At present the opensolaris.org Website Project is a subproject of the
Tools Community, and it has become clear that it is a poor fit. The
introductory paragraph on the Tools project [1] page says:
----------
"The Tools community welcomes individuals interested in the
implementation of infrastructure used to build and manage OpenSolaris.
This infrastructure includes compilers, source managers and browsers,
and OpenSolaris-specific development, build, and install tools (like wx,
cw, and bfu)."
----------
In contrast, the introductory paragraph on the Website Project page [2]
says:
----------
The website project covers both the development and operations of the
opensolaris.org infrastructure.
----------
Quite clearly these two activities have virtually no connection with
each other. I would therefore like to propose that the Website Project
be promoted to a Community. This proposal also subsumes the "Website
Editorial Committee" [3] which was proposed by John Plocher at the OGB
meeting on 14th November 2007.
My proposal would have several benefits:
* Help make the website work become more visible, and hopefully attract
more contributors.
* Provide a single point of call for all issues related to
opensolaris.org.
* Provide a natural home for all current and future website-related
work such as the new authentication and authorisation system, the
online voting system, selection of a CMS/Wiki, site look & feel and
so forth.
I feel that the current "Website Editorial Committee" proposal is a poor
solution to the requirement for oversight of the content of the site
home page. The proposed Committee is a radical departure from the
Community/Project structures used by the OpenSolaris community, and
seems to provide little benefit over the existing mechanisms that we
have in place.
The details of my proposal are as follows:
1. Promote the Website Project to be a Community.
2. Ask the OpenGrok Project (currently under Tools) if they wish to
remain under Tools or move to the new Website Community.
3. The Project leaders of the Website Project become the initial set of
Community leaders of the Website Community, namely:
* jimgris (Jim Grisanzio)
* alanbur (Alan Burlison)
* patrickf (Patrick Finch)
* barb1 (Barbara Lundquist)
* sch (Stephen Hahn)
* stevel (Stephen Lau)
* sarad (Sara Dornsife)
4. The following initial set of Projects to be set up by the Website
Community:
* Content
Replacement for the proposed "Website Editorial Committee".
Manages shared site content, i.e. anything that is not owned by a
particular Community or Project. Also responsible for site L&F,
layout and markup standards.
* Infrastructure
Development of the site infrastructure, as outlined in the
"Restructuring the opensolaris.org infrastructure" document [4].
Will generate projects as necessary to implement particular
features, e.g. the Auth project (see below).
* Operations
Issues related to the running of the site. Initial membership to be
the same as the current tonic-ops group.
* Auth
Project to provide a new distributed user management,
authentication and authorisation mechanism.
5. The existing website-discuss mailing list to remain as a
Community-level forum. The existing website-content mailing list
will be used by the Content project, with mailing lists for other
Projects being set up as and when required.
----------
[1] http://opensolaris.org/os/community/tools/
[2] http://opensolaris.org/os/project/website/
[3]
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ogb-discuss/2007-November/003449.html
[4] http://opensolaris.org/os/project/website/website_restructuring/
--
Alan Burlison
--
