KEYPOPPY Christian Resources

Daniel T. Michaels, PhD, All Rights Reserved
KEYPOPPY Christian Resources

“Free” as in “free speech,” but not as in “free beer”

For most people today, the Internet is not limited to pleasure or curiosity, nor is it an impenetrable mystery that will never be understood. Rather, the Internet has emerged as one of our primary modes of communication. It is the carrier of our professional and personal interaction, a tool that is just as functional as the radio, telephone, or television. In fact, for some, the Internet is radio, television and telephone. It is also an advisor, note pad, photo repository, music center, calendar and appointment archive, library, banking center, shopping zone, and much more. We have come to depend on its interactivity, taking every opportunity to reach out to our friends, family, and the unknown. The Internet is at once the place where we can be hidden and exposed—for better or for worse.

The flexibility of the Internet is vital for most thriving communities, particularly professional businesses, religious organizations, schools, and even families. Without the Internet, many communities cannot survive (or at least thrive) in today’s society. It is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, providing nonstop communication and customer relations. Unfortunately, most communities—including many businesses—do not enjoy the full potential of the Internet. Many are under-funded or simply unaware of how to harness the power of the web.

Gatekeepers

In the early days of the public Internet (1980s and 1990s), web pages were created and maintained almost exclusively by professional webmasters or web developers, a pioneering group of technicians who managed online content. They became the gatekeepers of our online communities.

Except for large, very well-funded organizations, most early community websites provided static information; they were the equivalent of an online brochure, including history, mission, policies, and contact information. Shopping carts were not available; there was no user interaction, no online registration, and restricted administrative rights for owners. Despite its limitations, the early Internet was still powerful. The ability to post and download electronic documents alone was enough to earn its keep. Although the technology was expensive and difficult to manage, many savvy business owners and individuals invested in domains, servers, and webmasters, hoping to build their online presence alongside the development of technology. The price was high, very high, especially for small organizations. The technology was so groundbreaking that many were willing to pay large initiation charges and costly recurring maintenance fees. The risks, owners said, would pay off when their communities were expanded beyond imagination. No one could ignore the great potential of the web, and rightly so, but few realized that it would take a decade or longer before its power would be unleashed.

By the year 2002, many small communities lost confidence in the promise of web technology, and funding was restricted to more traditional methods of outreach. Website owners were forced to adopt a wait-and-see approach, saving their funds for the future.

Do-It-Yourselfers

As technology progressed, many individuals and small communities attempted to create websites on their own, some with great success. They realized that the Internet no longer required webmasters for every task, particularly in light of WYSIWYG editors (“What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get,” such as Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Word, Macromedia [Adobe] Dreamweaver, and so forth). Creating websites became easier, but still required perseverance and knowledge of basic methods and technologies to produce appealing results. For example, it was (and still is) necessary to know the basics of FTP (file transfer protocol) in order to “upload” content; “domains” (web addresses) had to be registered, renewed, and maintained; and images had to be digitized, manipulated, and arranged within the confines of the ever-changing language that runs the Internet. The sheer complexity of the Internet limited do-it-yourselfers to static websites. Interactive technologies, such as forums, blogs, or guest books, were still difficult to create and more difficult to manage. But interactivity has become the standard for the Internet. Once again, webmasters and web developers ruled the roost.

It doesn’t take very long “surfing” the Internet to realize that most small communities have yet to move beyond static websites. Most still depend on webmasters, most are graphically awkward, and thus few are dynamic or interactive. The majority of community websites, particularly for churches and small schools, were installed more than five years ago, and very few have been updated within the past two years. In short, many community websites are outdated, clumsy, unattended, under-funded, and, consequently, unused.

Yours, Mine, and Ours

Two ideologies fueled the growth of Internet technology: one based on programs for individuals (an “I” or “mine” ideology) and another based on shared programs (a “we” or “ours” ideology). Both were motivated by economic needs, both contributed to the success of the Internet, and each has distinct advantages and disadvantages over the other. These two ideologies are epitomized by two of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft (software and hardware for individual PCs) and Sun Microsystems (software for shared servers).

