[gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Daniel Robbins]

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: antonio.meireles@epandemic.com
Subject: [gentoo-core] gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)
Date: 17 Sep 2002 17:33:09 +0100

for public review / comments / whatever

________________________________________________________________________
 
version 0.0.1 (14/September/2002 [18h00 GMT-0] )


Objectives/Goals:

        * have gentoo.org to function as a central hub to all our
          (growing) community
        * from an end-user perspective
        * from a developer perspective 
        * from a multilingual/multinational perpective 
        * from an OEM/ISV/VC perpective
        * from  a non  (yet) gentoo-user perpective comming from *NIX
          land
        * from a non (yet) gentoo-user perspective comming fron Win*/Mac
          ...
        * from a (mainstream/IT) press perspective
        * [insert here] from an yet not thougth perspective 

Current issues/problems

        * the current web site is confuse, graphically not very
          atractive and lacks clear focus, doesn 't even have a search
          function
        * the current web site targets (almost) only english speaking
          users
        * there isn 't a clear separation between what is information
          targeted at developers and what is information targeted at
          end-users
        * information regarding the same issues is disperse around
          several places: Mailing lists, foruns, instalation docs,
          bugzilla, etc, makind it hard to find for inexperienced users 
        * when one reach gentoo.org (non gentoo user/developer)  there
          isn 't a clear message about Gentoo nature,  and what make him
          different/better on the front-page
        * the information/structure  available is too english-centric
          wich takes to the proliferation of national/regional gentooo
          sites, which makes us loose cohesion and weakes the community
          as a whole 
        * [insert here] other issues/problems

Watching how others handle the situation ... Four case studies

        * Zope community
            * www.zope.com
            * www.zope.org
        * Microsoft
            * www.microsoft.com
            * support.microsoft.com
            * msdn.microsoft.com
        * ActiveState
            * www..activestate.com
            * aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/
        * Red Hat
            * www.redhat.com
            * www.redhat.com/apps/support/

Proposals/Remedies

split the current gentoo.org in diferent areas with clear different
focus 



        * www.gentoo.org
            * here will be all the general stuff
                * what is Gentoo (whith an high altitude FAQ)
                * Advocacy Docs
                * Social Contract
                * Important News
                * Propaganda Stuff (screenshots, users rave comments,
                  etc)
                * Press Reviews
                * Download Links
                * [insert here] other relevant topics
        * gdn.gentoo.org
            * Gentoo Developer Network (here will be loccated all the
              information relevant to developers -  a cross of ASPN with
              MSDN
                * Developer Docs
                * Bugzilla (developer side) 
                * Developers Only Knowledge Base
                * Developers Only FAQ
                * ARCH specific Documentation 
                * specific developer forums/wikis (see zope.org) 
                * developer Mailing Lists
                * Hardware Compatibilty Guide
                * i18n
                * IRC logs from #gentoo-dev and #gentoo-qa
                * roadmaps, etc
                * [insert here] other relevant topics
        * gun.gentoo.org
            * Gentoo Users Network (here will be located all the
              information relevant to end-users - a cross of
              support.microsoft.com and www.zope.org)
                * End-User HowTos
                * End-User ARCH specific Documentation
                * End-User Oriented Knowledge Base
                * End-User Oriented FAQ collection (on the style of the
                  LDP) 
                    * the three above items should be fully searchable
                      aand indexable)
                * End-User Foruns and Wikis 
                * End-User Focused Polls (usabilty, features, etc) 
                * End-User Mailing Lists
                * Hardware Compatibilty Guide (both by ARCH and by type
                  of HW (sound, networking, etc) 
                    * shared with GDN, should have relevant info
                      extracted from bugzilla, forums, wikis, etc
                      regarding Hardware issues
                * Bugzilla (end user side)
                * [insert here] other relevant topics



    * GDN could be mainly english based (as, like it or not, the English
      is the lingua franca in this world)
    * Both www.gentoo.org and GUN should/must support
      internationalization of content rigth from the start ...
    * GDN would only be accessible to registered Developers (with
      perhaps different access levels) 
    * GUN would be acessible read-only to all, but to take really
      advantage users should register ... 
    * [insert here] other relevant notes





All the best to all, 

António Meireles
--


-- 
Daniel Robbins
Chief Architect, Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Fred Van Andel]

At 11:03 AM 9/19/02 -0600, you wrote:
>-----Forwarded Message-----
>
>From: antonio.meireles@epandemic.com
>Subject: [gentoo-core] gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)
>Date: 17 Sep 2002 17:33:09 +0100
>
>for public review / comments / whatever

SNIP

Newsgroup access to the mailing lists and forums, even if read only.

