Newscast 1.1 released as open source

2 years worth of website development for labor unions is now available for all. Created from scratch, Newscast is a broad package of commonly used content management features from the development of several labor union websites.

I would not argue that Newscast is the best content management software package available or that this is a "one size fits all" type of program, but for many labor unions who have struggled with maintaining their own website or who are starting up a website for the first time and are looking for a simple solution, Newscast gets the job done.

Newscast is designed so that one person can maintain an entire website without requiring an excessive understanding of technical details. There is a small learning curve required for learning how to use Newscast; however this learning curve is much smaller than what is needed to start and maintain a website without Newscast.

There have always been a number of obstacles which have prevented me from releasing my software as open source in the past. The primary obstacle has been the lack of well designed web templates that could be used so that each website using Newscast is not identical to the next. In the past, I have always provided custom support for each labor union that I worked with and a customized graphic design has always been the first thing that was discussed. To solve this problem, I have set up Newscast so that it is compatible with any design generated by Strange Banana.

Strange Banana is a computer generated graphic design tool that demonstrates how Cascading Style Sheets can make a single HTML page look radically different depending on the stylesheet that is associated with it. Once deciding to take a design from Strange Banana, all you need to do is view the page source, copy the style information and save it within a stylesheet document contained in newscast, overwriting the default design. While this site is not quite as glamorous as say the CSS Zen Garden, Strange Banana is a very practical site.

The second major obstacle to widespread usage of Newscast as an Open Source package has been documentation. This is something I am currently still working on. Last year, before I took a hiatus from my self-employed business, I started working on a written version of my consulting work with regard to training. I have always provided an in person step by step demonstration of how to use my software with each organization that I worked with. Right now I plan to re-write and finish documenting all of the features that are contained in Newscast. I hope to finish re-writing this documentation by the end of this year. I am also planning to set up a listserv on my website so that the information I provide will be available for others who may be going through the same problem.

Since I am no longer relying on my self-employed business, I can significantly reduce the rates I charge for my support and development work. It is important to note that although this software is released for free, that does not mean that I will work for free. I can be flexable and work on a sliding scale as needed when I am not too busy with other projects. There are a lot of add on features that I can provide for organizations who are looking for a customized solution for their organization, some of which have already been created on other sites I have developed. Newscast is currently a one man operation and will probably continue as such. My hope is that with this release, I will obtain a larger user base for Newscast and that I will be able to make contacts with more organizations who are interested in my work. I don't really expect to find other developers who are interested in my software, but I would certainly welcome additional development experience from other programmers.

Newscast 1.1 can be downloaded here. For more information as well as updates visit my website at Tech@Work. Please contact me if you are planning to host your site using Newscast or if are a developer and plan to add aditional features to Newscast. Newscast is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

One last note, Newscast is not designed as blogging software. The ability to allow comments is available, however this has actually been one of the worst features within this system because none of the organizations I have worked with were interested in allowing comments and there has never been any exaustive testing and re-development of that aspect of Newscast.