Ringlink 3 years

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Today it's Ringlink's birthday. Ringlink 1.0 was released exactly three years ago.

If you are interested in _why_ and _how_ Ringlink was created, you may want to read the story "The Birth of Ringlink" at http://www.ringlink.org/?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=28

It's worth noting that Ringlink was created out from an _idea_, i.e. the idea of giving the ringmaster of a webring as much control as possible. The Ringlink slogan, "created by ringmasters for ringmasters", was formulated several months before the first Ringlink version was released.

Let me take this opportunity to remind of how Ringlink is intended to be used:

1. Install the Program on your own server or webhosting account,
   and run one or a few own rings.
2. Install the Program on your own server or webhosting account,
   and provide a small-scale ring service, offering a few other
   ringmasters to run their rings at your Ringlink installation.

It's easy to understand that the ringmaster can get full control by installing the program on his/her own webhosting account. But what about creating a webring at somebody else's Ringlink installation? Doesn't that make the ringmaster as dependent on the webring host as had been the case if s/he had created the ring at WebRing or RingSurf?

My answer to that question is: No. For a couple of reasons, running your webring on Ringlink - any Ringlink installation - gives you conclusive advantages compared to other alternatives:

- There are hundreds of Ringlink webring hosts to choose between.

- If the service of your current host would deteriorate, you can
  simply take a backup copy of your webring [1], send the backup
  file to some other Ringlink ring host, and ask him/her to upload
  it.

[1] This works safest with version 2.34 or higher.

Even if such a move of a webring means that the ringmembers need to change the ring code, I dare to say that the independence that Ringlink offers the ringmasters is unique.

My feeling is that Ringlink 3.0 makes up a complete whole, and I believe that it serves the intended fields of application, as described above, rather well.

At the same time I'd like to say that Ringlink is probably not suitable for a _really_ big webring hosting service. I believe that a program serving such a service needs significantly different technical solutions in some respects. Even if I have started to _play with the thought_ of making such changes, for instance add an option to make Ringlink interact with a SQL database, I'd like to emphasize that such possible changes would be beyond the scope of the idea with Ringlink.

So, to summarize:

- Ringlink was created out from an idea.

- The current Ringlink release serves that idea quite well.

/ Gunnar