Re: [Caml-list] OCaml development site

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>]

On Fri, May 07, 2004 at 01:48:32PM +0200, Nicolas Cannasse wrote:
> > Richard Jones and myself are thinking about setting up a collaborative
> > development site for OCaml projects.  Not only this can show to the
> > world how active the OCaml community is [and to prevent code from
> > disappearing when the developer is not interested in maintaining it
> > anymore] but also serve as a base for a CPAN-like repository.
> 
> My two cents : don't try to think everything before starting it, work
> incrementaly.
> First setup a -free- minimal service : allow users to create CVS repository,
> home page, and mailing list, on a project basis. Add also a mailing list for

That's true, but my take is a little different.

Let's first make a general repository.  Something like CPAN, maybe,
where as long as people follow a few simple structuring conventions,
they can upload something and make it easily accessible to everyone.
Maybe GODI could be a starting point; maybe not.  My perception of GODI
-- and this may or may not be true -- is that it is a cathedral-style
operation, where central gatekeepers review and approve contributions
(and it requires knowledge of its build system).  Make it more open to
start with.

I don't see a lot of utility in Yet Another *forge.  Yes, problems exist
with the existing forges, whether they be SourceForge, Savannah, Alioth,
or whatever.  Maintaining a system like that is a complex task, and
making it "suck less" than the existing ones will mean starting up with
a real mirror network, redundant servers, backups, etc.  I guess I'm
just not convinced that 1) there's a real need for this, and 2) we (the
OCaml people) can do it better.  This isn't a personal insult to those
who are proposing the project at all; the best of admins have their
hands full maintaining one of these things.

If you are looking for a ready-made alternative to SourceForge and
Savannah, check out http://alioth.debian.org/.  It's a GForge
installation, and although run by Debian, is open to everyone in the
same spirit as the original SourceForge.  

Alioth has had, to my knowledge, one brief outage that was preventative
in nature to make sure it was not affected by a breakin that occured on
some Debian machines.  I believe this was less serious than some of the
outages suffered by SourceForge or Savannah, where some services stay
broken for weeks a a time.

-- John

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