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

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

I've hesitated to weigh in on this discussion too soon.

Cameron Shorter wrote:
> 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.

I don't think any firm decision has been made, but I don't think there
is much support currently for staying with CollabNet in the form we have
now.

We are actively trying to build our capacity to host services we need
that collabnet does not provide ourselves.  If that works out reasonable
well, then we would likely provide our own hosting platform.  This
work on software deployment and server maintenance is the area of SAC,
the System Administration Committee more so than Webcom which is more
focused on the main web site.  Content development, navigation, and
style for instance.

> 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 think it is reasonable to talk about making the project domains point
directly to the main project web site for projects that don't want to
setup on the CN platform.

> 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? 

As mentioned earlier, I think this is more the venue of SAC.

 >  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

Right, the wiki page listed earlier was a partial effort to collect
requirements.  I believe SAC basically hopes to provide some of the tools
that folks are familiar with already - for instance confluence.  There
will be a limit to the variety of services that SAC can support, so
some projects may find themselves still supporting some services themselves.

I am doubtful that SAC would be able to provide as fully "managed" a
platform as CollabNet, but we are trying to tackle issues like a central
userid database via LDAP so that people don't have to get accounts for
each project or tool.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org