For those who have not yet subscribed, this might be incentive.
http://www.canopener.ca/mailman/listinfo/discuss --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions USA and ICC http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=203 Oppose Violence and Vandalism in politics http://www.no-dot.ca/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 18:53:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Russell McOrmond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CANadian OPENsource Education and Research <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [discuss] GOSLINGS: Discussion OK to add here? Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED] members, As many of you know, there is work to set up projects to help move Governments towards Open Source. Joseph Potvin has come up with the acronym GOSLINGS for Getting Open Source and Linux INto GovernmentS. This name is similar in style to the CANadian OPENsource Education and Research name ;-) Rather than setting up a new mailing list to discuss the beginnings of this project as a portal is being developed, it was suggested that an existing forum be used. Would the CANOPENER folks mind if [EMAIL PROTECTED] was used? This forum has been quiet recently, and this might be a good way to spark some discussion. Some additinal information about GOSLINGS from the introduction to the BOF that was held at the Ottawa Linux Symposium. http://weblog.flora.ca/article.php3?story_id=196 GOSLINGS: "Getting Open Source and Linux INto GovernmentS" Joseph Potvin, Architect of the first GNU-GPL software release from the Government of Canada GOSLING is an open community of people who act to ensure that open source methods and software are included in government operations to: Advance the implementation of federated architecture goals, process, standards and methodologies among departments, agencies, and their partners. Facilitate the customization of information technology solutions to business requirements. Improve capacity for information technology quality assurance and due diligence. Serve as a catalyst for practical knowledge-sharing, organizational learning and innovation via public-private-education-civil sector IT collaborations. Reduce costs, increase value-for-money, and achieve faster delivery times for certain government software investments. Generate a broader distribution of benefits from public sector IT investments. Help to level the playing field for companies of all sizes in the government procurement of IT development, customization, integration, support, maintenance, and administration services, by reducing the advantages of prior market dominance. Increase the security of certain information technology applications in government operations. Promote respect for intellectual property. Participation in GOSLING involves individuals in their personal capacities, such that content is driven by discussion of research, interests and views of the authors, not the organizations in which they may work. This inaugural meeting will be a structured brainstorming session to identify the status, issues, opportunities and constraints related to getting open source and Linux into government operations at all levels, worldwide. Next step: setting up a portal ------------------------------ The next step is to set up a portal to facilitate this project. Some discussions have started around the use of PHP (PostNuke, phpGroupWare, etc, etc) compared to ZOPE. The portal will be hosted by the Government of Canada itself, on one of the many Linux servers already in production. Here is a cut from a message I added to the discussion. .... "We" might also include what other countries are doing. We might not want to use the same software, but the ability to exchange key modules would be important. I believe I forwarded you the message from the EU which detailed some of what they are using: pretty much all of it being PHP pieces with custom clue to bring it all together: ---cut--- From: Gerrit Riessen Here's a list of the .berlios.de sites and the software used (all custom sites have a developer project page): Home (www.berlios.de) - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=1) News - PhpNuke Forum - Phorum SourceBiz - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=76) SourceWell - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=23) SourceLines - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=91) SourceAgency - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=89) DevCounter - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=175) Developer - SourceForge (version 1.5) DocsWell - custom (http://developer.berlios.de/project/?group_id=99) Wiki - PhpWiki ---cut--- BTW: I might recommend the use of Savanna rather than SourceForge, as there has been more work relating to the development framework. Savanna uses phpGroupWare as the core (last I heard - I don't see much reference between the two projects at quick glance online): http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/savannah/ http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/phpgroupware/ If an application framework is desired for development, as is offered with Zope, I believe that developing apps within phpGroupWare would be the right way to go. Zope may seem to have a lot built-in (especially if comparing it to "PHP" rather than "PHP + phpGroupWare/etc"), and it may be my bias from a UNIX background, but the "LEGO" environment that PHP gives me - with many more 'building blocks available' - is much more appealing. That being said, it is possible to put Zope behind Apache running PHP and pick-and-choose depending on the application. The problem with this is that there are extra costs: Not licensing (given this is all Open Source), but longer-term administration time. The more core software that is installed, the more potential attacks against your server that may be possible. The "many eyes make bugs shallow" also needs to be considered given the relative popularity of Apache/PHP/MySQL vs Zope/Python/MySQL BTW: I even here there is a PHP/MySQL version of this "OPA" (OnLine Proposal Appraisal) system, although I haven't seen it yet. I hear it might make it to SourceForge or Savanna soon? *grins* It might be an interesting app to see integrated with the phpGroupWare framework and continue as a project there. > A search on amazon.com for "postnuke" results in "We were unable to find > exact matches for your search. But a search for "zope" results in 7 > published reference books This wasn't a valid search IMHO - GIGO : Postnuke is an application, and Zope is an application framework plus some sample applications. Search for "PHP" rather than "postnuke", and you'll get more valid results. Enhancing PostNuke requires prior PHP knowledge, not prior PostNuke knowledge. I would consider it a waste of money to buy a PostNuke book, while I highly recommend anyone to buy PHP and MySQL books if they are doing any OpenSource web development. For those who aren't 100% "Open Source" (like I am), and like WYSIWYG editing environments (I don't ;-) you also need to also look at things like MacroMedia DreamWeaver MX http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/ which will generate PHP code. Note: DreamWeaver Ultradev also had this support as a plug-in - http://dynamic.macromedia.com/bin/MM/exchange/main.jsp?product=ultradev While I will not recommend Macromedia tools to the GoC, the availability of such tools may be a consideration. --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions USA and ICC http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=203 Oppose Violence and Vandalism in politics http://www.no-dot.ca/ _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.canopener.ca/mailman/listinfo/discuss --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
