Donate a penny for RedState! (needs $25,000 to move from Drupal to Django)

Our friends at RedState have issued an urgent plea [1] for $25,000 so they can upgrade their site from Drupal to Django. In the spirit of helpfulness, I urge everyone reading this to donate a penny if PayPal allows it. But, only if the transactions costs exceed the amount you donate.

In the plea, Erick Erickson implies some sort of liberal conspiracy that's prevented them from getting help or something; at least one person calls him on it in comments, and Kos says [2] he offered to conduct a "technology swap" when they had previously used the Scoop system:
...they could have all of our improvements if their developer helped with some patches and whanot. I saw this as a way to spread out the costs of improving the platform amongst various sites.

But that doesn't fit their narrative of being "censored" by those crazy liberals.

So in other words, as ludicrous as their charge was -- that they were being censored because no liberals offered to help them -- IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE!
(Other "liberals" weigh in at [3] and [4]). I'll also add that Drupal is an open source system, and it has a very active user community. In the Drupal forums, no one knows you're a dog, a liberal, or a GOP hack. If they needed help, there was nothing preventing them from asking questions in those forums, and I don't think they'd find too many people who'd turn down money as long as it was coming from at least a semi-reputable source.

Furthermore, Drupal is written in PHP, a very widely used language. And, it's infinitely extensible. It's very easy to completely change everything Drupal looks and acts like simply by writing add-on modules and themes. And, while it would be almost never needed, the core code can be modified at will since it's open source. Any server issues can be handled as discussed at the RedState thread, and Erickson admits that that wasn't even the issue. While Drupal isn't by any stretch of the imagination as well-designed (in an object-oriented fashion) as other APIs (such as as some of the Java APIs), much of that can be mitigated by writing your add-on code in an OO fashion. (If you're reading this as an individual post, some of the sites to the left are Drupal together with custom modules I developed.)

In other words, there's no reason I can see for them to switch from Drupal. While Python is an attractive language, and Yahoo has used it for years, and Django may be less kludgy than Drupal, switching over rather than simply writing a few add-on modules doesn't seem all that necessary.

But, don't let that stop you from sending a penny, just as long as it costs them money.

[1] redstate . com/stories/miscellanea/redstate_has_a_real_need_for_your_help [2] dailykos . com/comments/2008/1/7/104733/5912/451#c451 [3] atrios.blogspot . com/2008_01_06_archive.html#4376492115909414609 [4] firedoglake . com/2008/01/07/redstate-tells-readers-scoop-developers-are-all-liberals-so-fork-over-25-grand

Comments

That is a pretty pathetic and sad commentary on your inability to rise above your obvious jealousy of the Redstate site....I have enjoyed reading your site but really.

I was blocked from registering at Malkins site during a period when comments were open for registration. I have no idea why. I was never registered there before and always try and post thoughtful conservative opinion. I even think Michelle is cute too.

No way, this post is fair game for those party hacks who have sold out this country. Anyone who plays the "racist!" screaming card against lonewacko deserves a beating. I am sending them one cent in the mail (affixed with a 41 cent stamp), along with some GWB Pesos: http://aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/bush_peso_amero.jpg

I will pray for them.

Party hacks? Oh my! is that ever a liberal talking point....the MAN is out to take you down...get real...too funny. Stick to the finer talking point on illegal amnesty and we all win...bait on race and we lose...the RULE OF LAW is sufficient to win the arguement.....LaRaza loses because they use race as their talking point...we conservatives are better than that....as I tell my children..watch your words.

How is being a party hack a "liberal" talking point? These idiots put their party before their country and they deserve every ounce of shame handed to them for their betrayal to their countrymen. They also deserve what is coming to them for playing the race card against patriotic Americans like lonewacko. Accordingly, I am sending them one cent and GWB pesos. And this is a racial issue, no matter how unintelligible your arguments sound. Denying the truth isn't going to get you anywhere. We are not being invaded by Swedes or Canadians, so you had better wake up and deal with reality instead of your misguided sense of political correctness. PC and race denial is what is going to kill us. Your kids have already suffered enough falsehoods, so please do not subject the rest of us patriots with your delusional mestizo race invasion denying.

Jaded: "LaRaza loses because they use race as their talking point...we conservatives are better than that" that's funny since Republicans (you know, those who call themselves conservatives) just like Democrats go to La Raza's convention and kiss La Raza's racial butt. La Raza is winning because americans have been conditioned to be afraid of speaking the truth about racial politics.

I rarely do not comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great article!!