my use case. Github -> s3 is seamless and having edits committed back is great.
It's simple, drop it in and run, it's quite mature and you can write plugins in Python.
I would highly recommend checking out OctoberCMS. It makes everything so easy and it's got a burgeoning marketplace for plugins and themes.
https://publii.ticksy.com/ticket/1216232/
From Bob:
"We still preparing the dev documentation and I think it will be ready this holiday. Right now you can browse the themes packages and see how they are built. Below you can download the .pdf with handlebars tags used in Publii themes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B92PpHk85ShpZk50NVFVQlZjX3c...
Referring to repository question, we will need to reflect further on this matter, but probably the GitHub is the best solution for that."
I think everyone needs to spend a year living in the other hemisphere so they know to never again announce something on the Internet as 'happening in summer' or 'ready this holiday'.
'Open-Source' appears six times on the posted page (source). With a properly versioned web page I would have expected it would be easy to publish that as 'Soon-to-be-open-source' and change that to 'Open-source' when it actually is. (Usual ambiguities about what 'open source' actually means to one side.)
Having said that, it does look like a lovely interface, and a good way to manage static sites -- though without a GNU/Linux release I won't be able to try it out.
Apparently the source code comes with the app:
From Bob:
"Hi Guys,
Publii is built with Electron, so the source code is available, you can read it directly after installing the app. Here is where the files are located: ;https://getpublii.com/docs/install-publii.html
We know that there is no source code repository, we will publish it soon, but before that we have to finish work on the implementation some key features and polish the code.
The next release will bring a dev documentation with the Starter theme, I hope this will help you to better understand app and find out how the themes are built."
I just wrote about immutable deployments with Ghost 1.0, which is also open source (MIT licensed), and how that can be a nice compromise between static sites and hosted CMSes: https://ryanashcraft.me/ghost-and-now/
I might've tried Publii out if I had heard about it beforehand, but right now I'm really happy with the entire Ghost editing and consumption experience I've set up (thanks to the Ghost and Zeit teams).
But I agree, it doesn't feel very "open source"
What ? Why entitled ? I have some WIP and production ready code in some git repo on my company's network and it's MIT licensed but there is absolutely zero obligation to upload it on the internet.
Of course I don't go around making website about it so there's that.
Pretty sure those guys will upload the source code when they feel like it's the time to do it.
Ultimately it does become a matter of "suing the copyright holder for a license granted by that copyright holder", but it's definitely still not okay. By that logic, no copyright license can ever be expected to be honoured by the original author -- because "they own the copyright and thus cannot be sued for breach of license".
Not to mention that you don't know why they went with the GPL. Maybe they used some GPL code and thus have no choice in the license terms. So it would be a matter of the original copyright holders suing them for breach of license.
The GPL is a set of conditions that others have to obey if they want to use your code. How can you going to sue someone for violating the copyright on code that's not yours? If you see someone selling copied Tom Clancy novels on the street, you can't sue them. Only Tom Clancy and anyone else to whom he grants the copyright.
> because they made an implicit agreement with you to obey that license
So Microsoft is bound by the license on MS Word?
Or distribute it. If someone distributes something to you under a license that explicitly states that it gives you certain permissions, they can't arbitrarily decide to retract that license. That's sort of like saying "if I write a song, and give you a license that allows you to get the sheet music from me, I can refuse to give you sheet music if you ask". If you didn't want to give me sheet music, why did you explicitly give me the right to do it? On some level it sounds like a breach of contract, though of course licenses aren't contracts.
Also you've forgotten that maybe Publii is based on some GPL source code, so they might not be the sole author and thus are infringing on someone else's copyright by not obeying the GPL.
> So Microsoft is bound by the license on MS Word?
Yes, of course they are! That's the whole point! If you read Section B of the Microsoft Word 2013 License[1], it states quite explicitly that:
* In §B4, all disagreements outside of small claims or negotiations will be handled in a binding arbitration. This applies to both parties.
* In §B5, neither party can engage in a class-action suit (they must all be done on an individual basis).
* In §B7, it states that claims have to be filed within one year. That also will apply to both parties.
They also give you a limited warranty for non-trial software in the last section, which obviously they are also bound by. Obviously terms in the license that don't limit Microsoft don't affect them. But with the GPL, it explicitly states that distributors must provide the corresponding source code.
