I'd be interested to find out what others think of this idea for handling "contribs":
1. Contrib developers create a "new topic" in SME7 Contribs for their contrib whose "Subject" is the name of the contrib (without any version number). (e.g. "qmHandle-saco" or "sme7admin")
The first post should include:
- a link to the download location
- a link to the "how-to" if any
- a link to the bug-tracker entry for this contrib.
- a link to a "contribname: Discussion" topic for this contrib.
- a list of dependancies
- a list of known conflicts (contribs or settings that cause problems with this contrib)
2. The only posts to the "contribname" topic should be update announcements and possibly security alerts; all discussion or questions should happen in the "contribname: discussion" topic. If possible, only system admins and the contrib developer should be able to post to the "contribname" topic.
What's in it for users
Users would be able to get notification of updates on any contrib by simply selecting "watch this topic for replies" on the main contrib post, without being forced to get notices every time someone asks a question about it.
Users would have an easy way to locate all of the relevant download, howto, discussion & bug tracker information.
What's in it for developers
If there's a way to find out how many people are "watching" a topic, the number "watching" the main contrib topic should end up being a rough estimate of the number using the contrib.
What's in it for the SME development team
Having a known, single location for the basic download and installation info on any given contrib would allow the development team to post security or informational "alerts" that affect any given contrib. If the users of that contrib are all "watching" the root topic as suggested here, this notice would automatically go to all users.
It occurs to me that a topic like this for "SME Server" would be just as useful - if the only posts going to this topic occur when there is a need to disseminate information or announce updates, I could "watch" this topic to keep abreast of upate information without being overloaded with emails every time someone asks how to change their password strength...
The key, in my opinion, is to remove the version number from the post - as contribs.org works now, I may not know about updates or problems with any given contrib unless I read every post in every topic, since the update announcement for "qmHandle" may be in a reply to a topic titled "trouble! emergency!"...
I believe we are working on a process to formalize contribs, with an official yum repository &c, but this seems like something "we" could do now, without waiting... (I say "we", but I have not developed or posted any contribs personally!)
Comments welcome!
Michael McCarn
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