On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:
> > /CCing incubator/ > > Henri Yandell wrote: > > > > On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Justin Erenkrantz wrote: > > > > > >>I also don't think that the PMC should set guidelines on a release > >>(other than 3 binding +1s) or on coding style or on build systems. > >>Leave that up to the committers. The PMCs job should be to stay the > >>heck out of the way of the committers. If the committers need help, > >>they can ask the PMC for guidance, but let's not have a PMC that > >>dictates from upon high. > > > > I'm assuming other things would exist. A project must have a > > PROPOSAL.html. A project must maintain a STATUS.html. A release must have > > a release manager. > > In Forrest, we have decided to keep the information about the project in > xml files. > > Module.xml is a descriptor of the CVS module and the project it > contains, with goals, license, credits, project-related info and > dependencies with other projects. > > In status.xml there are the committers, the todo and the changes. > > Forrest already makes info based on status, and we'll get module.xml > done too soon: > > http://xml.apache.org/forrest/changes.html > http://xml.apache.org/forrest/todo.html > > What do you think, could this be an option? > I'm not that bothered, so I'll immediately be a hypocrit and suggest +ves and -ves. XML is a better storage mechanism but a worse presentation mechanism [using w3m to view an xml file probably isn't as exciting as a html. but it's a minor thing outweight by the advantage of a structured file]. XML is usually a finite domain, whereas HTML is infinite. By that I mean that if we used XML to record this information then it would as I said be more structured, but would also be limited. If someone wanted to add some more information, then they have to request new tags? Or would it be free-flow xml? In a HTML one the information is unbounded but unstructured. I guess it just depends on whether the existing proposal/status files out there are deemed to be enough evolving to define a standard. Which brings on the arguments over whether maven's project.xml, forrest's module.xml etc should be the standard :) Really my initial mail was that the information in PROPOSAL.html and STATUS.html should exist in each project, and that A-C as a project probably wants to standardise how to store this information. Using the same system as J-C is not mandatory.
