Forum OpenACS Q&A: SourceForge-like system in OpenACS?

Posted by Gilbert Wong on 10/11/01 02:52 AM

My employer is looking for a project-based code distribution system,
something similar to SourceForge. There are several implementations
of SourceForge within the company. I've played around with their
latest and final public release and it doesn't really work out of the
box. The one live and public implementation of SourceForge within
the company was done by VA Linux. The cost was high and we pay
monthly support to them.

I also looked at the OpenACS 4.0 packages to see if the basic
functionality existed already. The download package partially meets
our needs, but is not categorizable and is not tied to CVS. The old
SDM has the hooks into CVS, but does not have search capabilities and
is going to be replaced (?). There is a version control service
which can provide the CVS hooks.

Since I am the project lead, I can influence the decision. Ideally,
I'd like to propose that we use OpenACS 4.0 and hire one of the
OpenACS companies to help develop it. I'd do it myself, but I just
don't have the bandwidth to develop a production system.

Have I missed any packages in the OpenACS 4.0 distribution which
might be able to fulfill our requirement? I'm only familiar with a
few packages and I alrealy looked at the obvious ones to see if there
is a match. I think the answer is no, but I wanted to check first.

Thanks.

2: Response to SourceForge-like system in OpenACS? (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 10/11/01 06:12 PM

We certainly plan to port over the SDM from 3.x to the OpenACS 4 platform. I've been giving it a lot of thought and have a pretty good idea of how I'd like to see it structured. It will, of course, be integrated with the new search package and of course needs to be integrated with the downloads package. Ticket tracker (aD's) has been ported by the ever-studly Vinod, but after playing with it for a bit I've reached the conclusion that I like Ben's better. Though it's not perfect, either. I'd like to move over Ben's and rewrite it to use acs-workflow.

There's been a fair amount of e-mail passed around in the past along the lines of "we need this but who has time?" ...

3: Response to SourceForge-like system in OpenACS? (response to 1)

Posted by Michael Feldstein on 10/12/01 03:00 AM

IMHO, a Sourceforge-like solution with the integrated ability to
submit bug reports from within the pages of the site in
development is right up there with dotLRN, KM, and intranets as
a major OpenACS focus and differentiator. Gilbert, if you were
able to bring resources to bear on this, the community would be
grateful.

And while I'm at it, let me put in my periodic plug for integrating a
usability testing facility into a ticket-tracker/SDM module. This
would be a huge differentiator and would help hackers deal with
a part of site development that they may not be trained to do.

4: Response to SourceForge-like system in OpenACS? (response to 1)

Posted by Jun Yamog on 10/12/01 06:11 AM

Hi Gilbert,

I have used only 3 modules for managing projects. File Storage, Bboards and Ticket tracker. It works pretty well I have done it in ACS 3.x although the OpenACS 4.x site will have this and also a project home page where small portlets of the 3 modules will appear and a contact list (still have to do this page). Your need maybe more but so far I am happy with the 3 modules that I decided to use.

Don,

Is Ben's Ticket Tracker the one on OpenACS 3.x? Do you plan to replace aD's 4.x ttracker that was ported by Vinod? Or just add another ticket tracker?