Your advice and suggestions for Open Source approach

Post by **Dare2** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 5:46 am

I intend to create an open source site for various bits and pieces of code based around pureBasic, masm, freepascal and, maybe, traditional asp.

I am defining/designing the site look and approach at the moment.

I intented to keep it really simple. Currently the site is intended to have:

* Project areas within "language"
* Projects within project areas
* Registered users at project team and at interested party levels.
* A "sort-of" wiki for communication and comment by team members.
* An upload/download area for team members
* Download of current version, available for all.
* Forums with sections for each project, for general public (but needs registration)

I do not want to use a CVS and am looking at other ways of handling things for the project teams.

Currently the wiki and upload/download functions are the way the project will be controlled. The wiki allows creation of sub-projects, etc, and the upload/download areas will mirror or echo these.

However, with all the skill and experience on this board, I am sure that there are some good ideas on the project control (and on other aspects).

Any suggestions or ideas will be much appreciated.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 5:58 am

I do not want to use a CVS and am looking at other ways of handling things for the project teams.

I am just now finishing a project in which I used CVS for the first time. I have to admit that I HATED it at first, but once you get used to it the features really do make a lot of sense. It is a bit bizzare at first but everyone on the team quickly got the hang of it and it's saved our project several times over (from some hardware failure and from overwriting each other's changes!). It's also a pretty standard "team development" tool and has earned repsect over many years. IMHO I would reconsider using it if I were you.

Be mindful of bandwidth needs so you don't get hit with a huge hosting bill too!

Let us know how it goes!

Post by **Dare2** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 1:49 pm

Heya Karbon,

Thanks for the response.

Yeah, bandwidth is something to be watched.

CVS approach is probably awesome. However I'd have to "sell" it and explain it and defend it to those who don't like it. So I thought I would try to get something done serverside that required no client software (except the browser) and no real learning curve to use.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 4:16 pm

Good luck!

Post by **Dare2** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 4:21 pm

Much needed.

Thank you.

Post by **Fred** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 5:35 pm

I would second Karbon for CVS, it's definitely a must have for opensources project management..

AlGonzalez · Post by **AlGonzalez** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 6:11 pm

You may also want to look at SubVersion

It is my understanding that even SourceForge is considering providing SubVersion instead of or along with CVS.

TortoiseSVN is nice GUI client for SubVersion

Post by **Dare2** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 4:05 am

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input.

My bad for being too brief in the original request.

Some background: For an online service I provide for some business/professional organisations, there is a desire for a content management system, basically for documents. These guys co-operate on many things, and sometimes have to put together docs with several authors.

For them, a simple process is enough. There are docs (and discrete and identifiable sections thereof) stored online. They retrieve the doc (download or into online editor). The system tracks who has retrieved doc, doc version (build) num and date.

When someone updates the doc, then version and date change. Nobody else can now update unless they first retrieve the new version.

So changes are not overwritten unless the author has first taken (and hopefully read) the latest changed version. Only concurrent saves is a potential problem (if two ppl think theirs is the last update) and a simple lock fixes this.

So it is simplistic, first cab off the rank stuff, and can require some co-ordination. However as they work together anyway, this is minimised and it beats faxing, emailing and etc, draft docs all around the world.

I can't push the CVS idea through. Too complex or scarey. Truth is, too much work for me as well.

Now I had thought to extend the document control a little for an Open Source facility for those things near and dear to my heart.

There would be a project co-ordinator and team who worked with the project.

The idea was to have code "modules" instead of documents. If A,B and C download a module, and C then uploads the module, A and B will not be able to upload to same module. First they must download (and hopefully suss out) new version.

Associated with the modules is a wiki, in two major parts. Part 1 is for the team, and covers the module, with latest source displayed, and commentary. Part two is a message board where interested parties can post ideas. Last 5 posts displayed, link to all associated posts (forum like)

Team can download/upload modules and modify part 1 of wiki. Upload modifies the code section automatically (displays code).

Anybody can download the entire project, stable and current versions, using a different link. Downloads this way are one way. Down.

Now that is the theory.

I am hoping for input that will improve things without making my life too difficult or giving me too much brain-strain.

PS: The licence to use code taken this way is also intended to be simple. Code can be used by anyone, in anyway commercial or otherwise, they desire. However if code is used, the app must have a link to the O/S in the about, help, or credits of the app.

PPS: The point Karbon made about bandwidth is good, as a result I will (if this gets off the ground) limit the use to real projects. For example, if Kapital was to go OS (not a hint, btw) then it would be welcome. But a concept without code or without a working core of code would not.

Still hoping for feedback.