Dear all,
Wikimania is approaching and by that also our first developers meeting in 2011!
The openZIM team is happy to invite you to the first (really) multinational developers meeting. After three meetings in the center of Europe with mostly people from that area participating we are now going to meet at Wikimania.
Prior to Wikimania are special conferences. The openZIM meeting is on August 2nd and 3rd - the two days right before Wikimania starts - at Beit Hecht, part of the Wikimania venue.
Please sign up here and participate in the planning:
* http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenZIM_Developers_Meeting
For dedicated offline people there is still budget left so we can help you funding your participation at this meeting! Contact me for this.
I'd be happy to see you there!
Manuel
Hi all,
here is the Etherpad documentation of the openZIM meeting at Wikimania right now:
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/openZIM-Developer-Meeting-2011
/Manuel
Thanks for publishing this Manuel. Having this available while be remote is huge.
--tomasz
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 11:56 PM, Manuel Schneider manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch wrote:
Hi all,
here is the Etherpad documentation of the openZIM meeting at Wikimania right now:
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/openZIM-Developer-Meeting-2011
/Manuel
Regards Manuel Schneider
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge www.wikimedia.ch _______________________________________________ dev-l mailing list dev-l@openzim.org https://intern.openzim.org/mailman/listinfo/dev-l
I'm going to pull out some of the discussion points from the notes for wider discussion.
* there is little support from the WMF
: This is always going to be a subjective answer but lets keep in mind that the WMF has been sponsoring work for improving Kiwix, expanding the Collections extension to support openZIM, and improving Article selection.
Each one of those plays a key role in the offline content pipeline. Non engineering wise we've been connecting with the English, Spanish, and Portuguese projects so that we can help release new collection. We've also been working with eReadia and a whole host of others to better understand the offline space. Everyone can always do more but its important to choose what you work on and make that work well.
I think the bigger discussion point can be is if the WMF doing enough and if not knowing why.
* the promised things like regular ZIM dumps sohuld be finally done by WMF to support the spread of the software / project
: The current XML dumps is system is fairly broken and has been a nightmare to manage over the last couple of years. And if you think the XML system is bad then don't even look at the HTML generation system. Instead of pushing more work into it we've opted to go for a much simpler route. Allow the collections infrastructure to generate full project files. Using the existing system we make the workflow much easier for anyone wanting openZIm files while at the same time not making our infrastructure more complicated then it needs to be.
* openZIM and Kiwix are hardly able to cope with the expectations due to missing developers - not only software-wise but also concerning documentation
Totally agree. We've made some amazing progress on both the Kiwix betas and Collections extension but we can still do more. I think we have to look at the engagement that we do (LinuxTag, Wikimania, Berlin Dev Conf, beta testing, blog posts, etc) and really assess whats working and whats not. The chapters can do a lot here to fund initiatives and help run them.
* reimbursement for the server to build ZIM files
+1
* house the Kiwix server in a NOC
+1 .. I've said for a while that we should just move it over to download.wikipedia.org
* restructure the Offline pages on Meta wiki: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects
Who is owning this piece? I'd love to add my ideas about how to go about it.
* writing proposal for a contractor on openZIM
Looking over http://openzim.org/Roadmap its bit hard to know what's happening post Wikimania. Whats the future look like?
Eager to hear other peoples thoughts.
--tomasz
On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Tomasz Finc tfinc@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thanks for publishing this Manuel. Having this available while be remote is huge.
--tomasz
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 11:56 PM, Manuel Schneider manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch wrote:
Hi all,
here is the Etherpad documentation of the openZIM meeting at Wikimania right now:
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/openZIM-Developer-Meeting-2011
/Manuel
Regards Manuel Schneider
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge www.wikimedia.ch _______________________________________________ dev-l mailing list dev-l@openzim.org https://intern.openzim.org/mailman/listinfo/dev-l
On 08/06/2011 04:00 AM, Tomasz Finc wrote:
- the promised things like regular ZIM dumps sohuld be finally done by
WMF to support the spread of the software / project
: The current XML dumps is system is fairly broken and has been a nightmare to manage over the last couple of years. And if you think the XML system is bad then don't even look at the HTML generation system. Instead of pushing more work into it we've opted to go for a much simpler route. Allow the collections infrastructure to generate full project files. Using the existing system we make the workflow much easier for anyone wanting openZIm files while at the same time not making our infrastructure more complicated then it needs to be.
I agree, this is maybe the simplest way today... but the time we may save now will have to be invest/waste in the future. So, after many discussions, also in Wikimania, I'm really not convinced by this approach and I think this is not the best way.
