[OpenAFS] Improving collaboration

[Ted Anderson]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002 12:01:33 -0500 (EST) Jeffrey Hutzelman <jhutz@cmu.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Ted Anderson wrote:
> > On Thu, 10 Jan 2002 15:52:48 -0500 (EST) Jeffrey Hutzelman <jhutz@cmu.edu> wrote:
> > > http://www.fsck.com/rtfm/
> > The RT/FM system seems pretty focused on tracking problems.
> 
> Are you sure you're not confusing RT/FM with RT?  The page I pointed
> you at is an instance of RT/FM; what it happens to contain is the
> manual for RT.  The two systems have a very similar look, but RT/FM is
> _not_ RT.

Yes, you are right.  But I couldn't find any docs on RT/FM itself.

> > I looked at a few of the various Wiki engines[1] and there are a lot of
> > them.  It looks like UseModWiki[2] might be easiest if the web server is
> > already using ModPerl.  The MoinMoin engine used by Cees' PhotoWiki
> > seems reasonable too, unless installing Python whould be an extra
> > hassle.  We could discuss various features if there is interest in that.

I forgot the link to MoinMoin[1].

> Modperl is certainly available -- RT uses it -- but my investigation
> suggests that, if a wiki is what people want, TWiki might be a better
> choice.  For one thing, I feel uncomfortable with locking ourselves into
> something that doesn't support authentication and a moderately fine
> grained access control model.

Well, call me "radically egalitarian"[2]; I think keeping RCS revisions
of all the pages is good enough.  Having to register to edit pages is a
bit off putting, but I don't think it is a huge deal.  Certainly, the
features of the system looks very nice.  The TWikiWebs[3] are arguably a
better approach to partitioning than the UseMod SubPages[4].  But a
feature by feature comparison will be difficult without a lot more
experience than I have.  Anyway, I'm okay with TWiki.

We may not get a lot of feedback from OpenAFS people until we actually
try it.  Maybe we should just go for it and see how people like using a
Wiki.  There is always the risk that if we don't get critical mass the
system will just atrophy, but that's an unavoidable.

Alternatively, we could spend a bit more time thinking about what sorts
of documentation a Wiki would be good for.  This might give us a better
handle on the critical mass question.

Ted Anderson

[1] http://moin.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://twiki.org/
[3] http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiWebsTable
[4] http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SubPages