Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Open Source and business thoughts
Posted by
Ben Adida
on 06/29/01 08:59 PM
Thank you Jerry for posting specific points. This gives us a good base
to discuss issues and find specific solutions.
- I am not the person with sole control over the web site. And I am certainly not the only person to make decisions on what goes up and what doesn't. In fact, if you look at the structure of the OpenACS 4.x project homepage, you'll note that Don, Dan, Roberto have control over a good number of those status and planning pages. I'm still doing more to give people more control, and I'm looking forward to implementing the 4.x CMS system so that people can submit papers for publishing on OpenACS.org.
- There are many tools to be used. I like to think that, for the community as a whole, the bboards, the SDM (and hopefully the new versions in the works) serve our purposes pretty well. Honestly, the Wiki issue is becoming troubling. So because we don't implement it, we're not listening? I've mentioned *many* times the reason why I think it's a terrible idea: I haven't seen a single successful organization run off a Wiki. A Wiki is a brainstorming tool. OpenACS.org is a community management site. I'm not saying that 100% of the community is happy with the current situation. I'm saying that we'll never get to 100% of the community being happy with the tools. And so yes, we (not just Ben) lean in the direction of a slightly more organized method of contributing ideas.
- the new bboards are on their way. Please be patient. There are deeper issues at hand than just creating them. I know a number of active community members who think the new web/db forum is a particularly bad idea. More forums is *not* necessarily good. It splits the community and complicates interactions. But new forums will be added. Please notice simply that more is not necessarily better and that we're trying to consider the long term effects of such a decision.
- if you want to start your own projects, you should. We are in the process of setting up mod_nsd on OpenACS.org. If you want to build an AOLserver/SOAP package, I'd love to host it on OpenACS.org. Have you been denied this? Yes, some central admin must initially create the package. But, just like Roberto maintains the documentation, I can make *you* the admin of AOLserver/SOAP. I just don't remember you ever asking.
- a committee, by-laws, process, etc... If that's what the community wants, then that's probably the way to go. I'm not opposed to it. I'm not optimistic about it, though, because such an organization requires significant time and money, and I don't know who's going to contribute that.