“I” companies such as Microsoft develop data files (such as operating systems), binary executable files (or programs), and hardware (such as PCs) that are intended to be bought and installed by individual consumers or businesses to manipulate data and share information. Microsoft Office, for example, is a popular office management suite that resides on the majority of business computers throughout the world. Each individual must install and purchase a separate Office license, PC, and operating system in order to share data with other users.

“We” companies sell server hardware and programs that can be shared via the Internet, with little or no need for desktop software applications or specific operating systems or PCs. Individuals are often required to purchase a license for access to a server (the computers that store websites) or network rather than purchasing specific software for a PC. Communication through such a system is conducted entirely online. Due to the portability of such a system, Sun Microsystems became a leader in the enterprise market (tracking sales, inventory, and global online business).

When HyperText Markup Language (HTML, the language used to create web pages) was bolstered alongside powerful web servers (the computers that store websites), the Internet began to grow in the general market. “I”-driven companies created powerful web clients, or browsers—most notably Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator—that made it possible for anyone to “surf” the web. They also started to develop binary programs that could “automatically” produce websites. In theory, consumers could use these programs to manage their own websites, thereby eliminating the need for a webmaster. However, most communities quickly learned that they couldn’t compete with the design savvy of webmasters and, ultimately, they went crawling back to them.

Corporations motivated by the “we” philosophy invested their energy in Java applets and other script languages that resided on a server (a computer that stores websites and other data). Their technology allowed websites to be manipulated via a web browser instead of binary programs. Like “I”-driven software, “we”-based online code was intended to free clients from webmasters and hard-to-understand software packages. Unfortunately, until recently, the server-side languages that were supposed to streamline website development evolved so fast that webmasters were still needed to moderate systems and design.

During the past ten years, both “I” and “we” corporations created solutions that have taken web development to new level. “We” companies, in particular, developed technologies that can collect data from a variety of online users for many different tasks (e.g., hotel reservations and airline ticketing). “I” companies integrated Internet features into standard office software, making it easier for anyone to contribute to the web. Eventually, the “I” and “we” companies developed products to complement one another. Both models thrived. As operating systems continue to develop—most notably Windows, Linux, or Mac OSX—each group continues to improve, expand, and resell their products. The ever-changing development of web technologies has necessitated unending “I” and “we” solutions which, while powerful, are often expensive and difficult for average consumers. In the end, many still turn to webmasters to harness the power of the Internet.

“Free” At Last

The sheer volume of users on the Internet has created increasing opportunities for people to learn about the technology. Programmers from every place on the globe—from Park Avenue to third-world hovels—started creating applications that were more dynamic. They created their own server-based languages, databases, and operating systems, even integrating them with existing “I” and “we” software applications, so that they could communicate with one another to develop projects as a group. Their systems were more robust, more secure, easier to install, and easier to modify than most others in the market.

Open source communities realize that knowledge is best when shared, so they adhere to a strict philosophy (and legal system) that protects their right to share “free” software based on “free” scripting languages. Although it has been called by other names in its infancy, this shared philosophy/technology is known today as open source or sometimes free software. There are many different licenses to protect this method of product development, but they all share the same goal, free access to source code for development.

“‘Free software’ is a matter of liberty,” says opensource.net, “not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom for the users of the software: (1) the freedom to run the program, for any purpose, (2) the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it... (3) the freedom to redistribute copies…and (4) the freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public…” (see www.gnu.org).

Open source software liberated individual programmers from the limitations of strict “I” and “we” applications. Private and corporate entities flooded the open source market so that the world community of programmers could perfect their software. The more open a project was, the more successful it became. Sponsors of open source projects are permitted to charge for installation services, support, or plug-in development, but they must supply clients with any changes to the core open source code.

