Re: Status of project?

[boud]

hi david,

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006, David Christie wrote:

> Hi,

> I'm a new subscriber to this list. I noticed this interesting
> project because I have owned the domain name samizdat.org for many

There's also http://www.samizdat.net/ which has been running as a
French-language alternative press for many years. It has no relation
to the samizdat software package.

> years, and coincidentally, my own work (unpublished as yet) also has
> something to do with RDF. It's a small world to be sure -- great
> minds must think alike. What are the odds against two RDF-based
> software projects named samizdat?

> I note there doesn't seem to be a list archive yet for 2006 -- has
> there been any list activity in 2006? And is your project still
> active, or kind of dormant?

At least two groups in ex-USSR countries are using samizdat - their
websites are here:

http://belarus.indymedia.org
http://ukraine.indymedia.org

and people in the town i live in (Torun in Poland) are likely to use
the software as well.

i'm probably (at least at the start) going to be the most active 
developer for the torun group, though of course this does worry me 
a bit. However, with the package being properly debianised and distributed,
this is probably a good argument in favour of it being robust, low
maintenance, and able to grow quickly in the user community once it
is seen to be useful and effective.  Exponential growth from a small
number is better than linear (followed by saturation) growth from a large
number...

Offhand, a couple of the things i dream of adding include:

- inclusion of RDF feeds (as opposed to just production of RDF feeds; 
maybe this is already in the present package - but i haven't found out
how to do it yet)

- graphical representations of the networking among nodes (themes/focuses)
(AFAIK, free software SVG graphics tools for browsers and outside of 
browsers are still not standard/user friendly etc. yet, but it's hard
to believe that no easy hacks are available)

- i'd like to know how easy the wiki aspect can be developed to become
as user-friendly as mediawiki


> I had intended to use the name "samizdat" in connection with an open
> source release eventually, but I don't want to create confusion
> between two unrelated projects. On the other hand, it seems to me
> they are distantly related by their subject matter.

BTW: this nongnu project is not just open source - it's free software, 
protected under the GPL.

cheers
boud