The way which is really efficient and sustainable is to work on DumpHTML: * This is the faster solution * This is trivial to deploy for Mediawiki admins (should also be the case at the WMF) * This is not too expensive to develop * This allows to make sophisticated post-treatment if necessary * You may modify the rendering in details (we work directly with the mediawiki render engine) * This is a simple and maintainable (works with hooks and skins) solution
That's the reason why I will propose a grant request to a chapter to get that done for the summer 2012. Preparation of the grant request is already started, feel free to make comment on the talk page: http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Mediawiki_DumpHTML_extension_improvement#Work...
- openZIM and Kiwix are hardly able to cope with the expectations due
to missing developers - not only software-wise but also concerning documentation
Totally agree. We've made some amazing progress on both the Kiwix betas and Collections extension but we can still do more. I think we have to look at the engagement that we do (LinuxTag, Wikimania, Berlin Dev Conf, beta testing, blog posts, etc) and really assess whats working and whats not. The chapters can do a lot here to fund initiatives and help run them.
I think, what is urgent is to find a solution with the WMF for openZIM dev. ressources. For Kiwix, I think what is essential is to get the chapters involved. So, if the WMF continues to support Kiwix dev. in the manner they do today, this is perfect.
- reimbursement for the server to build ZIM files
+1
Ok, what would be the best way to request that. At Kiwix we have two servers; * one rented for the online presence * one in my guestroom to build the ZIM files. This is a server with a disk array.
We speak her of the second one (I already get money for the first one). It costs around 5000 euros.
- house the Kiwix server in a NOC
+1 .. I've said for a while that we should just move it over to download.wikipedia.org
What is the NOC? I think we have to keep it in Europe and at the best in the neighborhood of Switzerland.
- writing proposal for a contractor on openZIM
Looking overhttp://openzim.org/Roadmap its bit hard to know what's happening post Wikimania. Whats the future look like?
I could prepare something if needed?
Regards Emmanuel
2011/8/6 Tomasz Finc tfinc@wikimedia.org
I'm going to pull out some of the discussion points from the notes for wider discussion.
- there is little support from the WMF
: This is always going to be a subjective answer but lets keep in mind that the WMF has been sponsoring work for improving Kiwix, expanding the Collections extension to support openZIM, and improving Article selection.
Each one of those plays a key role in the offline content pipeline. Non engineering wise we've been connecting with the English, Spanish, and Portuguese projects so that we can help release new collection. We've also been working with eReadia and a whole host of others to better understand the offline space. Everyone can always do more but its important to choose what you work on and make that work well.
I think the bigger discussion point can be is if the WMF doing enough and if not knowing why.
- the promised things like regular ZIM dumps sohuld be finally done by
WMF to support the spread of the software / project
: The current XML dumps is system is fairly broken and has been a nightmare to manage over the last couple of years. And if you think the XML system is bad then don't even look at the HTML generation system. Instead of pushing more work into it we've opted to go for a much simpler route. Allow the collections infrastructure to generate full project files. Using the existing system we make the workflow much easier for anyone wanting openZIm files while at the same time not making our infrastructure more complicated then it needs to be.
- openZIM and Kiwix are hardly able to cope with the expectations due
to missing developers - not only software-wise but also concerning documentation
Totally agree. We've made some amazing progress on both the Kiwix betas and Collections extension but we can still do more. I think we have to look at the engagement that we do (LinuxTag, Wikimania, Berlin Dev Conf, beta testing, blog posts, etc) and really assess whats working and whats not. The chapters can do a lot here to fund initiatives and help run them.
- reimbursement for the server to build ZIM files
+1
- house the Kiwix server in a NOC
+1 .. I've said for a while that we should just move it over to download.wikipedia.org
- restructure the Offline pages on Meta wiki:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects
Who is owning this piece? I'd love to add my ideas about how to go about it.
Jessie Wild (cc) & myself had some ideas written in her notebook.
- writing proposal for a contractor on openZIM
Looking over http://openzim.org/Roadmap its bit hard to know what's happening post Wikimania. Whats the future look like?
Eager to hear other peoples thoughts.
--tomasz
On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Tomasz Finc tfinc@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thanks for publishing this Manuel. Having this available while be remote is huge.
--tomasz
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 11:56 PM, Manuel Schneider manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch wrote:
Hi all,
here is the Etherpad documentation of the openZIM meeting at Wikimania right now:
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/openZIM-Developer-Meeting-2011
/Manuel
Regards Manuel Schneider
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge www.wikimedia.ch _______________________________________________ dev-l mailing list dev-l@openzim.org https://intern.openzim.org/mailman/listinfo/dev-l
dev-l mailing list dev-l@openzim.org https://intern.openzim.org/mailman/listinfo/dev-l