From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2009-01-08T06:10:51+09:00
Subject: Re: WANTED: need a real web API for rubyforge.org


On Jan 7, 12:19 pm, "Ben Bleything" <b...@bleything.net> wrote:

> Here's the problem with converting RubyForge from GForge to something
> written in Ruby.... you can't take features away, because they're all
> in use.  That means that whatever gets written needs to support CVS,
> SVN *and* Git.  It needs to have integrated forums and mailing lists
> with management for both.  It needs a news system, bug trackers and a
> file release system and a built-in gem indexer/server.  It needs wikis
> and web space, file download and scm statistics.
>
> This is an extremely difficult problem to solve.  GForge is a very
> complex piece of software used by tons of people whose needs all need
> to be balanced.  I feel pretty strongly that anything other than a
> feature-for-feature clone is doomed to failure, and then we'll have
> nothing.

To me GForge seems very dated. I think GitHub is much better example
of the future. It has most of the features developers need. In fact,
except for mailing lists I'm not sure one actually needs anything
else. Some of Rubyforge's features are never used such a Surveys. The
news feature always seemed a bit redundant to me too, why not just
have a ruby-announce mailing list? And some features can be handled
differently, like ticket tracking can be done with Ditz instead of
using a web-based app. Hek, maybe the GitHub people would be willing
to brand a version of their software for an oss only RubyHub? It might
be a good way for them to drive more proprietary business to their
main site and it would rock (IMHO) for the Ruby community.

T.