Fred Van Andel

[gentoo-dev] Re: [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Mark Gordon]

On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 11:32:42 -0700
Fred Van Andel <fred@vanandel.net> wrote:

> At 11:03 AM 9/19/02 -0600, you wrote:
> >
> >for public review / comments / whatever
> 
> SNIP
> 
> Newsgroup access to the mailing lists and forums, even if read only.

Gmane gives full access to this and many other mailing lists. Go to
www.gmane.org for details.
-- 
Mark Gordon

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Steven Stillaway]

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>     * GDN would only be accessible to registered Developers (with
>       perhaps different access levels) 


Putting ACL's on the developer content is completely counter
productive in an open source project IMHO.

Why are you trying to make it more difficult for people who are 
interested in hacking gentoo (and hopefully contributing back) to
do so.

All content should be readable by anyone (and even editable if you
are really planning on running a true wiki).

Let people read the content.  

Let them do with it what they wish with it.

Putting restrictions will just curb the growth of the Gentoo
developer community with no real benefit.

If you want to put ACL's on publishing to the GDN then that makes
sense, but not for reading and accessing.

Just my $0.02

--

Steven Stillaway
steve@stillaway.net


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Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Peter Ruskin]

On Thursday 19 Sep 2002 20:30, Steven Stillaway wrote:
> Putting ACL's on the developer content is completely counter
> productive in an open source project IMHO.
>
> Why are you trying to make it more difficult for people who are
> interested in hacking gentoo (and hopefully contributing back) to
> do so.
>
> All content should be readable by anyone (and even editable if you
> are really planning on running a true wiki).
>
> Let people read the content.
>
> Let them do with it what they wish with it.
>
> Putting restrictions will just curb the growth of the Gentoo
> developer community with no real benefit.
>
> If you want to put ACL's on publishing to the GDN then that makes
> sense, but not for reading and accessing.
>
> Just my $0.02

I agree with Steven.  The way Gentoo is currently accessible was a big 
inducement for me to become a gentoo fan.  I also run Mandrake and they 
try to keep their Cooker community for developers only and it doesn't 
work too well.  They are only interested in fixing the bleeding edge, 
with scant regard (and scant available expertise) to deal with last 
month's problems.
-- 
Gentoo Linux (portage-2.0.36).  KDE: 3.0.3  Qt: 3.0.5
AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1600+ 512MB.	Kernel: 2.4.19-win4lin.	GCC 3.2
Linux user #275590 (http://counter.li.org/).  up 11:09.
#=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=#

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Evan Read]

On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 03:03, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> -----Forwarded Message-----
> 
> From: antonio.meireles@epandemic.com
> Subject: [gentoo-core] gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)
> Date: 17 Sep 2002 17:33:09 +0100
> 
> for public review / comments / whatever
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________
>  
> version 0.0.1 (14/September/2002 [18h00 GMT-0] )

Hey,

Some of these things are admirable goals, but I think that the first
thing Gentoo really needs to do is get to the point where people are
willing to use it in production with assurances of timely security fixes
etc.  Then it will begin to appeal to an even broader market (no one
said it couldn't still be up to date) and then perhaps some of these
things will become more necessary.

I notice that the Debian project has none of this kind of separate of
content.  And they have a huge community.  RedHat does because they have
a huge amount of content and also because they are talking to a less
savvy crowd.

Gentoo has neither a mammoth user base, nor a huge amount of content
(what they have is great and the users are great, of course!). I don't
see this as a huge need write now. Let the hackers hack.  The
documenters document. Let see where we are in a few months time.

Evan

-- 
For security use OpenBSD: http://eread.freeshell.org/
"The future comes 60 minutes an hour no matter who you are or what you
do."
        The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Jeffrey D. Kowing]

Peter Ruskin writes:
 > On Thursday 19 Sep 2002 20:30, Steven Stillaway wrote:
 > > Putting ACL's on the developer content is completely counter
 > > productive in an open source project IMHO.
 > >
 > > Putting restrictions will just curb the growth of the Gentoo
 > > developer community with no real benefit.
 > >
 > > If you want to put ACL's on publishing to the GDN then that makes
 > > sense, but not for reading and accessing.
 > >
 > 

I too strongly agree that it is important to avoid restricting the
visibility of Gentoo development.  I think it is critical for Gentoo's
healthy growth and development that developers and especially
potential developers and contributors are able to see clearly the
discussions and directions that Gentoo intends to take.

I think the more visible the process the better, because it tends to
encourage participation and help move Gentoo users into becoming
Gentoo developers.  Nobody wants to contribute to a black box.  And,
like the distribution itself, it would be wonderful for Gentoo to
operate in as open a manner as possible.  I don't think there is
anything to fear and everything to be gained by doing so.

