[OOTB-hive] Status update

[Martin Cosgrave]

On 04/08/14 08:33, Oksana Kurysheva wrote:
>
> 1. Our Website
>
>
> The link to the current version of the website: http://ootb.ossportal.org/
>
> After we agree on the final version of the website, it should be moved 
> to http://orderofthebee.org/
>
>
> Please take a look at the website now and only after that continue 
> reading. :)
>

It's great, it looks really nice. I love the bee logo as it is, I even 
think the expression, while it's a bit weird, helps mark it out as "not 
corporate". I know Boris disagrees ;-)


>
> 1.1. Platform
>
>
> At this moment it's plain HTML. We can move it to Drupal, but it means 
> we need a database and all. We created an organization at Github and 
> created a repo for a website. While we use plain-text HTML it's easier 
> to manage a content in this way.
>
>
> If we agree on the current design, I'd like to store "members" list, 
> "add-ons", "system integrators" lists etc in JSON and use AngularJS to 
> show them on the website. It can be done easily. And in this case one 
> day we may use Alfresco as a backend. But as for now I don't see 
> anyone who is ready to configure it ASAP.
>
>
> Now it's a single-page website, and we should think about the place 
> for collaboration and posting a content.
>
>
> For example, list of ideas for new addons and list of addons that are 
> under development now should be done in a Wiki style. Can we use 
> Alfresco Wiki page for it as it was with Hackathon projects?
>
>
> List of system integrators, success stories and add-ons can be done 
> with AngularJS+JSON. In this case I'm ready to do it. If we want to 
> use Drupal, then who can do it?
>

I could be persuaded to manage some kind of CMS, but never, ever Drupal. 
It does to me what Kryptonite did to Superman.

I think the single page thing is ok. We could maintain the content we 
want on the alfresco wiki and link to that. Where that's not suitable it 
could be links to google drive or dropbox for binaries and github for 
source.

Alternatively to the alfresco wiki if people think that's not 
appropriate we could run our own wiki and style it ourselves. I don't 
mind maintaining a mediawiki, I've done that before.

AngularJS and JSON is a great approach too.

>
> 1.2. More info about the Order
>
>
> Should we mention somewhere that "we just start working, so don't 
> worry that there is no content"? :)
>
No! :) Reminds me of those websites with "under construction" images ;-)

>
> Should we add a section for Doug and other Alfresco, Inc managers? 
> Most probably, it's worth telling that:
>
> - we are not strange guys who forked Alfresco Community to become a 
> competitor and try to sell own services
> - we don't want to entice Enterprise customers to our side
> - there are a lot of small companies who will never buy Enterprise 
> (especially using new pricing) and who are not interesting in Cloud 
> offering, and we want to help them, because Alfresco doesn't want to do it
> - so Alfresco Inc. should like us and allow us to use their logo and 
> "Alfresco" word :)
>

I like that. A few of the top names, both business and devs, within 
Alfresco, with a mini bio. What springs to mind is:

Doug
John Newton
Roy Wetherall, his name's on so much of the backend code it's unbelievable
Will Abson

Definitely there are more devs that could be added, memory fails right now

And of course Richard
>
> 1.3. Content
>
>
> Let`s discuss the content of the website. If you want to add more 
> words or a full new section, or just to review syntax errors, please 
> do it. I'm thinking about moving "Activities" section above "About" 
> one, but still not sure about it.
>

I think the order is OK.

>
> 1.4. Contact
>
>
> Is it ok not to have a contact form on the website? I gave links to 
> the IRC and to the mailing list. Should we add a contact form that 
> will send a message to the mailing list automatically?
>

It feels odd to me to have a 'contact us' section that doesn't have a 
contact form.

>
> People will want to send requests to add their addon to the list, to 
> publish them as verified system integrators. Do we want to see all 
> these requests in a public mailing list? If I were a Systems 
> Integrator representative, I would be afraid of giving contacts of my 
> customers in the public mailing list.
>
>
> I think that many of us have their private mail servers. For example, 
> I can create an account in my Zimbra that will automatically forward 
> such requests to the list of our private addresses of people who will 
> be responsible for the requests processing. So the request will not be 
> visible in the history of our Mailing List.
>
>

I'm not sure that I understand in what context a system integrator would 
be giving his/her customer details to the list. Surely just their own 
public information?

>
> 2. Social networks
>
>
>
>
> 2.2. Twitter
>
>
> We should give people a chance to follow us. Someone can open the 
> website and see that we are just starting and have nothing to show. 
> They should have the ability to get updates from us. It would be great 
> to publish news somewhere. Like "Check a new add-on in the list", "We 
> created new 'showcase' instance" etc.
>
>
> I registered account @bee-order at Twitter. We can select another one 
> if it is available.
>

@OrderOfTheBee ? It is available. I noticed that bee_order is actually 
underscored not hyphenated and I don't really like the underscore. 
Personal preference only.

>
>
> 4. Members
>
>
> Joking aside - here we are to discuss the positioning of the Order. 
> Can we take Alfresco employees to the Order if they are active in the 
> community? What is the selection criteria? Fedora / Red Hat experience 
> shows that it's ok to have vendor employees in the community. However, 
> it also shows that it's really bad if the community is silently 
> dominated by vendor employees. May be we can have two explicit 
> sections in 'Members' area - 'Independent members' and 'Alfresco Inc 
> employees'.
>
+1 - I don't see a reason to exclude alfresco employees but we should 
make them distinct.

>
> 4.3. Invite
>
>
> After publishing a website it will be easier to explain who we are to 
> other people. At this point we can start inviting people to join us. 
> It looks especially important to get some members in the US, since we 
> have only Jeff there now. Any ideas on who we should invite? I thought 
> about inviting all community stars (2013, 2014?), but these people are 
> selected by Alfresco Inc. I'm afraid it's not that good if we position 
> ourselves as independent group.
>
>
Ben (xkahn) has joined. Is it Peter Monks who runs a large educational 
alfresco install (Enterprise) in the US or am I mixing him with someone 
else? Anyway that guy would be good :-}
>
>
> 5. Activities. Next steps
>
>
> I added 6 activities to the website. We discussed all of them except 
> "success stories" before.
>

And "success stories" for smaller businesses is a great idea.

>
> The website is just the first step. Who is ready to work on these 
> "activities"? I can think about list of Addons, SIs and success 
> stories, because they relate to creating a list of criterias for 
> requesters, to publishing on the same website and to googling a lot.
>
>
> Who is ready to work on the first activity? It's very important but 
> looks very difficult for me. And what about Alfresco OOTB edition? Who 
> is ready to update the text on the website for this point and start 
> working on it?
>

I can set up the alfresco instances if we have anywhere to host them. 
Are we going to fund it ourselves? I think it would be better than 
taking space from Alfresco, if that's even an option. A friend of mine 
just got a dedicated host a bit cheap because the hardware's not brand 
new and also not enterprise class. If it's good enough for us then he 
could probably resell some of it to us quite reasonably. We probably 
don't need very much space or memory. Would 64GB disk and 4GB RAM be 
enough? To run both instances? Maybe not I guess, perhaps someone can 
enlighten me on the minimum specs we need. Oh yeah there's also the 
issue that it's not a proper IPv4 address but instead it's behind NAT 
(this is getting more and more common now that IPv4 has run out). I 
can't see a problem with that, we can get whatever port forwarding set 
up very easily.

And thanks Oksana for all the work you've put in to the Order so far. 
It's really quite inspiring.


Cheers
Martin
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