One of the side projects I have going these days is working with a small team on a Drupal instance for Fedora called Fedora Insight. Our initial rollout is pretty conservative in its goals, as I discussed in a previous post. We wanted to create a simple platform (at the outset) where both the awesome contributors at the Fedora Weekly News, and the Marketing team, could both publish their original work, and also promote selected material from the Fedora Planet. We have lots of great places where content is available, but Insight brings some of them together in a way that’s easier for non-contributors to navigate. So Phase 1 was all about completing just those simple goals.
At the same time, we realized throughout the process that this could merely be the first step in providing some more content options for the project. And now we’re inviting you to pitch in your ideas for Phase 2 of our plans. If you have a concept for a way we could better expose or manage content through Insight, add it to the wiki page here. We are accepting ideas until May 24, 2011.
Hey wait, isn’t that date important for another reason? Oh yeah — Fedora 15 is released that day! So I guess that’s a good way to remember the deadline then. ?
Now, we can’t guarantee we’ll be able to make every idea a reality in Phase 2. But we’ll definitely consider each one, and then prioritize based on available people-power and the impact each goal could have if comlpeted. If you want to help do the Drupal development work required to make your idea happen, we’d love to have you on our team!
I’ve read that Hiemanshu Sharma is working on a FOSS events system that would take shape in Fedora and could be used in other FOSS projects. One of the things I asked Hiemanshu and his mentor Juan to consider was whether it might make sense to build this on top of Drupal so that it would (a) leverage a well-known framework, (b) benefit lots of people beyond the Fedora Project, and (c) maybe even be something system owners (our Insight team being just one example) could integrate with other content over time. I’m really looking forward to hearing more from them on our list about their plans and whether they’re able to leapfrog existing bits such as those in the COD project.
Our team works in an open, transparent process, like all Fedora teams. You can find information about our team, meeting schedule, communication resources, and other data on the Insight wiki page. We look forward to hearing from you.
That’s great! Insight could simplify the spread out of Fedora and of its related news. But, in my humble opinion, you should keep a (logical) division between the Fedora Weekly News, the Marketing team publications and the Fedora Planet materials. But that’s only my opinion…
To be honest, I also think that is important to create a “place” in which people can say which innovations/changes want into Fedora.
Anyway, congratulations to Fedora Insight!
@Paolo: Thanks for the comment! Actually, one of the nice benefits of a weekly newsletter is it shows many of the cool ideas and discussions happening in the community. So putting that news with the rest of the community-produced information on Fedora Insight shows how our project really is driven by the community. Although not every single news item may be equally relevant to a reader, the fact that there’s a voluminous newsletter of what’s going on in the community makes a real impact on the target reader of the Insight site. The stuff featured in that newsletter is exactly what makes each new release, and the community around it, impactful. So hopefully we can increase awareness that these are just some of the many ways that our community makes the Fedora Project a great place to contribute. Thanks again for writing.
I look forward to FWN being featured on website, as it was in its original form. I’ve felt the email newsletter is greatly important, but it’s finished-and-delivered nature may not invite participation the way a self-service CMS can.