I just don't see anything to be gained by restricting read access and
all this registration stuff - on the contrary, I think it will greatly
hurt Gentoo's potential for developing a strong user/developer
community.

Also, and I have very little knowledge about all of this, but I've
always respected the integrity of the Debian community.  Shouldn't
they also be a case study.  Or am I completely missing something
(wouldn't be the first time) ?

And, as always, thanks for everyone who contributes to this great
distribution.

-- 
Of course, these reflect only my little old opinions and not those of
my employer. - Jeff Kowing, jeffrey.d.kowing1@jsc.nasa.gov

[gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Jeffrey D. Kowing]

> version 0.0.1 (14/September/2002 [18h00 GMT-0] )
>
> Current issues/problems
>
>        * the current web site is confuse, graphically not very
>          atractive and lacks clear focus, doesn 't even have a search
>          function

Oh, one more thing while I'm spouting my opinion, I always thought the
website was actually very nice and quite attractive.

-- 
Jeff Kowing
jeffrey.d.kowing1@jsc.nasa.gov

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[humpback]

> I notice that the Debian project has none of this kind of separate of
> content.  And they have a huge community.  RedHat does because they have
> a huge amount of content and also because they are talking to a less
> savvy crowd.

Debian's web site is a mess. Plain and simple.
Trying to find any information on the site is really hard.

Just because a advanced user can do a google search and find the
information on some people.debian.org/~dsfdsdf page it does not mean that
it is ok.

I think separation is a good think because it will make it easyer to find
things.

Just my 0.01 Euros

Gustavo

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[William Kenworthy]

I agree, this could be very counter productive.  By all means have some
private commincation channels for core developers, but this looks too
much closed source/microsoftish

BillK

On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 03:30, Steven Stillaway wrote:
> >     * GDN would only be accessible to registered Developers (with
> >       perhaps different access levels) 
> 
> 
> Putting ACL's on the developer content is completely counter
> productive in an open source project IMHO.
> 
> Why are you trying to make it more difficult for people who are 
> interested in hacking gentoo (and hopefully contributing back) to
> do so.

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Matthew Walker]

Another ditto here.

I see absolutely no reason to do this. ACL's on editting stuff, yes. On
reading it? No! Shouldn't even have to log in to use it at all. Having a
login for those who /wish/ to have one would be nice, and could maybe give
them some extra features. But the general information in the developers
section should be available to all. That is, afterall, the spirit of open
source.

Matthew

William Kenworthy said:
> I agree, this could be very counter productive.  By all means have some
> private commincation channels for core developers, but this looks too much
> closed source/microsoftish
>
> BillK
>
> On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 03:30, Steven Stillaway wrote:
>> >     * GDN would only be accessible to registered Developers (with
>> >       perhaps different access levels)
>>
>>
>> Putting ACL's on the developer content is completely counter
>> productive in an open source project IMHO.
>>
>> Why are you trying to make it more difficult for people who are
>> interested in hacking gentoo (and hopefully contributing back) to do so.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

[gentoo-dev] Re: [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Mecho Puh]

> Objectives/Goals:
> 
>         * have gentoo.org to function as a central hub to all our
>           (growing) community


We need first to define sources and goals. I'll just try, but I'm newbie
so fill free to change them:

* Sources:
- developers work - changes in the CVS system
- users "work" - mailing lists, forums, IRC

* Goals:
- up-to-date news and annoncements
- up-to-date documentation - common format(read XML) translated to as
   more languages as possible
   - "small" howtos - Gentoo XML
   - books and guides - Gentoo XML or DocBook
   - FAQs

Let's try to get the "big picture" for all of this:

* CVS: now it's about 40M long bunch of directories, full with a lot of
   unused things. Example: gentoo-xml directory - dobbins xml resume ;)
   Separating it in several modules will be better I think:
   - gentoo-web, gentoo-doc etc.
   A big cleaning is needed. Can be done from the modules admins.
   We already have cvs2xml conversion, so integrating cvs changes in the
   web pages will not be difficult.

* mailing lists: no problems - they work (email access),
   have archives (web access), can be readed via gmane service
   (news access)

* forums: very active and unexplored area. Ideas:
   - ask topic moderators for weekly/monthly digest - FAQs etc.
   - extract scripts from the posts - maybe gentoo-contrib module in CVS

* IRC: same as forums - ask IRC operators for some digests

About goals:
* up-to-date news and annoncements. I think the current handling on
   web pages news is not effective. Now it is done by xml files,
   converted to html with realy biiiiig and messy xsl. Why? Who will need
   other format (pdf or something) for the main page with every day
   changed context? If you take a look on main xsl file, the part for
   handling main page and news (/guide and /main tags) is about two
   times bigger that the ALL OTHER tags handling. And it is raw HTML,
   no parameters, nothing. A small changes are a big pain, belive me.
   This is not needed. XML is for document. It is the best way to keep
   them in common format. XSL need to convert howtos, not the page with
   news. News need to be handled by some content managment engine
   (more about this later).
   Using RSS is needed - it is defacto standard for news exchange
   between the sites.

