Frequently asked questions about the Roller Weblogger:

What is a weblog?

A weblog, also known as a blog, is a public diary where you write things that you want to share with others, comment on items of interest to you, and link to recent reading on the web and other weblogs.

What is Roller?

Roller is a blog server that allows users to create and maintain their own blogs. See the Roller homepage for the latest intro to Roller.

Who uses Roller?

See the PoweredByRoller page for a list of individuals and entities presently using Roller.

Who developed Roller?

Roller was originally written by Dave Johnson as an example application for an article on open source Java development tools. The article, titled Building an Open Source J2EE Weblogger, was published on O'Reilly's Java.com site in April, 2002. Roller became an Apache Project in 2007, see the committer list for present-day maintainers of Roller.

How is Roller licensed?

Roller is open source software available under the Apache Software License.

How do I start my own weblog?

Read the Roller Install Guide to learn how to install Roller and the User Guide to learn how to use it. The documentation links on the left-side of the Roller homepage will take you to those resources (both last release and latest-and-greatest versions.)

How do I download and install Roller on my server?

See the Roller homepage for download and documentation links. Follow the Instructions in the Install Guide (recommend latest-and-greatest version).

What blog editor clients can I use with Roller?

Ecto, MarsEdit, and W.Bloggar are all known to work with Roller. Any blog editor client that supports the BloggerAPI or the MetaWelogAPI should work with Roller.

Does Roller have an IRC channel?

Yes it does, but it's pretty quiet. There is a #roller channel on the irc.freenode.net IRC network. First download IRC software like Pidgin or Konversation, or (less pleasantly) use http://webchat.freenode.net/ from your browser.