Re: [L-A Lokalisointi] Portal domain name and development

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Aschwin van der Woude wrote:
>> L-A provides resources for it's working groups. Note, _it's_ worki=
ng
>> groups. You are not separate from L-A, although you are free to le=
ave it if
>> the group so wishes. Generally, it's a good idea to use the availa=
ble
>> resources instead of finding new ones. But, at least currently, L-=
A does
>> not force working groups to use their resources.
>
> In my opinion we should adopt use of supplied resources as a
> requirement.

So, you want that the working groups HAVE to use resources supplied b=
y L-A?
That sounds rather strange.

> If a working-group would like more independence it can always go it=
s own
> way. I just hope we can fulfil the needs of the working-groups as l=
ong as
> possible.

I hope you are not saying that the working groups MUST use ONLY L-A's
resources or otherwise they can't operate under L-A. That sounds real=
ly
possessive to me.

I'm eagerly waiting for the new CMS and I hope to put our portal on i=
t in
summer, but it may be better to use some other resources too. For exa=
mple,
programming is harder and less portable under a CMS.

> I believe a common CMS for our projects and working-groups is cruci=
al. It is
> beneficial for all of us in two aspects. First of all maintaining a=
 single
> CMS minimises the work-load on our already overloaded admins.

As I tried to explain earlier, on the contrary. The resources you hav=
e depend
on what possibilities you provide for the voluntary workers. If you f=
orce them
to certain bounds, you get less resources.

That's why most hosting sites provide shell access, CGI, and so on. F=
or
example, SourceForge has a CMS for managing the project code and the
documents, but it still offers shell access and Apache web server, an=
d perhaps
most hosted projects use it for just that.

Regarding the portal, it goes beyond L-A and its working groups. Some=
 of the
features should be easily usable by the translation groups, which cur=
rently
use mostly plain Apache and CGI. Some could perhaps be used in other
countries, and I don't think L-A should dictate such widely affecting=
 choises.

I remember that L-A had offered to provide hosting for some translati=
on
groups. I hope you wouldn't force them to use the L-A CMS as a requir=
ement.
It's of course their matter what they want though.

> Secondly and perhaps even more important, a single CMS makes it eas=
y for
> Linux-Aktivaattori members to participate in various projects and
> working-groups. They would only need to learn one CMS once, and be
> productive afterwards.

You should remember that if people need to learn one CMS for L-A, ano=
ther for
some other purpose, and dozen other for other purposes, they need to =
learn
quite many systems, not just one.

Well, learning a CMS at a level where you can just use it for writing=
 text
pages is not a big effort as they are usually quite simple, but learn=
ing to do
programming with them efficiently takes A LOT of time.

One aspect which bothers me in CMSs that they require using web brows=
er
interface for programming. I guess that's ok for small programs, but =
I don't
think most software developers would like to use a web browser for ev=
erything.

> This, however, does not mean special requirements have to be met by=
 the
> CMS, like a dictionary. Such specialised information can and probab=
ly
> should be provided by a separate tool.

Excellent. That is very much how I think about it.

The problem is, of course, that you lose a little unity and maintaina=
bility,
but using different tools is still so much more productive than stick=
ing to
just one that it pays off.

> But such tool should be web-based and use a familiar layout.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

--
-- Marko Gr=F6nroos, [email protected] (http://www.iki.fi/magi/)