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

Mon Jul 17 17:23:08 PDT 2006

Gary, I'm not trying to suggest that you move away from Collabnet.  It 
it works for you, then good.  Stick with it.

Has a decision been made to move away from Collabnet in February?  If 
so, this information should be shared with all projects to minimise 
wasted effort and allow us to work toward an end goal.

For instance, if we are moving away from Collabnet, I'd like 
http://communitymapbuilder.osgeo.org/ to point to the Mapbuilder home 
site as the current page is just confusing for users.

I possibly should be watching the webcom more closely if they are making 
decisions about hosting platforms and tools.  Has the webcom been 
discussing requirements for hosting platforms?  If so, it would be good 
to get input from the projects to get their requirements and then buy 
in.  Possible requirements I've seen so far:
* Ease of use for new projects
* Common look and feel between projects
* Common tool set between projects (seems to have been voted down)
* Open Source tools (mixed responses)
* Use of "favourite" toolsets by projects

Allan Doyle wrote:
> 
> 
> 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/
>> +--------------------------------------------
> 
> 

-- 
Cameron Shorter
http://cameron.shorter.net