[Gimp-web] new web project

[Raphaël Quinet]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 15:56:17 -0500, Shawn T Amundson <amundson@gui.org> wrote:
> Can you add HACKING/README/INSTALL files to CVS?  It should state 
> something like "please discuss your changes with someone else involved
> with the site before committing; look at ChangeLog for a good list of
> names".  We really need to have complete instructions for how to setup
> the website as a contributor right in CVS.

Yes, I would like to add some documentation at the root of the CVS
module, explaining how to set up the site and so on.  Scizzo has
started writing something that would be intersting for a README.  He
posted the link two weeks ago: http://information.gimp.kicks-ass.org/
However, I would like to replace or complement the current Makefiles
with a set of Makefiles generated by autoconf, with a suitable
configure script.  This should make it much easier to set up the build
system and this would also generate a set of Makefiles that have
correct dependencies (currently, it is impossible to rebuild a single
file in a sub-directory because everything depends on the top-level
Makefile).  But all this requires some work, and I am a bit short on
time for the moment (real life sucks).  Also, the README and INSTALL
files would have to be rewritten after such a change, so I prefer to
choose the easy way and skip writing them until the improved build
system is ready.

Regarding the sentence that you propose to add (discuss your changes
with someone else involved with the site before committing), I agree
that all new contributors should do that.  On the other hand, I do not
want to insist too much on that because it could scare some potential
contributors.  Also, it could be perceived as if each member of the
web team had his/her own walled garden.  As Helvetix said recently,
there are no "turf" issues.  Of course, there should always be some
discussion when significant changes are planned.  But we should not
have a system that requires formal approval for every minor change.
We need to find the correct balance.

> What do you think about the requirement that anyone who is allowed
> to commit also be placed on the webmasters mailing alias?

That would be a bit excessive.  I would like to make it possible for
newcomers to join the gimp-web team and fix a few typos here and there
without having to ask someone else to commit for them.  They would
probably not enjoy being added to the webmasters list (and receiving
some spam) if they do not intend to be much more involved than that.

But it should be required (or at least strongly recommended) to be
subscribed to this mailing list.  This is where all issues related to
the web site should be discussed.  The README or HACKING files (when
they are written) should say that anybody who wants to commit
something should first subscribe to the gimp-web list, and suggest as
an optional step to be added to the webmaster alias, or maybe to the
bugs alias.

By the way, who should be listed as the contact person for any
additions or removals from these aliases?  Should that be you, or
postmaster@gimp.org (which is both you and Yosh)?  Or maybe root,
mail, list, daemon, sys, operator, or any of the other aliases that
are already pointing to the same guys.  ;-)

> I think when we move the website over, since it is such a drastic 
> change, we should keep the old site around for reference.  We can 
> call it "i.still.love.the.old.www.gimp.org" or something.  If that
> breaks half the site, no big deal, it just may be slightly useful
> as people say things like "where did this go".  I mean this would 
> be useful for our use, and not link to that url.

Yes, definitely.  I got a message from Yosh on Monday, in which he
said that he was planning to use classic.gimp.org.  But it looks like
he has not set up the DNS yet.  The old site could even be linked for
a while from the new one (e.g., in the news item on the home page,
describing the move) because there are still some useful parts of the
old site that haven't been copied yet to the new site.  For example,
some details about the mailing lists and their multiple archives, some
pre-made queries for GIMP bugs, some patterns, etc.

-Raphaël