Ok, I feel it's time for me to step in here as one of the 'Joe & Co.'
people.
Firstly, everyone calm down. As Hani said yesterday, every few weeks this
whole "Orion support sucks, my boss won't buy Orion without support, I'm
having a whinge" thread starts up again. Calm down and read the archives
people ;)
THE SITUATION:
With regard to the future of OrionSupport, here are the things I _know_ are
currently happening:
- As far as I know it, Joe is on holidays which is probably why he's not
answering his email - he hasn't been on IRC for about a week. Everyone just
calm down ;)
- The domain IS owned by IronFlare / Orion. As far as I know this was done
by the previous owners so that it would always be an Orion support site. I
have no problems with this at all, the guys have given us free reign over
the content / production of the site.
- The site IS down now, I'm not sure why. It seems to me Joe's machine has
fallen over but we'll know when we get back. Meanwhile there is an archive
of all content up to March 18th kindly hosted at www.theculprit.com
- There ARE moves in progress to upgrade the site. As Hani said in a
previous email it currently runs on lots of OpenSymphony technologies (
http://www.opensymphony.com - see <gratuitous-OpenSymphony-plug> at the end
of this email) like SiteMesh, OSCache and Clickstream. I'm in the process of
upgrading it to use OSContent so we'll have a fully fledged CMS with
community features to boot. This will take a week or two at the least.
THE PROBLEM:
- The above measures are purely technical and won't help the Orion community
in and of themselves. OrionSupport's biggest problem so far has been GETTING
PEOPLE TO CONTRIBUTE. JoeO says this better than I could in his rant
http://www.theculprit.com/www.orionsupport.com/articles/vision-2.html .
BASICALLY if noone contributes the site will continue to move ahead at it's
trickling pace.
- HOWEVER if lots of people take 5 minutes to note down the problem they
just solved, the bug they worked around, their expertise on a particular
area, their knowledge of using Orion with software X - we can really produce
a very useful support resource very fast indeed. Keep reading for how you
can help.
THE SOLUTION:
I suggest we move discussion of this off the list (the last 48 hours has
driven me nuts with the lack of Orion questions and the volume of "me too,
Orion support sucks, I'm complaining and not doing anything about it"
emails. If you don't like it, join those who are trying to do something
about it!
I've set up an egroup (still can't bring myself to call it a Yahoo! Group
yet) for discussing it here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orionsupport
The manifesto of the group is:
"A group for the authors and users of OrionSupport (
http://www.orionsupport.com ) to discuss content needed, moves ahead etc.
NOTE: This is not a group for people looking for support for Orion. See
http://www.orionserver.com for that"
I hope you'll all join up and that together we can make OrionSupport an even
better resource for the community.
-mike
<gratuitous-OpenSymphony-plug>
If anyone else has some spare time and wants to help out the most advanced
Open Source J2EE project out there, OpenSymphony is it ;) Check it out at
http://www.opensymphony.com , help by downloading, using, testing,
developing, documenting or even just suggesting ideas - let me know where
you can help!
For an example site running with ALL the OS technologies on Orion (OSContent
for content management, community, user management, SiteMesh for layout,
OSCache for speed, Formtags, OSCore for functionality / properties /
personalisation) see http://ausralia.internet.com
(This plug is sheerly to show off the technology, not for the extra page
views - it's Australian new so who is likely to be interested anyway ;))
</gratuitious-OpenSymphony-plug>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael J.
> Cannon
> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 10:24 AM
> To: Orion-Interest
> Subject: RE: productive comment.
>
>
> Fine, but OrionSupport.com is _already_ owned by Joe & Co. and
> they are not
> responding (I sent them a letter and am sending another off-line).
>
> Michael J. Cannon
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Stan Ng
> > Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 5:37 PM
> > To: Orion-Interest
> > Subject: Re: productive comment.
> >
> >
> > I'm all for this idea. Orionsupport is a community support
> > effort run on a
> > volunteer basis and I believe that it is hosted on Joseph's development
> > machine using Orion. :) : ) :) I'd be willing to help shoulder
> > some of the
> > costs in moving everything over to an ISP host.
> >
> > There's no need for a new domain, imho... orionsupport has been
> very open
> > and supportive (no pun intended). I say that we just give those
> > good folks
> > a nice place to put everything without tying up their resources.
> >
> > Community support for Orion has been excellent. The thing I'm
> > worried about
> > is how the Orion developers are doing... is there anything we can
> > do to help
> > out the guys at orionserver/ironflare?
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Michael J. Cannon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: "Orion-Interest" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 10:47 PM
> > Subject: RE: productive comment.
> >
> >
> > > RE: How do we take the next step?
> > >
> > > A sig is, classically a _S_pecial _I_nterest _G_roup, in the computer
> > > culture.
> > >
> > > orionsig.net, orionsig.org and orionsig.com are available. Pick 'em.
> > Don't
> > > need a license from anyone to be a 'general purpose special interest
> > group,'
> > > as long as you don't purport to be in any 'special'
> circumstance or make
> > > unfounded claims or use words that have obvious legal meaning.
> > >
> > > I've got a fixed IP, but it's on a slow and restricted
> > connection. I know
> > > an ISP that is easy to work with, charges $39/mo, knows how to run
> > services
> > > for Java, and is relatively small and responsive, and
> accesses through a
> > > multiple T3 (second-tier backbone access, they're actually a
> > small CLEC).
> > > They also are an accredited registrar for all the above TLD's
> > (turn-around
> > > is typically about 24 hours to propagate through BIND/DNS and the
> > internic).
> > > I'd be willing to donate the first six months worth of host
> costs, and,
> > > after 30 days, pay for the Orion license myself (gotta run the site on
> > > Orion, don't we?) with these guys or anyone better.
> > >
> > > Let's just DO IT. Anyone else want to help?
> > >
> > > Michael Cannon
> > > mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
