[OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal to find an alternative to Collabnet

[Allan Doyle]

On Jul 17, 2006, at 18:35, Aaron Koning wrote:

> Most of the discussion on this issue has been around a web site /  
> CMS for project developers, but I want to mention the other side.  
> If we think about OSGeo.org as the front door to The Open Source  
> Geospatial Foundation, the look and feel of the site becomes really  
> important. Right now it appears that OSGeo.org is setup to  
> accommodate developers and keen users, which is an important goal.  
> However, if OSGeo wants to appeal to a wider audience, I believe  
> that the website must become clearer to navigate and read.
>
> For example, when I go to the web site, I should be able to read  
> about the newest OSGeo news, but what I see is "Current News",  
> where the last news item is dated May 31. Sure the actual recent  
> news is available via the News link on the sidebar, but what I'm  
> getting at is there seems to be a confusing presentation and a lack  
> of consistency, which ultimately will scare off fringe users /  
> browsers / non-members. I would imagine the visibility committee  
> would like to avoid this.
>
> I realize that the web committee is addressing these issues and  
> they deserve kudos for that. Finding the balance between a  
> developer oriented site and a friendly web present is challenging,  
> but it's important to consider both functions.

You mean something like these:

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/
http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home
http://geotools.codehaus.org/
http://postgis.refractions.net/
http://193.43.36.138/

They are really geared at developers but each also has an up-to-date  
news component.
I guess this is veering off-topic, into the webcom's area. But maybe  
not. I think there's an overall gestalt view of OSGeo that we want to  
present that is not being served by the current site. Is that due to  
Collabnet? I think in part it is. The tools are unwieldy at best and  
lead to compartmentalization of information as well as leading to  
difficulties in finding things.

Given the limited resources we have, I think the web-energy needs to  
go into the overall site first.

	Allan

>
> IMHO,
> Aaron
>
>
> On 7/17/06, Allan Doyle <adoyle at eogeo.org> wrote: Is it so  
> important to move things to a common environment for
> developers? Is the cost of doing that so high that it starts to cut
> into development?
>
> Jody's point about matching look and feel sounds like the more
> important one. If we work backwards, what end result are we looking
> for? Surely not carefully lined up projects, all neatly tucked away
> into a version control system with parallel file naming conventions,
> variable naming schemes and so on. I'd like to see compatible binary
> packages for major platforms, ease of side-by-side installations of
> components, etc. Basically the topics we were hitting on in the
> OpenSDI list.
>
> If projects do the proper copyright/IP management, then it should be
> ok to use any tools to do so.
>
> Or am I missing something?
>
>         Allan
>
> On Jul 17, 2006, at 17:37, Jody Garnett wrote:
>
> > Hi Cameron, thanks for keeping discussion open and on the list.
> > Much nicer out in public even when difficult.
> >
> > From my perspective I got a lot of work to do to get GeoTools ready
> > and Collabnet is the last thing on my mind. I am way more concerned
> > about what the standard Look and Feel ends up being for OSGEO
> > projects... because that I will match.
> >
> > We origionally started using Confluence for the uDig project and
> > looked into porting the content to Drupal. It really did not work
> > and i would be sorry to say how much time we spent on it. It was
> > interesting how effective donating confluence is to open source
> > projects is for Allisian....
> >
> > Thanks for quoting the following page, the tables near the bottom
> > were started by me to explain why GeoTools is not moving
> > to Collabnet at this time... which is not to say we are not hurting
> > for resources (in the meeting to day we were talking about hosting
> > builds on TOPP and Refractions servers).
> >> This page is a good start:
> >> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Project_Infrastructure_Migration
> > So what I want is this:
> > 1. Web LNF from the webcomm (who I have not had a chance to help
> > with until the geotools IP check is done)
> > 2. Update my confluence sites to match
> > 3. Keep tabs on CollabNet offerings, and how seriously intergrated
> > LnF is as a requirement for OSGEO projects
> >
> > If the times comes to switch, and it may, it will be based on the
> > least hassle for developers on the project. The performance of
> > confluence
> > on the codehaus is a trouble, and I can no longer export based on
> > the timeouts experienced (bleck).
> >
> > One serious issue is that most of our navigation structure is based
> > on parent child page relationships included in pages via macros,
> > this is the kind
> > of thing that never translates well - even if the base content
> > does. So I am really not going to give this much more thought until
> > it becomes a problem. It is nice having CollabNet as an escape
> > avenue if needed.
> >
> > All the best,
> > Jody
> >
> >
> >
> >  
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>
> --
> Allan Doyle
> +1.781.433.2695
> adoyle at eogeo.org
>
>
>
>
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>
> -- 
> +--------------------------------------------
> |  Aaron Koning
> |  Information Technologist
> |  Prince George, BC, Canada.
> +--------------------------------------------
> |  http://datashare.gis.unbc.ca/fist/
> |  http://datashare.gis.unbc.ca/gctp-js/
> +--------------------------------------------

-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org