Re: New Website for opengroupware.org project

On June 26, 2005 08:47 am, Helge Hess wrote:
> Hi Mario,
>
> On 26. Jun 2005, at 13:02 Uhr, Mario Minati wrote:
> > The inspiration of this effort came during a meeting between Helge
> > and me on the LinuxTag in Karlsruhe (Germany) on Saturday.
>
> Just to restate some of the requirements I mentioned:
> a) it should be possible to preserve the current page layout, not
>     necessarily 1:1, but it should be close

this can be done via plone...perhaps not the existing install version as it 
now very dated but can easily be done. The entire home page and versions are 
kept in one user account (which can now be shared via groups and is 
accessible via webdav, ftp and xml-rpc) and via a redirect in apache becomes 
xxxxx.opengroupware.org or just simple opengroupware.org

> b) only accounts should be allowed to edit pages

as above.

> c) it should scale sufficiently well (millions of hits!),
>     maybe this could be solved with Squid or something

see http://plone.org/about/sites/

> d) it should have something like user home pages like on docs

as above.
>
> Optional:
> e) it would be good if it would allow something like folders for
>     organizing stuff (yes, I know this isn't necessarily Wiki)

this exists 

> f) a change review process would be great

this exists

> g) protecting certain pages for modifications would be nice

this exists

> h) ability to use HTML for content would be nice

this exists

> Our hardware: currently the sponsored hardware driving the website is
> a Dual 800 MHz PIII with 1 GB RAM.  It also hosts Bugzilla and
> Subversion.

good enough....:)

> > First I would like to name some of the problems with the current
> > website:
> > 1. Difficult to maintain. Helge told me that it takes up to one
> > hour until modifications are online, due to the design of the
> > current system (pages are hosted in a svn).

move this into plone or zope as straight html pages 
then it would take minutes to maintain remotely

> Si.
>
> > 2. Maintainence through community is difficult, because of 1

This is correct. There are two issues here. My lack or time/dedication 
whatever and the interfacing with Skyrix staff on the admin side due to 
everyone work load has been slow at times. However Skyrix support in general 
as been outstanding. 

> Big issue.
>
> > 3. Documentation Plone doesn't seem to work properly, due to
> > database problems (indexes need to be rebuilded sometimes)

No it simple needs to be re-indexed. About ten minutes work but it needs to be 
coordinated with skyrix admins to get access at three levels. (ie firewall 
ports) Once this is sorted its simply a matter of hitting a re-index button 
and it should take approx 20 minutes to re-index the site by itself. 

> I don't know the exact issues. I think Chris wanted to upgrade the
> Plone but we didn't found the time to properly set things up for him.

Yup.

> Anyway: first I would focus on fixing the main site. Migrating Plone
> should be a second step.

there are two issues with the main site. From a NA perspective its strange in 
terms of design. Secondly, its needs to be translated into gramatically 
correct english. This is where a hosting it in zope or plone would be ideal 
as it has built in versioning. You need to assign (find) dedicated language 
translators so that once the orginal material is loaded everyone 
automatically gets an email on content changes and then begins the 
translation process. Once complete and signed off, the material is released 
for publication to a specific date and time, all done automatically in either 
zope or plone, and of course in the language of choice. 

> > Helge and Jens Münster (Skyrix) liked the idea and you hopefully too.
>
> Yes *if* it is possible to preserve the visual identity of the
> project. Eg
>
>    http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
>
> and also most Plone sites are bad examples for that (ours included).

Not necessarily true. Its simple a matter of effort/time as the base install 
is less time consuming then too create new templates. 

See: http://plone.org/about/sites/

> > As I am using a TWiki (http://www.twiki.org/)
>
> ...
One of the main reason I chose not to use a wiki system (even in zope or plone 
for which several are available) is for the following reasons:
-groups are not supported well
-versioning is not supported well
-security can become problematic.

> > - On my machine (P2, 233Mhz, 96MB RAM) it takes around 10 secs to
> > calculate a page.

Well that really not an issue in this case. 

The primary issue is that lack of manpower and talent...:)

> Thats slow. But the machine is _really_ old, we have 10times the RAM
> and 8times the cycles ;-)
>
> The most important thing to know is this one:
> > - I am not sure if a squid proxy could bring the load down, because
> > each page is generated dependig on the users preferences. Ok squid
> > would help for the people which are not logged in and are browsing
> > as guest users.

Squid can easily be setup and is part of a typical commercial install. Out of 
the box, zope and plone can easily address several 100 hits pre second. There 
is tons of literature on this available. 
Eg: 
http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/optimizing-plone/view?searchterm=optimizing 
but there is much, much more available. 

eg:
http://www.upfrontsystems.co.za/Members/jean/optimizing-plone

eg: and of course what serious sites do...clustering on distributed servers 
which is stock in zope/plone.
http://www.zope.org/Products/ZEO/ZEOFactSheet

The issue with our project pages is _not technology selection_ rather 
staffing, commitment and did I mention talent...:)


> Guest users should be the far majority of the trafic.
>
> > - In c't 2003/25 page 202 (german computer magazine) is a test of a
> > few wiki engines and they also named scalability and search speed
> > as one of the drawbacks of Twiki.

Yes this is correct. 

Thanks for bringing this issue up (and reading all this material) Its been 
bugging me for a long time now. Here are the issues as I see them;

1. The issues are not technology rather lack of personal and talent. 
2. There is currently only one volunteer maintaining the community docs and 
sites and one very dedicated skyrix staff...tks Frank...:) There are lots and 
lots of contributors on the content side...thanks to all of you for that as 
well.
3. The following issues need to be organized, planned, scheduled and assigned; 
		- home page,
		- user docs
		-user manuals
		-appropriate translations of the same via an editorial process
4. From a technology perspective if you were to draft a requirements document 
(please dont example only) and do a proper eval of what is available, you 
will find that zope/plone in the appropriate hands will meet or exceed all 
your requirements in the most time effective manner. What is currently 
missing is time, talent and assigned staff(volunteers)

Thanks for reading.

/ch
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