Well said ....... there needs to be a place that aggregates contributions. About the issue of documentation in our head ...I also agree. I personally contacted some prominent guys on the forums when I was doing and updated user guide but they were usually too busy to get back to me. The result, I had to put whatever I had up there as a beta Userś guide [http://techowto.wordpress.com].
If we want good things to happen, we must take the initiative in making them happen. Documentation for userś is a key part of increasing ntop mindshare out there. M.A. TAMON B.Eng, CCNP, CCNA _________________________ "A man owns nothing, not land or money, only his character, the loyalty & courage in his heart" - Commander Chakotay - StarTrek Voyager My BLOGs: [ICT Business Integration] - http://ibiztech.wordpress.com [Leadership Lessons from Movies] - http://thbs.wordpress.com [In Search of Excellence & Perfection] - http://perfexcellence.wordpress.com [Technical How Tos & Stuff-at-a-Glance] - http://techowto.wordpress.com On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:49 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I believe that if you want to increase the amount of people that can > contribute then you need to do 2 things: > * Advertise(increase awareness) that people can contribute > * Increase the community's knowledge RATHER than reducing the amount of > knowledge needed. > > Ok the first one: > * Advertise(increase awareness) that people can contribute > the first thing you need to do is create a new html page and links to it > e.g. http://www.ntop.org/contribute.html > > You should also mention that people can contribute on the: > documentation.html > support.html > needHelp.html > download.html > pages. Here a short paragraph on those pages with a link back to > http://www.ntop.org/contribute.html > > If you are after some ideas check out: > http://contributing.openoffice.org/ > > Think about how BOTH users and developers can contribute to this project. > There are many parts that come together to make ntop what > it is... plugins, patterns, fingerprints, etc. Users can contribute patterns > and fingerprints. Users can contribute documentation. > etc etc. An advanced user with enough documentation might even be able to > contribute a plugin which brings me to the second point. > You should also maintain an up-to-date TODO list on the website so developers > can have a look to see if they could quickly > contribute a small piece of code. > > > > > Ok the second one: > * Increase the community's knowledge RATHER than reducing the amount of > knowledge needed. > One of the main problems is that most/all of the documentation/knowledge is > in your head rather than out there in the community. > > I'd suggest setting up a forum perhaps running phpBB where both users and > developers can ask questions, post guides, etc etc. I'd > also suggest requiring an animated CAPTCHA(I recommend JkCaptcha > http://www.kessels.com/captcha/) during the registration process to > prevent spambots from filling up the forum. Once you have setup the forum, > find someone you can delegate the administration of it to > and perhaps promote some helpful users into moderators. > > Both the mailings lists and forum are good sources of information but users > shouldn't have to go searching the mailing lists or > searching the forums to find useful information. Any useful information(past, > present, and future) posted to the mailing lists and > forums should then be turned into a wiki article. Speaking of which there > should be a link to the wiki from the homepage as well as > on the documentation.html page. Also please move the wiki system from > https://svn.ntop.org/ to something like: > http://www.ntop.org/wiki > as svn.ntop.org is very slow to display HTML pages. Keep the svn.ntop.org for > your current ticketing system. > > Also the documentation for ntop is both poor and outdated. You need to build > a up-to-date knowledge base. Documentation is a vital > part of any project. You need HOWTOs, manuals, man pages, guides, tutorials, > wiki articles, etc etc. The man page for ntop needs to > be wikified. When the average user is reading the man page for ntop, how are > they supposed to know about what a WWN is or what > FCID/VSAN stands for and means or what is meant by LUN information let alone > what would invalid LUN information be. What are the > security risks when a user runs ntop as root? These things don't need to be > explained in the man page but they should be expanded > and explained in the wiki if users are looking for more information. > > As for the wiki, there needs to be wiki articles about how to use the wiki, > i.e. how would a user create a new wiki page, edit an > existing page, applying formatting, use tables/lists, create links between > wiki pages, etc etc. There also needs to be a wiki TODO > list so people can see what wiki pages still need to be > created/edited/updated so they can help out in this area. > > The download page should include information about what additional software > ntop can utilise if it is installed(ettercap/openssl > etc) and should also list what other software is required(libpcap etc) for a > successful compilation/installation. > > There needs to be a getting