FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

If you have a question that isn't yet listed here, please email me at michael.chisari@gmail.com and I'll do my best to answer it.

1. What is Appleseed?

A better explanation is available in the Project Overview section, but basically, Appleseed is an open source social networking software, like MySpace, or Friendster. Except, Appleseed is interoperable, which means that one site running Appleseed can interoperate with another site running Appleseed. It's as if you were on MySpace, but you were able to interact with people on Friendster as if you both were on the same site.

2. When will the software be finished?

The software will probably continually be evolving, and as such never truly be 'finished.' However, it will reach 1.0 when all the sections have been coded and tested, and at least friends can be added between sites. At this time, the code is not exactly usable. You won't be able to set up a fully functional Appleseed site for a while now. But if you know PHP and MySQL you should be able to have something interesting to look at.

3. What license is Appleseed being released under?

The GNU General Public License (GPL).

4. Who are you?

My name is Michael Chisari. I've been doing PHP + MySQL programming for around 7 years now. This is the first major open source project that I've started myself. Likes are 'vi', hip hop, and graphic design. Dislikes are Emacs, racism, and drugs.

5. Why develop another Social Network software? Aren't there enough already?

There are a lot of websites (over 30, last I counted), but none of them are open source, and none of them work together with any other ones.

6. Why is it called 'Appleseed'? Is that a reference to Johnny Appleseed, or the movie of the same name that came out in 2004?

No, it's from the name of an album by New York hip hop artist, Aesop Rock.

7. What is the Appleseed Social Network?

The Appleseed Social Network (ASN) is better explained in it's own section, but basically, it's the (theoretical, mind you) network of people that gets created when Appleseed sites talk to each other. Because Appleseed is distributed, the Appleseed Social Network could potentially encompass hundreds or thousands of server nodes on the internet, each representing anywhere from dozens to thousands of users.

8. What are some of the influences of Appleseed?

Although a lot of influence is, of course, taken from other social networking sites such as Friendster and MySpace, I've also drawn a lot from my experiences running BBS systems such as Renegade, Telegard, and Iniquity over 10 years ago. These have provided a better understanding of how to create an administration interface where near everything can be changed without heading into the guts of the system.

9. How is this project different from Friend Of A Friend (FOAF)?

The immediate answer is that Appleseed is an implementation: actual software that you can install and run. FOAF is an open specification for how to read and export information about people and their relationships. In that sense, the two aren't mutually exclusive, and Appleseed might at some point adopt FOAF. But for now, it's undecided whether Appleseed will use the FOAF specification.

10. It seems like your code queries the database a lot. Why?

When designing Appleseed, a decision had to be made: Do I make it light weight and scalable, or heavier yet easily configurable? I decided to make the software ultra-configurable, so that it would be easier to setup an Appleseed site. The reason lies in Appleseed's distributed nature. I didn't want to design software that could scale to 1,000,000 users. I wanted to design software so that those users can be distributed amongst a hundred different sites.

This doesn't mean I won't try and optimize the code as much as possible, but when it comes to design decisions, ease of configurability and customization were more important than scalability.

11. What is the Appleseed Collective?

The unofficial group that directs Appleseed development and testing.

12. How can I get involved? How can I help?

One way to help is to download the source and see if you can help. Documentation also desperately needs to be written. Themes need to be designed as well. And, as always, donations are always appreciated.

And if you're a recruiter for Google, you can help by telling me when I start.

September 15, 2005 - Revision 0.2