Hi all, If you have an account with SourceForge, you may have received an email from them that SourceForge will retire their Hosted Apps on September 1 this year. You can recognize if something is a Hosted App by it's URL - if the URL is of the pattern http://sourceforge.net/apps/appname/projectname/, then it is a Hosted App and will be retired on September 1. Other functionality provide by SourceForge (news, bug tracker, source code, etc.) are unaffected and will remain up after September 1.
FreeDOS has activated a few of Hosted Apps, but we only use one of them: the FreeDOS Wiki (https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/freedos/index.php?title=Main_Page) For some perspective, we have been using the FreeDOS Wiki at SourceForge since August 2008, or about 4 years. I think having a wiki is important for FreeDOS - it provides a place for everyone to contribute hints, instructions, and information about FreeDOS. Since working on the website redesign, I've realized we need to do something with the FreeDOS Wiki to make it better. For example, it's currently a manual process to add someone as an editor to the wiki. I had hoped to have more time to figure out something for the FreeDOS Wiki, to do more planning. But now we'll have to move a bit faster, since SourceForge will retire the Hosted Apps in just under 8 weeks. I see two options: (1) Install our own MediaWiki instance in the FreeDOS website space. This has some obvious benefits, such the ability to control our own MediaWiki, including the web styles and themes for the wiki, to make it look like the rest of the FreeDOS website. And SourceForge has a process for us to export our FreeDOS Wiki content, then load that into our own MediaWiki instance. However, SourceForge servers do not permit outbound email, so it would be very difficult for interested contributors to set up accounts; someone would have to do this for them. Also, SourceForge says there are currently some problems with installing MediaWiki in project web at this time; setting up our own MediWiki will require a lot of work. Specifically, SourceForge says there's a Project web limitation that prevents MediaWiki installs of versions 1.17 and later (current version is 1.19.1). This makes me somewhat unsure about the effort required to keep a local MediaWiki up-to-date at SourceForge. (2) Migrate the FreeDOS Wiki to another hosted wiki. Back in April, I set up a FreeDOS Wiki at Wikia (http://freedos.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) just to "park" the wiki name (I haven't done any work to customize the theme). We could use that. Lots of other projects use a hosted wiki on Wikia, as well. The main benefit is that it would be easier for new contributors to add content; but the risk is that it would easier for spamming, too. We wouldn't have the same flexibility and control that we could have if we hosted our own wiki - I think it would be the same level of control we have now. I'm curious what others prefer. Which option looks best? My recommendation is to move to Wikia (option 2). We can customize the colors (buttons, links, header, page color) and adjust the background (color or image) to make a FreeDOS Wiki look "somewhat" like our main website. I've already set a graphic wordmark as the FreeDOS logo, but this was just something I did quickly as a placeholder; I haven't done much with it yet. I might even figure out a way to import our existing FreeDOS Wiki content into Wikia, since I believe Wikia also uses MediaWiki as their wiki platform. -jh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