I think I know what you're trying to say, "are you saying that Microsoft employees are bound to the single-seat terms of the license". But that's missing the point -- Microsoft employees aren't given software under the license I just discussed, they're given software under a different license (implicitly) because they work for Microsoft.
My comment was three sentences and I said exactly that in the third sentence.
> that's missing the point -- Microsoft employees aren't given software under the license I just discussed, they're given software under a different license (implicitly) because they work for Microsoft
Okay. That's exactly what I said. The entity releasing code under the GPL is not bound by the conditions of the GPL, and does not need to distribute the source.
You didn't say exactly that, you said:
> How can you going to sue someone for violating the copyright on code that's not yours? If you see someone selling copied Tom Clancy novels on the street, you can't sue them. Only Tom Clancy and anyone else to whom he grants the copyright.
While I understand your point, the fact that you cannot personally sue them does not change the fact that they're infringing on someone's copyright (so _someone_ could sue them). The point of this discussion is not whether you or I could sue them, but rather are they breaching the GPL by not releasing source.
> That's exactly what I said. The entity releasing code under the GPL is not bound by the conditions of the GPL,
Odd, because that's not what I said. At all. What I said was that a Microsoft employee is bound by a different license than a random consumer. This was immediately after I explicitly outlined several cases where Microsoft's EULA clearly places restrictions on Microsoft.
Microsoft distributes software under a EULA, and they have to act in accordance with what that EULA says (just like you do as the recipient of said software). The EULA is not symmetric in its restrictions (unlike the GPL) so I recognise the cause of confusion, but just because Microsoft isn't bound by the no-redistribution policy of the EULA (because that's explicitly only required of people who are receiving the software) doesn't mean the EULA doesn't apply to them...
If the license promised delivery of source code then of course the author could be sued. But as far as I can tell, GPL (at least v3) makes no such promises. If you disagree, please point in the license text the part that you think applies.
My comment was responding to someone saying that even if someone gave you code they authored under GPLv3, that you couldn't expect them to honour the terms of the license.
As an aside, I just noticed that the license text on their website is not a verbatim copy of the GPLv3 license text (which is not permitted). In particular, it's missing the copyright, version, date, and the epilogue that describes how to use the license for your own works.
"You" in this context meaning the licensee, not the licensor. I don't see anything in Section 6 (or elsewhere) that creates any obligations for the licensor. My naive reading of the license indicates that the licensee can redistribute ("convey") the software only if they also convey the source code. But if they are unable to do so (because the source was not conveyed to them) then they simply may not redistribute the software at all.
But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL.
Emphasis on to the program's users. So if you downloaded it and installed it, found out there is no source folder, as a user, you are therefore "entitled" to get the source code. Just like me, write to them and ask politely for a copy of the source code.
A feature that may be lacking that I don't see would be to get a local sync option in play if you are using multiple instances of the app (say you are using it sometimes on MacBook and also on Windows here or there). They do support pushing/syncing TO github pages, but I'd like to see perhaps a Git functionality used also to always keep any Publii instance synced locally with each other, and with Github, etc. I think that would really put this app over the top.
Also, congrats on writing website copy to appeal to non-techie audiences. It's well written, benefit-focused, and generally good stuff. I could actually see myself introducing this to non-techie entrepreneur friends and having them likely to use it.
P.S. - even more impressed that your docs seem to be written for non-technical users in mind too! Nice one.
All I see is a Mac app not feeling and behaving like a Mac app.
If I wanted these modern-Windows-style UIs, I'd use Windows. But I don't like them, so why does everyone try to explain to me how cross-platform, which is really pushing a windowsy UI and UX down the throats of all others, is so much better?
The reason for building cross-platform UIs is clearly so that a small team can reach more users.
The vast majority of users simply do not care about native look and feel. This app looks plenty intuitive, I don't see how you can reasonably complain about its behaviour, I'm assuming without trying it.
Show me one. Just one..
Most "cross-platform-apps" I used seemed to think moving the window frame buttons to the left and making the interface the same grey is integration enough.</slight_exaggeration>
> this app doesn't look like Windows 10 to me
Maybe my picture of windows is skewed, I haven't used it for many years now, I apologize. But isn't it even worse then? If it feels at home neither on Windows nor on OSX, but foreign to both?
This article lists many things Electron developers have to be careful about: https://blog.avocode.com/blog/4-must-know-tips-for-building-...
Really? Wouldn't a web app be better for this?
Aaaand chill your entitlement, they don't owe you jack, no matter how simple you think it is.