[ZDP] Modularizing Zope (Was [ZDP] DC's Zope Documentation Plan)

Paul Everitt paul@digicool.com
Wed, 23 Feb 2000 09:09:15 -0500


Kamon wrote:
> To be more precise, lotus.com and ibm.com feature what they call Zones,
> which are more Technology/Horizontal driven, like Java | Linux | Web
> Architecture | XML.
> We can have Zones or Areas but in the Constituency/Target
> audience/Transversal sense.

At IPC8, I asked what we could do to better "work in a fishbowl".  One
of the suggestions was to break the code into modules, which could
selectively include outside developers.

I have a decision point that I'd like the ZDP's reaction on related to
this:

"Should Digital Creations move the Zope CVS repository to SourceForge?"

Background: We do CVS by rdist-ing an internal repository to
cvs.zope.org for most projects.  Things like PTK have write access by
external people, but can't do branches as long as the repository
housekeeping files are inside Digital Creations.  More importantly, we
find we can't devote the time necessary to staying ahead of CVS, SSH,
etc.

A proposal has been floated here to move our repository to SourceForge. 
We would also use it as an opportunity to break the Zope code into
separately-released packages such as zope-dtml, zope-zodb, etc.  The
mailing lists might be re-organized accordingly.  At select points we'd
wrap everything together as a Zope release.

There are strong benefits.  Sourceforge is on a fast link, presumably
with fast machines behind it.  They have a system where people can get
their SSH accounts setup and module owners can include developers, all
without a sysadmin getting involved.

The major downside is brand.  We'd be turning part of our developer
community brand over to another entity.  Some have argued that this
would reflect poorly.

Let me know what you think, both pros and cons.

--Paul