Dear Robert

Why donīt host the hole project at sourceforge.net?
Lot of features including open foruns, cvs, etc.
Just a sugestion.
My best regards,
Wilson
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Tweed
To: openLingo@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 1:07 PM
Subject: [openLingo] [DIRECT-L] openLingo


[ This was supposed to be CC'd, but Yahoo had screwed up my membership
settings and bounced it. Original message below. ]

Hi all,

I haven't been subscribed to Direct-L for more than a year or so because
I've had difficulty dealing with the traffic levels at times, but I've
decided to sign up again, at least for a while. The main reason for this is
because I hear there is some renewed interest in a unified open-source
library for Director. It just so happens that such a project already exists
and it is called openLingo.

I haven't managed to really follow the new suggestions in the archives about
this idea, but I daresay there will be some overlap with what's already been
discussed on the openLingo list, as well as undoubtably some new ideas. For
those of you who have never come across openLingo, or remember it but aren't
sure where the project is at, here is an update:

The basic goal of the project is to create a single library of open-source
code that follows standard conventions of naming, calling, etc., with the
ultimate aim being to provide, as closely as possible, the most optimal
solutions to common scripting problems, along with quality documentation.

The way the project is intended to operate is that people submit code in a
"raw" state and the code is improved, commented, documented and so on by
other members of the community until the code meets the openLingo standards.
These standards have already been discussed on the list. Of course, if
people submit code already in this state then there is no need for
improvement unless people can spot optimisations, etc. Anyone is free to
contribute whatever they like.

To ensure that the code that goes into the library is of the quality people
will expect, all submissions are eventually moderated. At present I am the
only moderator, but when openLingo.org is completed, Cristoffer Enedahl will
take over a lot of the workload. Anyone else who can prove they are
dedicated enough will be welcome to join the group of moderators as the
project grows. It is first and foremost a community project, so I try to be
more of a chairman than a benevolent dictator.

There are currently some bottlenecks with the project:

- The Yahoo group is not ideal as it does not provide a CVS or similar
codebase management. Instead, we are temporarily using the "files" area,
with individuals taking responsibility for their own versions of any code
that is submitted. The main problem with this is the lack of an index, so it
is hard for people to find code. SourceForge was considered as an
alternative, but I believe that it would put off the majority of users
because it is too technical and user-unfriendly.

[ There is a "preview" code download page at www.openlingo.org/code/ - This
contains the only currently fully approved scripts, which are the basis for
the whole library. ]

- The openLingo.org site is presently in development. This will solve the
problems with the Yahoo group, but the bottleneck here is my time being
extremely limited and I keep having to put the project on the back burner to
do "real" work.

- Because the site is not finished and many are holding off contributing
until it is finished, the mailing list has got very quiet lately. I would
certainly encourage anyone who is interested in such a project to go along
and start up some new threads. If nothing else, this will help renew my
enthusiasm for the project and inspire me to cut some corners to get the
site finished ASAP! Certainly there is no reason why the mailinglist
shouldn't be busy, as people can discuss the project and submit new code
even without the site being ready.

I believe that the focus of what has been discussed here is slightly
different from the focus of openLingo. The focus of openLingo is on creating
a code library upon which behaviours and components can be built easily. The
focus (if I have got it right) of what has been discussed here is on
creating drop-in widgets. I have always maintained that drop-in widgets
should be an important part of openLingo, but always at a top level that is
outside of the main library, built on top of the library. I believe they
should be as lightweight as possible, whereas the library should contain all
the heavy code within a highly flexible API.

Anyway, I think the best thing is to jump on the renewed interest in this
type of project and get the discussion going on the openLingo list. I'm
quite happy to go back over old ground, particularly because there are
probably a lot of people now on the openLingo list who do not remember the
original discussions and we could all do with having our memories refreshed,
and some new life being injected into the project. It'll be good to get
things really moving again :-)

- Robert


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