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GLEP: 30
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Title: "Planet Gentoo" web log aggregator
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Version: $Revision: 1.4 $
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Last-Modified: $Date: 2005/03/11 14:18:17 $
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Author: Daniel Drake <dsd@gentoo.org>
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Status: Final
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Type: Standards Track
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Content-Type: text/x-rst
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Created: 24-Oct-2004
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Post-History: 25-Oct-2004, 10-Nov-2004, 11-Mar-2005
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Status
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======
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The new `Planet Gentoo`_ came online 10-Mar-2005, so this GLEP is now Final.
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.. _Planet Gentoo: http://planet.gentoo.org/
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Credits
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=======
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- `Stuart Herbert`_ for the original idea
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- `Alexander Plank`_ who also has put effort into promoting this
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Abstract
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========
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This GLEP proposes the creation of "Planet Gentoo", a new section of the
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gentoo.org website. It would aggregate weblogs (commonly known as "blogs")
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written by contributing Gentoo developers onto this single page, available to
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the public. I will refer to this new website section as "the planet" in this
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GLEP.
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We would also provide an installation of a weblog engine for developers that
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do not currently have their own weblog.
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Motivation
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==========
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I'm trying to reduce the gap between the Gentoo user and development
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communities.
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Many large open source projects and software distributors have their own
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Planet where contributors weblogs are aggregated. See the `Planetplanet`_
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homepage for a complete listing. These other aggregations appear to be
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successful and bring their relevant communities together.
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These aggregations are often quite interesting to read, since they contain a
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variation of topics, not all of which are related to the project.
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The planet would add another method of user interaction with developers, as
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most weblogs allow readers to post comments.
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Readers would get more interested in the Gentoo project, and would get a feel
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for the personalities of the contributing developers. Although I am not
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suggesting this should be used as an announcement tool, developers could also
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use this to get general messages over to the user community.
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This would also benefit our development, as developers would also be able to
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keep track of what other developers are working on and promote more
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collaboration amongst each other.
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Specification
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=============
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The proposed design is an installation of `Planetplanet`_ at a part of the
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gentoo.org infrastructure, e.g. http://planet.gentoo.org
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We would also provide an installation of `Wordpress`_ or a similar weblogging
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engine, for developers that do not have their own weblog or would wish to
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move their log to an official Gentoo hosted website. This could be provided
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at (e.g.) http://weblogs.gentoo.org
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Rationale
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=========
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`Planetplanet`_ is simply a weblog aggregator written in python. It is
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executed as a cronjob and fetches content from all the weblogs it has been
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asked to, postprocesses and aggregates them into a single html file (based on
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a template), and outputs that html content to an area provided by a webserver.
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This should allow for ease of integration with any existing infrastructure.
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Planetplanet is configurable through a single configuration file, which lists
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the log feed URL, real name and user name for each contributing developer.
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`Wordpress`_ is a weblogging engine written in PHP. It relies on MySQL for
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the data store. After the initial setup, all configuration is done through a
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web-based interface.
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A group of people would be assigned the responsibility/CVS access to maintain
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these two services. I would suggest the existing infrastructure team to have
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this responsibility. If required, I will assist with the initial
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configuration.
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The planetplanet installation would fetch and aggregate developers weblogs
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only, we would not accept non-developer logs.
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Developers do not have to host their weblogs with us, practically all blogging
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packages provide an XML feed (typically RSS) which planetplanet will happily
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fetch and process. Other feed formats are also accepted, examine the
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planetplanet documentation for more info.
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In the event of a contributing Gentoo developer leaving the project, their log
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would be removed from the aggregation. If their log was hosted by ourselves,
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it would be closed. For this reason, some developers may choose to host their
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log elsewhere - this is not a problem and is left to the decision of the
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individual developers.
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It is true that the addition of the planet to our website collection would add
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yet another source of Gentoo information to our collection; our users and
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developers are already overwhelmed with IRC, mailing lists, forums, and the
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central website. In contrast, a lot of information is currently replicated
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over those mediums, but the planet would provide a taste of something new.
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Developers can choose their own topics and are free to write about things that
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perhaps would not fit into our existing communication mediums. Additionally,
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the planet will attempt to bring some existing content together by linking to
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recent commits, bug lists, and dev.gentoo.org webspace for each contributing
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developer.
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It has been suggested that the activity of the planet may be an issue:
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although a lot of activity would make the planet very successful, it may look
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bad on us as a whole if the planet is inactive.
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`Alexander Plank`_ started a `gentoo-dev discussion`_ back in August regarding
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this exact idea. Alexander set up a `Planet Gentoo mini-survey`_ to see which
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developers have weblogs or would be interested in obtaining one to be
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aggregated on the planet. At the time of writing, the survey yielded a list
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of 21 interested developers.
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Looking at the other planets available, a contributor count like this would be
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more than enough to keep the planet active and interesting. Through my
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experiments of finding developers existing weblogs through google and
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aggregating them on my local Planetplanet installation, I have come to the
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conclusion that just a small quantity of active weblogs is enough to keep the
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planet going strongly.
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I also note that the list of 21 interested developers was built up over a
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short space of time, and it was only mentioned once in a rather large thread
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on the gentoo-dev mailing list. I predict that given more publicity amongst
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the developers, this idea would be even more popular. I also predict that if
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such a planet were to go live, other developers would be motivated to join in,
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and new developers joining the project would be keen on contributing.
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The success of the planet will be evaluated by examining the number of hits to
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the planet. 3 months after launch, one weeks worth of logs will be recorded,
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and hits will be counted. If the hit count for that week is below 1000, the
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planet will be deemed as not having met its target, and appropriate action can
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be taken if the planet appears to be harming our image.
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Backwards Compatibility
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=======================
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No issues.
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Reference Implementation
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========================
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See `Bug 63160`_ for a template file mimicking the current gentoo.org design
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plus a sample config file.
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References
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==========
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.. _Stuart Herbert: stuart@gentoo.org
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.. _Alexander Plank: alexander@gentoo.org
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.. _Planetplanet: http://www.planetplanet.org
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.. _Wordpress: http://packages.gentoo.org/package/wordpress
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.. _gentoo-dev discussion: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/20480
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.. _Planet Gentoo mini-survey: http://penguincluster.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/BlogInterest
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.. _Bug 63160: http://bugs.gentoo.org/63160
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Copyright
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=========
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This document has been placed in the public domain.
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