Date: November 22, 2010 11:15:36 AM PST Subject: IstanbulMeetingLog2010x11x22.txt [10:01am] peterthoeny: good morning/evening julian, pete, steve! [10:02am] smokris: Hi [10:02am] JulianC: Hi, its a good evening from London! [10:02am] peterthoeny: ah, so we have two from europe and two in usa [10:03am] peterthoeny: agenda is posted at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/IstanbulReleaseMeeting2010x11x22 [10:03am] PeterJones: Good evening from CERN [10:03am] peterthoeny: pete is living in my home country switzerland [10:04am] peterthoeny: i am for 13 years in california [10:05am] peterthoeny: since we have new folks today shall we do a quick intro? how you use twiki, your goals for twiki [10:05am] PeterJones: We should get the 1st snow here tonight [10:05am] peterthoeny: yes, today is my mom's b'day in graubuenden, swiss alps [10:05am] PeterJones: We have 4.3.2 and we are looking to upgrade once all the Plugins have been upgraded or proven to work under 5.1 [10:06am] peterthoeny: when i called she said that they have snow [10:06am] PeterJones: Happy Birthday to your Mum [10:06am] peterthoeny: [10:06am] JulianC: Snow is only a few days off here in london. I work for one of the major uk supermarkets as an IT analyst, we are using twiki for support notes for a new system we are working on, I am currenlty  using 5.0 for my team [10:06am] PeterJones: Yes there seems to be alot up near Zurich [10:07am] peterthoeny: julian, are you using twikiforms feature to structure content? [10:07am] PeterJones: We have nearly 200 webs so far and its grwoing [10:08am] JulianC: no, our content is very much free form for now, mainly pasted in from word & excel. [10:08am] peterthoeny: oic [10:09am] peterthoeny: after some time when you see patterns of doing stuff repetitively you can use twikiforms database to organize content [10:09am] smokris: It's oddly 72ºF here in Athens, Ohio (it was freezing last week).  I lead Kosada Inc, a software consulting company.  I've personally been using TWiki since 1998 or so (for organizing a nerd-club at my highschool).  We're using it internally these days for knowledgebase, task tracking, invoicing, inventory, etc., and are managing several client installations, and developing applications/plugins for clients.  And doing some theming work now [10:09am] smokris: and then for twiki.net clients. [10:09am] peterthoeny: i wrote a blog post on that subject, http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Blog/BlogEntry201009x1 [10:09am] PeterJones: My collegue Zbyniew wanted to join us but he has something else on tonight [10:10am] peterthoeny: i started twiki 13 years ago when i had a need for a knowledge base for customer support [10:11am] peterthoeny: i designed the wiki engine as a platform to create and run wiki apps [10:11am] peterthoeny: the kb app was simply the first [10:11am] peterthoeny: time check: +11 min [10:11am] peterthoeny: shall we start? [10:11am] peterthoeny: proposed agenda: [10:12am] peterthoeny: # 1. Feature Requests for Istanbul Release [10:12am] peterthoeny: # 2. Review Urgent and Not So Urgent Bugs [10:12am] peterthoeny: # 3. Extension Testing for TWiki-5.0 [10:12am] peterthoeny: # 4. Miscellaneous [10:12am] peterthoeny: anything to add? [10:12am] JulianC: no additions from this newbie! [10:12am] peterthoeny: ---++ 1. Feature Requests for Istanbul Release [10:12am] peterthoeny: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiFeatureProposals [10:13am] peterthoeny: look at the first table, "Feature Proposal Summary of Work-in-Progress Release" [10:13am] peterthoeny: we have quite a number of accepted proposals, e.g. green light to implement [10:14am] peterthoeny: i will work on DontHideNonHiddenAttachments [10:14am] peterthoeny: and CombineJumpBoxAndSearchBox [10:15am] peterthoeny: feel free to grab one of the accepted proposals [10:15am] smokris: DontHideNonHiddenAttachments: agreed that the solution should be to keep toggle feature, but default to open. [10:15am] peterthoeny: for example, SummaryBasedOnSearchTerms would be a useful usability enhancement [10:16am] peterthoeny: yes steve, i have seen many times people miss the attachments [10:17am] PeterJones: Should be an optionand set in WebPreferences. [10:17am] peterthoeny: ParameterizedVariables: chris lahti finished the implementation, but doc update is pending [10:17am] smokris: CombineJumpBoxAndSearchBox: really excited about this one.  modifying SEARCH, adding the smart="on" param sounds great to me. [10:18am] JulianC: agree on the search box, will make it easier for users [10:18am] peterthoeny: CloneTopicLinkUnderMore needs an owner [10:19am] peterthoeny: we have a number of features already "MergedToCore", e.g. done [10:19am] peterthoeny: the biggest item so far was UserDataManagementApiAndGUI [10:19am] peterthoeny: which is a bg usability step forward for admins [10:20am] peterthoeny: SetFlagtoChangePassword is labeled "under construction" [10:20am] peterthoeny: this is actually done, i'll flip the state [10:21am] peterthoeny: