On 2004 Aug 12 , at 14.37, Malcolm J. Currie wrote:

>> We don't want to let the autoconf fortran patches stagnate because the
>> developer can't get to them. We also don't want to prevent Tony
>> Farrell
>> from working on and testing the OSX port.
>
> We are going to provide CVS and wiki access to the AAO programmers.
> I spoke to DUncan about thi yesterday.

The autoconfing-fortran guy at Cambridge does now have his account --
Steve created it a week or so ago -- but I haven't yet brought that up
to date with the last patches he sent me, so that's still a little up
in the air right now.

>>> 3. At present, you need a username in order to report bugs in
>>> bugzilla (yes?).  That's probably no good -- can we change that?
>
> I wasn't happy with the Bugzilla remark in the Bulletin, since no
> details are given and we currently don't support external access.
> Yes it's in the plans, but still users should email bugs or ussc.

Tim mentioned that you can create a bugzilla account easily enough, and
use that when you're reporting bugs.  That seems to be the pattern in
other projects' bugzillas, so it sounds as if we can live with that.

I think it's OK for there to be few details in the bulletin, as long as
the dev.starlink page, which is mentioned reasonably prominently (isn't
it?), gives adequately friendly instructions, hence the need for some
fairly systematic review of that page.

>>>     * What should the lists be called?  For definiteness, how about
>>>       [log in to unmask] for the main one?
>>>
>>
>> Fine.
>
> Leaving scope for dev-<blah> for more specialised discussion.

Good

Tim:
>>     * Perhaps Brad's starlink-osx list might be more appropriately
>>       hosted at RAL.
>
> Yes, I'm okay with that. We needed to get something up-and-running.
> We also have the "announce" list.

[log in to unmask] fits in with the emerging pattern.

I think I've forgotten about the announce list.  If that's mentioned on
the web pages, I didn't manage to trip over it

>>> 5. How does a user (and indeed those of us with poor memories) find
>>> out the `owner' of a software component, to work out whom to
>>> talk to about fixes?
> [...]
> Names/email addresses could go on the web-based indexes like
> http://www.starlink.rl.ac.uk/static_www/soft2_ALS.html.  I believe that
> these are produced automatically, so it might be a question of listing
> the support people in the Makefile or whatever Steve uses to generate
> these indexes.  Note that these pages do have links to the package
> support pages, and are accessible from the home page via Software ->
> List software by function.

Turning the component.xml <developer> entries into web pages would just
require a bit of XSLT.

>  I do want to revamp and update many of the web pages.

That would be a good idea -- a few of the web pages look a bit
out-of-date, now I come to look at them, with mentions of the Autumn
2002 release, for example.

How do you maintain the web pages?  It occurs to me that it might be
worth using (a branch of) the wiki as the main web pages.  It needn't
appear like a wiki, with suitable RewriteRules in the web server, and
should make it pretty easy to maintain the consistent look.  Since this
wiki is one which supports [[link text][WikiName]], you wouldn't need
to have all the links in camel-case either.

All the best,

Norman


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Gray  :  Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow University, UK
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/  :  www.starlink.ac.uk