started guide. All the steps from setting up the > pre-requirements both optional and compulsory, > downloading the ntop source(either from tarball or from svn), compiling(and > what are some of the switches users might be interested > in setting via autogen), different make targets, or downloading a binary, and > then running ntop and what options are strongly > recommended to set e.g. --spool-file-path, downloading the google maps key > and registering it before running ntop, etc etc. > > You need to create HOWTOs, manuals, man pages, guides, tutorials, wiki > articles for at least the following: > * Creating a fingerprint(include all steps via an example). What software is > required to create a fingerprint(try to use free as in > cost software where possible) on Linux/MacOSX/Windows? How does a user use > that software to create a fingerprint? How does that user > then share that fingerprint with the ntop community(create a upload page that > users can submit their fingerprints??). If these > instructions were available I would submit a fingerprint for the PS3 that is > in my home network(if that was possible). Could nmap be > used instead or in addition to ettercap for host/OS identification?? > * Creating a pattern(including all steps via an example). What software is > required to create a pattern(try to use free as in cost > software where possible) on Linux/MacOSX/Windows? How does a user use that > software to create a pattern? How does that user then > share that fingerprint with the ntop community(create a upload page that > users can submit their patterns??). If these instructions > were available I would submit a pattern for my favourite online game Team > Fortress Classic. > * Creating a plugin(demonstrate via an example) under Linux/MacOSX/Windows. > * How to setup a development environment(free as in cost software) for ntop > under Linux/MacOSX/Windows. > * How to download ntop via svn, make a change, compile it, and then submit > those changes back via svn under Linux/MacOSX/Windows. > > Build a knowledge base for developers by including RFCs, whitepapers, > specifications, etc for different media and different > protocols and anything else that is relevant for ntop. > > > > > If you do these 2 things I believe that participation and contribution by the > community should increase. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Luca Deri" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:31 AM > Subject: [Ntop-dev] Opening up ntop > > >> Dear all >> I want to share with you some ideas that I have in mind since a few >> months. After 10 years of ntop (as project I mean, not just an >> application) I believe there's a need to tackle some rough edges. In >> particular, the main problem I see is that ntop is perceived as an >> application I mostly develop and (beside very few users) you use with >> limited (if any) contribution in terms of code development. In a >> nutshell I can expect bug reports but no code. IMHO this is due to two >> reasons. First, is my personal failure to build a real ntop developer >> community (I'll came to this argument later in this email) and second >> because ntop is not simple to hack for everyone. >> >> Even if I'm not an open-source expert, I believe that in order to >> increase the number of people that can contribute to the project as >> developers, is to reduce the amount of knowledge needed. For this >> reason, as you might have noticed in the past weeks, I have started to >> implement a Perl (more languages will follow if there's a request from >> the community) interface that allows users to become developers. I >> envisage (this in a few months as soon as the API is stable) the >> creation of a ntop contribution site where users contribute with perl >> scripts. My vision is to turn ntop into an engine, with a default web >> GUI (the one you know) but with the ability to have a richer user >> experience by means of an perl scripts. If this move will succeed, I >> hope that many people will contribute and that development will be >> parallelized. Done that, some other parts need to be open but this is >> perhaps too early to discuss. >> >> ntop as a community. This is certainly a weak point of the project. I >> believe that the core ntop team (that's basically me) need to be >> enlarged by establishing responsibilities/duties, commit to them, and >> avoiding that the whole project would depend on me. I have no clue how >> to achieve this. I've asked some people around, and I would like to >> come up with a response at the end of the summer. I need your >> contribution here both in terms of ideas and contribution to the >> project. >> >> Please send me your thoughts. The ultimate goal is to allow ntop to >> grow both in terms of application and community. >> >> Cheers Luca >> _______________________________________________ >> Ntop-dev mailing list >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> http://listgateway.unipi.it/mailman/listinfo/ntop-dev > > _______________________________________________ > Ntop mailing list > [email protected] > http://listgateway.unipi.it/mailman/listinfo/ntop > _______________________________________________ Ntop mailing list [email protected] http://listgateway.unipi.it/mailman/listinfo/ntop
