WebLogger is written and copyright (© 1999, 2000) by Dave Royer.
WebLogger is distributed under the GNU General Public License. This means that you can use, modify, and redistribute this software, provided you provide the source code to anyone who requests it.
Although it is not required, I would appreciate anyone who uses WebLogger to let me know what you think. Let me know what you would like to see added and what needs to be changed. If you make changes, toss them back to me so I can include them back in the next version of Weblogger.
I am a member of the Twin Cities area skywarn organization. I also assist the Bloomington Communications Group in operating the skywarn spotter net during severe weather. This spotter net receives weather reports from other trained skywarn spotters in the Amateur Radio community and, in turn, forwards them on to the National Weather Service to aid in their forecasting and issueing of severe weather bulletins.
Before WebLogger the net operators would write down reports received on a piece of paper and then yell the message to someone else in the cramped net control room. This was not very productive because the operator had to stop taking reports to share the new report with others. This also created lots of unneeded noise.
Now, with WebLogger, the Net operators simply type the report into a form on a webpage and everyone else in the room can see that report on their own computer screen, virtually instantaneously.
WebLogger is written in PHP and uses MySQL on the back end to store information. In our implementation, we are using Linux computers for the server and client computers. We chose Linux for a number of reasons. A big one is that it is free. Another was that it would run on our donated computers (486 66mhz on average). Not only will Linux run, but it will run fairly fast on our computers, making it a much better performer than other, more popular operating systems. Linux also has built in support for the AX.25 protocol built into the kernel. This allows us to link packet into the equation very easily.
The actual code for WebLogger was written mostly by Dave Royer, but it was by no means a solo effort. Many people helped, and are still helping with the hardware, and operating system stuff. Specifically, Max Klingert, Doug Reed, Bill Hughes, and others I'm sure I am leaving out.