There's a growing buzz about something called Habari, so I suppose I need to write something about how, what, and why.
First of all, the name. Habari is Swahili. It means "news", as in "what's the news?" or "What's happening?" or "How are you?" Thus, when you greet someone:
Jambo! (Hello!)
Habari? (What's up?)
Mzuri. (Things are good.)
Secondly, unlike some languages, Swahili has just 5 vowels. Thus, everything is pronounced *exactly* how it is spelled.
A is AH as in father
E is AY as in table
I is EE as in seed
O is OH as in goat
U as OO as in boot
And the next-to-last syllable is stressed.
In this particular case, the r is lightly rolled.
Thus, Habari has the same vowels as the word wasabi.
I will, at some point, post an mp3 or wav file of the correct pronunciation, but I have my recording gear in a bag, and I'm too tired to set it up right now, and I think I have a bit of a head cold coming on anyways.
Ok, so on to Habari the software project. Why'd we call it Habari? Well, because I grew up in Kenya, and it seemed like a cool name to choose for a product that allows us to tell our readers what the news is.
Yes, there is another project with a very similar name, and in a slightly similar space. We had intended to get in touch with them. I don't know if we ever did.
Why are we doing this? The reasons are myriad, and some of them are discussed on the Motivations page, so I won't rehash them. There has been a boatload of speculation in a variety of forums about why we, the Founding Fathers, would choose to leave Wordpress and do something different. These speculations range from the mundane (we wanted to start fresh and explore new ideas) to the absurd (we were bitter about not being offered jobs at Automattic). The former is the real truth. The latter gave me a good chuckle, and so wasn't a complete waste of bits. ;-)
Yes, there were frustrations that we wanted to get away from. And there were philosophical differences about how an Open Source community should be run. But there is no ill-will towards Wordpress, even where there are differences of opinion on the Right Way to do things. In Open Source, done right, it's not harmful to have two healthy projects in the same space. When licenses are sensible the projects can learn from one another, improve on each other's ideas, and have healthy competition, as well as striving for interop. I see no downside, if we can continue to coexist in a friendly rivalry.
What blows me away is how much we've been able to accomplish in so short a time.
Yes, I'm still running Wordpress. This is primarily because I have been hugely preoccupied for the last two months, and have simply not been able to take the time to do computerish things. The migration is really quite simple and semi-trivial, and I might go ahead and do it tonight, since I have a few moments. If I wasn't so very tired.
Maybe tomorrow.
[...] It’s got an all-star cast behind it. So far I’ve seen (in no particular order) Rich Bowen, Chris J. Davis, Jay Pipes, Binary Bonsai, Scott Merrill, Khaled Abou Alfa, Owen Winkler, and well, a few more. I think I should stop linking them in case Google bans me. But the point is, there’s a lot of talent here. [...]
[...] Most Bloggernacle sites seem to be powered by Wordpress. This makes sense, as WordPress has been one of the best if not the best blogging software around. However, we should take note that a number (1,2,3,4,5,6) of formerly prominent WordPress users have announced they are moving over to a new blogging open-source blogging software called Habari. While I’m certainly not about to dump WordPress, these are serious coders who have been very involved with WordPress for quite awhile. For them to jump ship, in my opinion, is not a small thing. So I’ll certainly be paying attention to what happens with this other blogging software. Site Search Tags: No Tags Technorati Tags: No Tags Related Tags: No Tags [...]
[...] Et il semble que plusieurs bloggeurs réputés rejoignent petit à petit le projet. [...]
I can't wait :)
I've started seeing Hibari pop up a lot more around the web. It's good to keep Wordpress on its toes.
It'll be interesting to see it in action.
Jenny,
heh ... you just did see it in action.
It's nice.
Wordpress is a useful thingie, huh? :)
I’ve just upgraded my WordPress Themes Gallery site to WP 2.5 and it works like a gem. I love the new features that came with the upgrade.
Well, it's pretty much like Wordpress.
Good luck,though
We'll see
Alexey: From the user perspective, yes, perhaps. From the code perspective, they are COMPLETELY different. But, yes, we'll see.
You say: From the user perspective, yes, perhaps. From the code perspective, they are COMPLETELY different
I'm a user. What is the point for me to use Habari?
Better code means a better user experience, better plugins, better themes, and more longevity of the project. It also means that if you have feature requests or complaints, you are much more likely to have rapid response from the development team.
And, of course, everything runs *MUCH* faster than Wordpress, because the code is more efficient and cleaner.
Habari sounds interesting. Im just getting used to Wordpress,and I am now hearing all about Drupal. Now Habari... Seeing how you like that overall it is better with coding, plugins, etc...is it better than Drupal too? Sharon
Interesting. Habari does look good. but I'm still skeptical. Does it support plug-ins and themes? That is the most important feature for me. I'm currently using WP and it's doing wonders for me. but would like to try this out.
I sometimes miss the days when Wordpress was the only game in town. You didn't have to think about what to use, you just went and install it. This days, while everybody is still using Wordpress, it seems that nobody is really happy with it. So off we all go to Drupal and now, how about Habari.
I will, of course, have to check it out, since I'm a bit crazy that way...
But seriously, thanks, I hope it's good.
Yea Habari is very much like Wordpress. They even have K2 for it :p