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Free blogging platform Ghost opens to the public

Free blogging platform Ghost opens to the public
Ghost, a new free blogging platform, has opened its doors to the public
Ghost, a new free blogging platform, has opened its doors to the public
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Ghost's entry editing screen (left) works besides a preview pane (right), and gives a good idea of the benefits of Markdown support
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Ghost's entry editing screen (left) works besides a preview pane (right), and gives a good idea of the benefits of Markdown support
Ghost, a new free blogging platform, has opened its doors to the public
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Ghost, a new free blogging platform, has opened its doors to the public
A Ghost-hosted blog viewed on an iPad mini
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A Ghost-hosted blog viewed on an iPad mini
Ghost's John O'Nolan shows off Ghost on an iPad mini
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Ghost's John O'Nolan shows off Ghost on an iPad mini
Ghost's posts management screen
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Ghost's posts management screen
Ghost's post editing screen
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Ghost's post editing screen
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We first covered open source blogging platform Ghost following the launch of its very successful Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign in May. The free software is billed as the first blogging platform to put writers before developers, and is managed by non-profit organization the Ghost Foundation, a move designed to make the software impossible for large corporations to buy out. On Monday, Ghost announced that after five months in development, the software has been opened up to the public to download.

Though Ghost plans to launch a hosted blog service, the software is initially available as a download to those wishing to host a blog on their own server space. Among the touted benefits of the software are clean blog designs, a simple back end for managing content, and support for Markdown for generating HTML posts from simple, easy-to-type formatting.

Ghost's entry editing screen (left) works besides a preview pane (right), and gives a good idea of the benefits of Markdown support
Ghost's entry editing screen (left) works besides a preview pane (right), and gives a good idea of the benefits of Markdown support

The Ghost Foundation says that, once the hosted version launches, all profits will be be put back into software development, with the hopes of growing "a sustainable open source business model." The project's three full-time staff were assisted by 17 contributors to the project from around the globe.

The software and installation instructions are available on GitHub.

Source: Ghost

View gallery - 6 images
4 comments
4 comments
BigGoofyGuy
I guess they get the 'spirit' of free software.
I will be checking it out.
Ken Dawson
Meh..... YABP (Yet Another Blogging Platform). I'll pass.
The amount of work required to switch all my stuff over is probably not worth it at this point.
Gadgeteer
Funny how they consider Markdown to be superior while Wikipedia is moving toward WYSIWYG. I'd rather deal with "buttons everywhere" rather than trying to remember all the necessary syntax.
aarellano
If you just want to try Ghost without the hassle of setting up a server and installing the dependecies, we at http://platan.us created a host service for Ghost blogs: http://ghostr.org
You'll be blogging using Ghost in just a few minutes, and it's free to try.