Wooden Fish

Initially, I heard Habari on Chris Davis’ blog, later readings informed me that in fact he was the first person who broke the news, and also I believe currently the principal developer on the project. I did not give too much thought on this new open source project at the beginning, but over the days more Habari related posts emerged on blogs of couple bloggers who are important contributors in the WordPress community, then I started to think more seriously about the significance and future impacts of Habari, a new and fresh blogging platform.

Another project that came in my mind when I read about Habari is InkSmith, and Chris, Michael and Khaled were also participants on this project. I remember, like many others, I was very excited about InkSmith. I don’t remember when InkSmith was first disclosed, but I wrote a post mentioning it on February of 2006. Now, almost one year later, nothing further is heard about InkSmith, nor email updates for those who subscribed the announcement list. I am not trying to compare the two projects, and I am not trying to suggest or hint the future fate of Habari, but rather using it to illustrate a common potential problem with all open source projects. Often, at least from my personal observation, an open source project comes to light with a lot of buzz, but the passion of the initial group of developers sometimes does not endure the test of time, and eventually the project gets abandoned. Personally, as a developer, I sometimes struggle with this problem too. Consistency and endurance of the passion about a creative idea are decisive factors of a successful project. Having mentioned InkSmith, I hope it is not dead and it is only delayed because participants are currently occupied with other more important projects.

Having said the above, and please do not misunderstand me, I am really happy to see Habari being created and developed. As a user of WordPress, I believe from a user’s standpoint Habari can only bring improvements in the realm of blogging platforms. I think by now we should all be mature enough to realize the positive effect of a healthy competition. Furthermore, I am very appreciative of what these talented persons are doing on their spare time. I wish the best to all people involved in the Habari project, and I hope the project does not step into the fate of other failed open source projects.