The dynamic structure of open source has produced many of the Internet’s strongest applications, operating systems, and script languages. For example, the operating systems FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and Apple’s Darwin are based on the University of California’s Berkley Systems Distribution of Unix. Linux, a UNIX-like operating system, can be found on everything from handheld devices to PCs. Sun recently released Solaris, one of the most robust new operating systems on the market. The open source web server Apache (initiated by IBM) runs on more than 70 percent of the world’s web servers. Mozilla (aka Firefox), the open source remake of the popular internet browser Netscape, is reclaiming its stake as the premier browser on the market—its security features and multiplatform functionality are particularly powerful. Scripting languages (the languages that communicate with servers to make websites dynamic) such as Perl, Zope, and particularly PHP are the primary engines behind interactivity on the web—without them, most websites as we know them would not exist. Many large corporations have contributed “freely” to open source projects: IBM, Novell, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Sun, SGI, Sharp, and Red Hat Software to name just a few. They recognize the marketability of open source software. “Free” is not synonymous with “ease-of-use,” and thus many have joined open source in order to sell support services and marketing. Despite support fees and maintenance, clients have saved billions in development costs, and they have retained the freedom to modify their software to suit their needs…it’s a win-win for business and consumers.

Four open source projects, in particular, form the backbone of database-supported, interactive Internet sites: Linux (operating system), Apache (web server), MySQL (database), and PHP (Internet language). Collectively known as LAMP (a Windows OS version is known as WAMP), they become more robust and secure every day. LAMP systems do not depend on hardware or end-user operating systems, so they can be shared by anyone on the Internet. A great majority of other open source programs, including online forums, shopping, voting, instant messaging, and many other interactive web experiences, are powered by LAMP.

Open source has not made the Internet cost free, nor has it eliminated the need for diligent webmasters. It has, however, allowed users to create projects that are tailored to their needs, reduced costs, and opened the door for unlimited interactivity and dynamism on the web.

Content Management Systems (CMS) and Community Development

One of the most successful products of LAMP is the creation of open source Content Management Systems (or CMS). A CMS, as its name suggests, is a web-based system that allows users to manage content. A CMS automates the organization, control, and publication of digital documents, including texts, images, multimedia, and much more. Most CMS facilitate the collaborative creation of online content. In other words, they provide an environment for multiple users to create and manage content on the same website without the need for a central webmaster or computer to oversee every action. The online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, for example, is an open source CMS that allows anyone to contribute and/or moderate content. Wikipedia is powered by an open source system called MediaWiki, and, like all other open source projects, is available free of charge for anyone that has the knowledge to apply it.

Most open source CMS platforms are tailored to suit the needs of a particular community. WordPress, for example, is a blog suite that organizes and controls the publication of blogs. Other systems are designed to manage workflow in businesses, particularly online magazines and electronic news services. A few of the best CMS projects can support nearly any type of content development (blogs, calendars, document storage, classifieds, forums, and so forth). They are like online development kits—a sort of digital erector set—that allow owners to create and maintain their own websites once they are installed on the server.

With the advent of open source CMS, communities around the world are finally free from permanent enslavement to webmasters. Webmasters, in turn, are free of the burden of constantly shepherding content. Webmasters and their clients can focus more attention on design, function, and support, and leave content management to the CMS.

KEYPOPPY Brings CMS to Churches

KEYPOPPY harnesses the best of open source CMS in order to deliver low cost, interactive, and powerful web solutions for community development. At last, KEYOPPY delivers what Internet gurus promised years ago—an inexpensive and dynamic tool for community growth and maintenance that empowers its users to “own” the system. Using world class systems such as Joomla, PHPBB3, Community Builder, OS Ticket, Virtuemart, and other top-notch open source CMS programs, KEYPOPPY has assembled the perfect toolkit to meet the needs of churches in the 21st Century.