On 5/1/06, John Sisson <jrsisson@gmail.com> wrote:
> I noticed that the 1.1 console has the www.geronimoplugins.com site as a
> default value for the URL in the "Import/Export Configurations" page.
> This was introduced in  http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs?rev=394605&view=rev .
>
> I have a few questions:
>
> Was the plugin concept, site etc. discussed on the dev list?  I haven't
> been able to find much at all.

No, not really as such, more in little bits and pieces and discussions
at TSSJS and so on.  Though I think it was covered in some detail in
the vision and goals writeup.  I need to do a better job of describing
the plugin architecture, but I've been kind of holding off until it
gets out of the testing stages and I can put together a writeup with
some walkthroughs and so on.  But I'll send out some documentation on
it later today.

> Where is this site currently hosted?

Erin's currently donating the hosting.

> Will it be an ASF hosted site before the 1.1 release goes out?

No.  Among other things, it needs to be able to host non-ASL plugins,
including GPL, commercial, whatever.  We really need a central site
for *all* plugins, not separate places for ASL plugins and non-ASL
open source and non-open source plugins.

> Where is the source for the site?

The source for the plugins themselves is presently entirely in the
Geronimo SVN tree.  To make a configuration into a plugin, you just
need an extra XML descriptor, and the Geronimo packaging plugin has
hooks to insert that into CARs as they are built.  However, as new
plugins come in, it will no longer be the case that all the plugin
source is at Apache.

The source for the web site itself is on the site.  It's not open
source (e.g. the images are not redistributable as such), however,
we'd be glad to set up accounts for any Geronimo committers who want
to work on the site.  And the web site really isn't the important part
-- it just a way to navigate to the plugins themselves.

Bottom line, I feel strongly that we need a wide-ranging plugin
ecosystem, like many other plugin-based projects that come to mind,
and due to redistribution limitations it doesn't seem workable to host
it at Apache.  Our goal here is not to create a little fiefdom, but to
provide the widest possible set of plugins to the Geronimo community,
in an easy to reach fashion.

Thanks,
    Aaron