* up-to-date documentation - i like Gentoo XML format. It's small,
   easy to learn, productive. Just a small changes in the XSL are
   needed. Also now a lot of documents are in fact not valid Gentoo
   XML, they are not DTD valid. There is a section-in-section, which
   is not valid. Inside XSL is subsection tag handling, but subsection
   is again not valid (not described in th DTD). Again need a cleaning.
   Also now we have just a bunch of howtos not very well organized.
   Maybe some ideas from http://www.tldp.org/ will be good.
   Also we still haven't big manuals - handbook etc. Something like
   FreeBSD handbook:
   http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html
   I prefer Gentoo XML format, but if impossible - to use DocBook

* FAQs - people ask a looooooot of questions - in the forums,
   in the IRC. Something like FAQ-O-Matic will be very useful:
   http://faqomatic.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html
   FAQs can be handled on "by architecture" and/or "by topic" basics
   (install, portage, network etc.). With faq-o-matic it is possible
   different people to handle each topic/architecture.
   From where will come information? IRC and forums digests. Installing
   some Wiki (TWiki[http://twiki.sf.net] or 
MoinMoin[http://moin.sf.net/] maybe). Topic admins can see what's 
happends from the "Recent Changes"
   wiki page.
   I like the OpenBSD FAQs - http://www.openbsd.org/faq/index.html

I want to propose one tool just to ilustrate possible solution:
Drupal: http://www.drupal.org/
"Drupal is a content management/discussion engine suitable to setup or 
build a content driven or community driven website."

How will look gentoo web if use this tool:
- There are several teams - PPC, x86, doc, portage. They interact with
   CVS and we can follow to changes with cvs2xml, cvs2rss, cvs2html etc.
   Drupal's view: http://www.drupal.org/module.php?mod=cvs
   Each team need to take care ONLY FOR HIS OWN weblog - to be acurate,
   up-to-time etc. - user's blogs in drupal:
   http://www.drupal.org/module.php?mod=blog&op=view&id=622
   See the XML button on the botton. What's this mean? If I'm a x86 user
   I can syndicate my webpage with x86 team weblog, so I'll see news ON
   MY OWN page. I like RSS. And I'll start to like Gentoo ;)
   All weblogs are aggregated on the main page:
   http://www.drupal.org/index.php
   And what we recieve? Up-to-date news and annoncements.
- All documents are organized in the way similar to http://www.tldp.org/
   HOWTOs, Guides, FAQs - need also searching engine. FAQ-O-Matic have
   already this feature. Drupal also:
   http://www.drupal.org/module.php?mod=search
- We need also big manuals - guides. Drupal feature - collaborate book:
   http://www.drupal.org/node.php?id=253
   Different chapters (nodes) can be handled by different peoples.
- Translation - some changes in the XSL required. Using config files and
   parameters for country charset. Layout to be divided from the context.
   Again CVS modules can help. Translator get gentoo-doc and return us
   gentoo-doc-ru, gentoo-doc-jp etc. Or gentoo-web-.....

Some opinion?

Best Regards,
Stoyan Zhekov <zhware@gentoo.org>

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Paul de Vrieze]

On Friday 20 September 2002 01:14, humpback@felisberto.net wrote:
> > I notice that the Debian project has none of this kind of separate of
> > content.  And they have a huge community.  RedHat does because they have
> > a huge amount of content and also because they are talking to a less
> > savvy crowd.
>
> Debian's web site is a mess. Plain and simple.
> Trying to find any information on the site is really hard.
>
> Just because a advanced user can do a google search and find the
> information on some people.debian.org/~dsfdsdf page it does not mean that
> it is ok.
>
> I think separation is a good think because it will make it easyer to find
> things.
>

I think there might be a use for someone who checks the forums, the mailing 
lists, and the newsgroup to make some faq/howto based on the answers given to 
the most frequent/interesting questions.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Junior Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

Re: [gentoo-dev] [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Thomas M. Beaudry]

>>version 0.0.1 (14/September/2002 [18h00 GMT-0] )
>>
>>Current issues/problems
>>
>>       * the current web site is confuse, graphically not very
>>         atractive and lacks clear focus, doesn 't even have a search
>>         function
> 
> 
> Oh, one more thing while I'm spouting my opinion, I always thought the
> website was actually very nice and quite attractive.

I agree.

-- 
Thomas M. Beaudry
k8la / ys1ztm