If you would like to unsubscribe from XSWeekly at any time, simply send an e-mail to xsweekly-unsubscribe@wuzzle.org and you will be removed. You can e-mail me at XSWeekly@xsweekly.com with any questions, suggestions, etc. XSWEEKLY SPECIAL EDITION #5 - The Shell Stops Here ---------------------------------------------------- After the interview with WareWolf, c0mrade contacted me on irc. He seemed quite upset over some of the things that were stated. I asked him to reply to the original interview and input his comments under what was said. Below is the reply that I received from him. (Note: Original interview begins with O>) +-------<*>-------+ O> I had heard that c0mrade had taken your code base. Is that true? NOT! O> c0mrade most definitely took the basics for his theme archive O> from the thememachine. This is entirely not true. This statement insults my originality and my programming skills. First of all, you cannot take PHP codebase if you don't have the access to the server other than http. Regardless of how you try to get files, you won't get source, it even gets parsed when you use wget. Second of all, my theme archive (which was LiteStep UNLiMiTED then) came out BEFORE Lean Mean Theme Machine saw the public life. I had a few private submissions to my site before Theme Machine was known about to the rest of people out there. More than that, my theme archive doesn't even LOOK like Theme Machine did, to most of people out there it resembled skinz.org more than anything else. Yes, I went out and looked at repository sites to get ideas, and as WareWolf mentions, there was even an article about it, and it's perfectly normal to do this amongst web designers. Yes, everybody wants to have the best of all on their sites, if they are the ones who make the site. So, I hope this explains how it couldn't have happened (hell it's simply NOT my style) that I have "taken" codebase from Theme Machine. O> For a while now it seems LiteStep.com has sat idly by as O> litestep.net has been dominating the web playing field. Then O> c0mrade states in an interview with that ls.net and ls.com O> will become one site. Any comments on this? First of all, this is not about who dominates, once again, and this is final time I'm going to say this. There's no competition, everybody is doing what they want to do, and no one's rights are taken away. You want to do an independent site, I'm always willing to host it, and even help out with coding, give subdomain or what have you. Most people see me doing subdomains as monopolizing the LiteStep web scene. Let me give you couple of examples. Lets take LiteStep Portal. I took a dead site, recoded it, gave it life, and look, now it's up to date, and being maintained (not even by me anymore). I took modulo and make it better by making it dynamic with easier maintenance abilities. Subdomain gives the site popularity rather than being party to a so-called monopoly. Ridiculous once again. O> c0mrade and I spoke of merging -- ain't gonna happen. O> I'm not against him, but he's non-responsive so I've teamed O> elsewhere. O> We'll be moving OFF this line, and onto a different one. In the O> process we're going to gain access to dev staff and tools. O> For our web that is. Good, I find out last about it. My non-responsiveness is due to my real life interests which overweight LiteStep by far. And yes, it was too much of a pain trying to merge interests amongst the owners and maintainers of the head domains. So it'll be much easier for both myself and WareWolf go our independent ways. I, however, am planning to stick with my plan and release the LiteStep site by January 1st. Both litestep.net and litestep.org are going to point to the site, and it won't be called litestep.net anymore, just LiteStep being the official LiteStep spot. Once again, I offered my services, yes they were delayed, but they got refused. It's all about choice you know. O> What kind of "bad feelings" did you get? O> O> Well, for example, I invited him into my machine once before. O> Setup 15 or so logins, emails addresses, whole sh-bang. O> Took some time to get all those hosts masked I can tell you. O> Anyways,he comes in and blows away webpages written by others O> knowing who they were and how to contact em. O> Before I knew it something that looked JUST like .net was O> running on my webserver in place of other authors work. O> When c0mrade walks he always stomps, he never treads lightly.. O> not that I do either... O> But that was not right and it put me in a bad position with O> content providing staff already in place at .com. Sorry, but when I took GodzillaMK's site offline (because it was just a simple rip of another site on the net, or maybe a rip with permission as I call it) I got permission from WareWolf to remove that site before I did anything. And yes I put something that looks like .net, which I slapped in a matter of half an hour (that just simply resembles my designer style at that point of time, boxy and tably). At least it was more or less original, and once again, it was done with WareWolf's permission. I didn't blow webpage_S_ out. It was ONE site taken offline, and put in a backup directory, NOT SITES. Note, I came and installed PHP and MySQL on the computer as per request. I never opened any e-mail accounts (this is total bogus for me). O> This goes along with what c0mrade had stated in the interview O> with me of .net and .com not existing any more. Both of them O> becoming just one site. Apparently this isn't what you had O> originally though the deal would be was it? O> O> Well, in the past I had agreed to something LIKE he described O> to you. He and I hadn't communicated enough to get to the full O> picture he painted. Now, I'm off to do something better than O> he's dreamt of, and finally have a web dev staff to use and O> create the ULTIMATE theme site. O> Mark my words. O> By the way, the theme machine is still here @ .com, it's not O> turned on now. All I wish is that WareWolf wasn't two-faced and would tell me all of this on the phone, or what have you, while we were discussing it because when we were, all I heard was optimism, and how he was mistaken about GodzillaMK and other people. Now, it comes out that he had a bad feeling about me. Well, now I know (once again I find out last about it). And I don't mind, people are people, they have their tastes and interests. And I only wish I someday SEE this new LiteStep.com site, as I have heard about it for past year or so. The more sites dedicated to LiteStep, the merrier. While some people sit on their asses and point fingers at others, I prefer to sit down and do something useful. Once again WareWolf is trying to bring the sense of competition into this, and it's ok, but only when it's healthy competition, a friendly one. I don't consider telling lies and rumors a healthy competition personally. And once again, good luck with the new LiteStep.com, I only wish to see it out someday. In conclusion: While WareWolf and I were talking about how all we do now is strictly for LiteStep, how we learned from our previous conflict, and how we won't get into any more personal bullshit. Well, unfortunately I failed to see it in his actions, as this is a clear back stab for me. Yes, LiteStep WILL blow up, but not by these measures. I consider this cheap, and most importantly untruthful. As I said, I am sticking to my plans, and continuing work on the best LiteStep site(s) on the net. What sites are better or worse is up for user's judgement. All I know is that I LOVE LiteStep, I LOVE the community (for as annoying as some of people might get sometimes), I LOVE to work on these projects and contribute, even though I have so much little time to do so anymore. So enjoy the ride. And yes WareWolf you can continue getting themes from LiteStep.net. I understand, soon you'll have "THE" best theme machine on the net, until then you probably need some push don't you? Good luck... c0mrade +-------<*>-------+ And this is the end of this, completely. The only reply that WareWolf has is that he and c0mrade disagree on something, but agree on others. c0mrade has no further comments at all. All I can say is I hope that the community can stay together through this and we don't dissolve like we did during the 24.5 mess. Please please take everything here and think about it, don't go off the handle and start a war. That is the last thing we need. - demigod .................................... All content Copyright (c) 1999-2000 XSWeekly. 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