I'd be up for a sprint on the Kotti CMS. I'm not too familiar with the project, though. Do you have any specific features that you wish to implement or is this going to be a general improvement and bug-fix sprint?
On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:26 AM, Mike Orr <[email protected]> wrote: > I woke up at 4am with some project ideas. Would anybody be interested > in a sprint on the Kotti CMS, a revival of the Linux Gazette webzine, > or Q&A oracle like LG's Answer Gang? I also need somebody to help > replace a power switch in a desktop PC. The on/off button is flaky, > and the case manufacturer sent me a replacement front panel with a new > power switch, but I need help installing it because the last time I > dealt with a power switch it was gnarly. > > So, as many of you know, for several years I was involved with an > ezine, Linux Gazette (http://linuxgazette.net/). It was a monthly > magazine published by volunteers, started in 1995, and petered out > last year. We collected articles about the Linux universe (including > Python) and edited them, and we ran an email tech-support service > called The Answer Gang, in which volunteers answered Linux questions, > and we published the threads in the magazine. > > More recently, I've been involved in the Pylons and Pyramid web > frameworks, and the Kotti content-management system. Kotti is inspired > by Plone, built on Pyramid, in alpha, and the developers seem to have > a solid understanding of content management and the latest > HTML5/CSS/JS whizzbangs. It doesn't have all Plone's features and may > never get them, but at this point it's enough for a simple site, and > is fully extensible with Python, either to add CMS features, or to add > web-application components to a site, or to use Kotti as a library in > a larger site. > > Kotti is also worth studying for its structure, and I'm writing an > article about that. Kotti's source is an example of: a Pyramid site, > using traversal with SQLAlchemy, polymorphism in SQLAlchemy, > self-referential (recursive) tables, database migration, Chameleon > templates, an innovative "api" pattern for Pyramid templates that's a > collection of helpers, Pyramid authorization, internationalization, > etc. The UI is based on Twitter Bootstrap, which contains a base > layout, CSS compiler, and small Javascript library, and uses > "adaptive" technology to modify the layout for the screen size > (desktop, tablet, smartphone). > > So, this vague project idea would combine several of my interests over > the years. Some SeaPIG members may be interested in programming Kotti, > and secondarily in Linux content. Some of the old Linux Gazette > editors and Answer Gang members may be interested in joining a > revival. > > There are two basic ways to approach this. One, a magazine. Two, a Q&A > oracle. I was initially thinking of a magazine, but maybe an oracle > would be more exciting to start with. > > In the original Answer Gang, a leader recruited a pool of volunteers > to answer Linux questions. Anybody could submit a question via email > to a list. The subscribers were the answerers, and one or more of them > would reply if they felt like it. That would often start a discussion > which would lead to a multi-faceted answer. The querent received all > raw answers. Once a month, an editor would select the "completed" > threads and publish them. > > So, I propose a web-based oracle which would do the equivalent. It > would have multiple gangs: "Linux Answer Gang", "Python Answer Gang", > and potentially others. The public would submit questions, answerers > would answer them, and an editor would collect the monthly ones into > an "issue", and make an index of topics (a knowledge base). > Potentially the editor role could be automated, with "articles" on the > side for human pontificating. The indexing role could also be > automated using tags. If anyone is interested in this, we can form a > group to explore it. > > Or if we went with the magazine approach, the existing LG is a > Subversion repository with Python-Cheetah scripts generating static > HTML from text files. I don't know the last editors or if they're > reachable, but if we're getting somewhere I can try to ask them for a > copy of the repository and a couple subdomains (maybe > new.linuxgazette.net), and maybe some of them would want to > participate. There were several Python programmers among them. Then > if we get something substantial made, we could ask them to link to it > on the LG homepage. > > (I don't think we should aim to replace the existing LG site at this > point. That's something we could discuss after we have a robust site > running. I'm also not sure it's worth importing the entire archive and > fitting it into the site template. It would be hundreds of megabytes, > and many articles have HTML abnormalities and style quirks, since they > date back to the early days of the web.) > > To start a project, we'd need at minimum a Google group (or > equivalent) and a wiki. Which raises another issue, wikis in Kotti. I > don't think it has a wiki plugin, and I'm not sure if there's a plugin > for locking/concurrent editing. So those could be two sprint targets. > Or if we're focusing on the oracle or magazine instead, we won't want > to waste time making wiki software so we can just use MoinMoin or a > Github repository. > > Anyway, let me know if you'd be interested in one of these areas. > > -- > Mike Orr <[email protected]> >