any other features you'd like to discuss? [10:21am] peterthoeny: if you have a need for you org i invite you to post a new proposal [10:22am] smokris: I'll claim SummaryBasedOnSearchTerms. [10:22am] JulianC: I am sure as my team use it more, ill come up with ideas - and may help develop [10:22am] peterthoeny: thanks steve! [10:22am] peterthoeny: thanks julian [10:22am] peterthoeny: julian, how many people in your team working on twiki? [10:23am] JulianC: Currently there are only 2 of us working on the documentation ,when we go live with our system there will be about 10 in our priviate area and about 50 with visibility of more public info for support [10:24am] peterthoeny: time check: +24 min [10:24am] peterthoeny: ---++ 2. Review Urgent and Not So Urgent Bugs [10:24am] peterthoeny: http://develop.twiki.org/~twiki4/cgi-bin/view/Bugs/ReleaseBlocker [10:25am] peterthoeny: we are in good shape since 5.0 [10:25am] peterthoeny: twiki is much more stable since 5.0 than the previosu releases [10:25am] peterthoeny: especially 4.0 and 4.1 had many bugs [10:26am] peterthoeny: the release blockers we have now need to be fixed but are not very critical (unless you need internationalization) [10:26am] peterthoeny: for usability, improving the wysiwyg editor is important [10:27am] peterthoeny: personally i prefer the raw edit, but for new folks it would be good to have a rock solid wysiwyg editor [10:27am] peterthoeny: any bug items you'd like to cover? [10:27am] PeterJones: Most of our doc is in English and French but I can see that this could be useful to us [10:28am] PeterJones: I will check it out [10:28am] peterthoeny: i18n is mainly about multibyte support for asian languages [10:28am] peterthoeny: check out what? [10:28am] PeterJones: UTF-8 [10:29am] PeterJones: Item5437 [10:29am] peterthoeny: ah, thanks! [10:29am] peterthoeny: ---++ 3. Extension Testing for TWiki-5.0 [10:29am] peterthoeny: Status today: [10:29am] peterthoeny:   * 154 extensions tested on TWiki-5.0 [10:29am] peterthoeny:   * 216 extensions tested on TWiki-4.3 [10:29am] peterthoeny:   * 211 extensions tested on TWiki-4.2 [10:29am] peterthoeny:   * 177 extensions tested on TWiki-4.1 [10:29am] peterthoeny:   * 205 extensions tested on TWiki-4.0 [10:29am] peterthoeny:   * 458 extensions total TWiki-2001 to TWiki-5.0 [10:30am] PeterJones: We have 3 that are in the list pending tests on version 5 [10:30am] peterthoeny: i did hundreds of checkins over the last few month to fix docs and code of extensions [10:30am] peterthoeny: we have now 154 verified for 5.0 [10:30am] PeterJones: We need GenPDFAddon, LatexMode and MathMode plugins. We will look at these three as soon as we can [10:32am] peterthoeny: pete, coordinate w thomas weigert, he said that he was working on genpdf upgrade [10:32am] PeterJones: Ok [10:32am] peterthoeny: list of pending at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TemporarySearchFor50 [10:33am] peterthoeny: that is the diff between tested 4.3 and 5.0 [10:33am] peterthoeny: out of those i think the following are important to check: [10:35am] peterthoeny: DBIQueryPlugin, DatabasePlugin, ExcelImportExportPlugin, GenPDFAddOn, LdapContrib, LdapNgPlugin, MailInContrib, OpenIdRpContrib, SearchEngineKinoSearchAddOn [10:36am] peterthoeny: all are i/o related, except for kinosearch [10:36am] peterthoeny: the TemporarySearchFor50 list does not account for extensions tested on versions prior to 4.3 [10:37am] peterthoeny: that is why latext mode and math mode are not in, even though i consider them as important as well [10:38am] peterthoeny: if you'd like to get started with twiki coding, testing and fixing extensions is a good way to start because it is of limited scope [10:38am] peterthoeny: e.g. you see result in shorter time than other parts of the code [10:38am] peterthoeny: anything else on extensions? [10:39am] PeterJones: For now not from me [10:39am] JulianC: nothing from me [10:39am] smokris: (no) [10:39am] peterthoeny: ---++ 4. Miscellaneous [10:40am] peterthoeny: this is open mike [10:40am] peterthoeny: what would you like to discuss? [10:41am] JulianC: nothing specifc- but i would like to thank Peter for the very fast patch for the IE attachment upload problem, unfortunalty my company seems stuck to staying with ie for now [10:42am] peterthoeny: your welcome [10:42am] peterthoeny: well, many companies are "stuck" with ie [10:42am] peterthoeny: so it is imperative to support it [10:43am] JulianC: its worse than just stuck - its ie6! [10:43am] peterthoeny: that's old [10:43am] •smokris faints. [10:43am] JulianC: unfortunalty we have some web apps that dont support later, its a very big company with a lot of legacy systems to look after [10:44am] peterthoeny: i'd like to discuss something: how to get people excited about twiki [10:45am] peterthoeny: i am trying hard to get people excited to contribute back, but it is a difficult task the least to say [10:45am] peterthoeny: i talk to many people, i communicate via e-mail to invite people [10:46am] peterthoeny: somehow people are busy with other things [10:46am] peterthoeny: so i am wondering what we can do differently to attract contributors [10:47am] JulianC: i suppose the dificulty is a lot of the target audience (system admins) are involved in the initial setting up of their twiki sites, then its left to the users. [10:48am] JulianC: As the number of bugs are now very small, there is less involvment from the IT professionals [10:48am] PeterJones: I think is people see that the project is adavcning at a regular pace then there is more chance of them joining. A living project gets more interest than a stale one [10:49am] peterthoeny: ah, so we should introduce bugs deliberately (that is easy) [10:50am] peterthoeny: yes, that is a good point pete [10:50am] peterthoeny: but it is hard to solve, a chicken and egg problem [10:50am] peterthoeny: i already work at least 20 hours a week on open source twiki [10:51am] peterthoeny: i need support to build up momentum [10:51am] smokris: Have you considered acting as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code?  I've seen this work quite successfully for some other opensource projects.  You might be able to attract some interest from experienced developers who could act as mentors to students.  And knock out pieces of TWikiFeatureProposals at the same time. [10:51am] peterthoeny: i can't do that alone [10:51am] PeterJones: I know that the prospect of moving up to 5.1 keeps us interested in contributions [10:52am] peterthoeny: steve, yes, code camps would help [10:52am] PeterJones: Zbygniew had an idea (which I will have to email you). This involved encouraging students to take some part in the project. [10:52am] peterthoeny: so far we have irregular twiki meetups, they are mainly for users/admins [10:53am] peterthoeny: it has been a year since i organized the last one [10:53am] peterthoeny: in san francisco bay area [10:53am] PeterJones: There is a WikiSym next year in your area. The timing may be ideal. [10:54am] peterthoeny: that is a good idea pete [10:54am] peterthoeny: where is wikisym next year? [10:54am] PeterJones: West coast somewhere. I will check it out [10:55am] peterthoeny: one other point is the mission of the project [10:55am] peterthoeny: with a clear mission we might be able to attract more contributors [10:56am] peterthoeny: a few years back we had a clear mission: [10:56am] peterthoeny: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiMission?rev=40 [10:56am] peterthoeny: "TWiki is a leading-edge, web-based collaboration platform targeting the corporate intranet world. TWiki fosters information flow within an organization; lets distributed teams work together seamlessly and productively; and eliminates the one-webmaster syndrome of outdated intranet content." [10:57am] peterthoeny: at the dev summit 2 years ago we changed that to a very short one: [10:57am] peterthoeny: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiMission [10:57am] peterthoeny: "TWiki, the open source Enterprise Wiki and Web 2.0 Application Platform." [10:57am] peterthoeny: i believe that this is not really the mission [10:58am] peterthoeny: it is an accurate description what the project is, but it misses the point of a mission [10:58am] peterthoeny: any feedback on mission? [10:59am] JulianC: the older version is better as the 'use' is stressed [11:01am] peterthoeny: yes [11:01am] peterthoeny: i am looking for an even deeper mission [11:02am] peterthoeny: such as twiki brings more transparency, accountability to the org and flattens the org [11:02am] smokris: @JulianC:  agreed.  The specific uses mentioned in the old mission ("fosters information flow", "lets distributed teams work together seamlessly", "eliminates [...] outdated content") are really helpful to a casual/potential user.  The word "Enterprise" doesn't capture that as well. [11:04am] JulianC: 'to empower users to share information effectivley' is the sort of statement, relating to the customers more than the technology [11:04am] peterthoeny: exactly [11:05am] peterthoeny: time check: +65 min [11:05am] peterthoeny: i have to go [11:06am] smokris: I'm working on a revised statement draft.  I'll email you, @peterthoeny. [11:06am] peterthoeny: i invite you to post your feedback on mission to the TWikiMission page [11:06am] smokris: Cool, will do. [11:06am] peterthoeny: cool, thanks steve! [11:07am] PeterJones: Ok speak next time [11:07am] smokris: No problem.  See you next time. [11:07am] JulianC: thanks for the invite, i will join in again in the future [11:07am]  smokris left the chat room. [11:08am] peterthoeny: thanks all! [11:08am] peterthoeny: julian, please subscribe to [twiki-dev] - we announce meetings there [11:08am] peterthoeny: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiDevMailingList [11:08am]  smokris_ joined the chat room. [11:09am] JulianC: will do, bye [11:09am] peterthoeny: ttyl [11:09am]  smokris_ left the chat room. [11:09am]  PeterJones left the chat room. [11:09am]  JulianC left the chat room.