Project Council Report For September

1. Membership

1. phppp, active in September
2. christian, active in September
3. irmtfan, inactive in September, away for Persian Support site
4. KC0MAZ, active as a non-voting member
5. dave_l, resigned
6. studioC, resigned

Dave_L was the chairman for September until he resigned on September 15th. Phppp assumed the duties as chairman until October 1st. Christian will be the chairman for October.

2. Work Progress

2.1 Updates on Project Official xoops.org Website

2.1.1 XOOPS Project Team Pages

Upon the request of several members of the community, the Project Council has updated Aboutus pages and posted proper personnel information. The information is going to be updated very soon to reflect new changes.

2.1.2 Re-open of XOOPS Module Repository

The XOOPS Module Repository had been closed for more than one year to expect a "soon-open" repository site. However, due to the delayed server migration and, consequently, the delayed site reorganization, the repository had been in a dead status, which caused much inconvenience to users.

To resume module updates and provide XOOPS users with a central download place, the repository is reopened and maintained temporarily by phppp and Chrisitan before a repository team is built.

A new download of repository site is going to be designed and maintained by a repository team. The team functionality could either be done by a new-built regular team or by an existent team. Establishment of the site and team is open to discuss.

2.2 Team Reports

2.2.1 Core Development Team

Report submitted by phppp : The Core Development Team has released two candidates for 2.0.17.1 as well a security patch release. Work undergoing include: development on 2.0.18; block engine branch; new default theme branch; immediate development plans.

2.2.2 Community Coordination Team

Report submitted by Kc0maz : The team continues with its daily tasks. Discussion on new forum structure has been led by the team and a feedback report was made. The team will be finalizing new forum structure and working with Technical Group for server migration.

2.2.3 Design Team

Text composed by Kris and phppp : Kris has been trying to take the role of team leader since studioC's resignation. A team work proposal has been published and discussed. Some team members have been working with the Core Dev Team individually. The team will be working on the design of theme/design.xoops.org as well as other tasks described in Kris' proposal.

2.2.4 Technical Group

Report submitted by phppp : Server maintenance for http://www.xoops.org and dev.xoops.org: the two sites went down for several times as a result of old servers reaching their capacity. However migration to new XOOPS servers are delayed because the server administrators have not been given adequate access to the new servers for a reason, given by the Foundation that the XOOPS new servers are hosting not only xoops.org sites.

With the passwords provided by the Foundation, the administrators are not able to logon. The foundation has been contacted for the issue. The team is looking forward to a valid solution with full access to dedicated new servers and migrate xoops.org sites, then work with other teams on site reorganization.

2.2.5 Documentation Team

Text composed by phppp : The team has not been established yet. A couple of people have/had been involved in the establishment of the team as well as documentation site construction, like jeffgr, homergz, skenow, seth_sd and xoopswiki team etc... The important team and the docs website are waiting for you.

3. Work Plans

3.1 Call for New Council Members

Along with the resignation of Dave_L and StudioC, the Project Council is considering making Kc0maz a full member, and is also considering other new candidates. Other candidates could be specialized in organizing the server migration and site redesign. Anyone who would like to contribute as a Council member, please contact Xoops Council

Candidate list will be published for review and election. The place for candidates recommendation and review : here (temporarily)

3.2 Server Migration

The Technical Group will request full access from the Foundation to the dedicated new servers as soon as possible (a personal email has been sent to Herko by phppp).

The migration of http://www.xoops.org can be expected to be done by end of October. And the dev.xoops.org could then be hosted on old servers or migrated together with http://www.xoops.org depending on server administrators' advices.

The tasks for migration of http://www.xoops.org include :

1. move existent database and XOOPS scripts
2. upgrade newbb to CBB 3.08 or 4.0
3. update forum structure to the new one proposed by Coordination Team
4. update groups and ranks to reflect http://www.xoops.org's present status

The task will be done mainly by Technical Group and Coordination Team with coordination by the Project Council.

3.3 Site Redesign

During the server migration process, the Project Council will be help work on the first public draft on XOOPS Project websites redesign which is supposed to based on all previous work. The first public draft could include but not limited to :

1. Site dispatch for sub-domains
2. Prototype pages for several critical sites, including www/download/forum/docs/design/support.xoops.org

The immediate results of draft will be hosted on Sourceforge.net with SVN. The public draft is expected by end of October.

Anyone who has experiences in site design (contents, UE/UI and prototype) please contact Xoops Council to help with the first draft.

3.4 Team Establishment and Site Opens

A few Project teams still need to be established and a couple of sub-sites will open for corresponding teams once the server migration is done.

3.4.1 Documentation Team

Documentation will be the next focus of XOOPS Project besides core development. The Project is awaiting a captain to help establish the Documentation Team and build the official documentation site.

docs.xoops.org : the official XOOPS Project documentation site, will start with a wiki-like site and formulate to a proper format to suit the Project's needs in the future. The contents will consist of three types: development, usage and promotion docs.

To achieve its goals, the team leader should be having writing skills (of course) and leadership as well as communication skills to cooperate with Core Development Team and third party developers. Considering the importance of XOOPS documentation and the team, the team leader is expected to be a Council member since next term if proper.

3.4.2 Repository Maintenance Group

download.xoops.org: the centralized download gateway for XOOPS add-ons. All current files are hosted on sourceforge and current members include phppp, Christian (proposed as the temporary leader before a formal leader is selected).

Some previous works that can be the base include a previous QA team organized by Marco, xoopsaddons site proposed by davidl2 etc.

Anyone who would like to contribute as a group member or give any advices, please contact Xoops Council.

3.4.3 Theme Design Site

theme.xoops.org: the work place for Project Theme Design Team, to be present as a theme tutorial site and host XOOPS default themes.

4. Core Development

In the Q4 of 2007, the XOOPS Core Development Team will mainly focus on maintenance of the two branches 2.0 and 2.2: merging two branches to a single branch 2.4, fixing possible security problems including adopting "protector" in a proper way.

Meanwhile a separate team is actively working on XOOPS 3.0 (the previous 2.3 branch).

The XOOPS Project Council
October 6th, 2007