As some of you may be aware, Microsoft is nearing the launch of CodePlex, a site similar to sourceforge, but hosted by Microsoft, and using TFS behind the scenes.
There are numerous CSLA-related projects out there, some currently housed on gotdotnet (which probably has a limited future now that CodePlex is here), and others on people's servers, etc.
I wonder if it would make sense to create a single home for public CSLA-related projects like this? Perhaps a CSLA-contrib (like nant-contrib), or CSLA-eX (CSLA extensions) or ...? This could be hosted on CodePlex, and so would have bug tracking, forum and source control support hosted by Microsoft.
In no way am I pressuring people to give up control over projects or anything remotely like that. But I do want to have a conversation to see if this makes sense (or not), and if it does make sense how to proceed. I have the ear of the CodePlex team, and so am certain we can get a project set up there (it is moderated) if that is a desirable direction to go.
I hope CodePlex won't turn out to be as bad as GotDotNet. GotDotNet is a joke, I experience numerous problem with this site. The worst one when I was being identified as different user and locked out from accessing my own workspace for a few days.
Having one stop place for CSLA related contributed projects would be a great idea. I'd certainly move Csla Templates to this place.
Ricky
Well, my SafeDataRowReader and ObjectListView are open to all who ask. And if you ever think they are useful enough, feel free to email me about rolling them into the framework. Since I have not used GotDotNet much except to download stuff, how would the administration of our projects work?
From: Brian Criswell [mailto:cslanet@lhotka.net]
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 2:58 AM
To: rocky@lhotka.net
Subject: Re: [CSLA .NET] CSLA contributor site/location
RockfordLhotka:
In no way am I pressuring people to give up control over projects or anything remotely like that.
From: ajj3085 [mailto:cslanet@lhotka.net]
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 7:49 AM
To: rocky@lhotka.net
Subject: Re: [CSLA .NET] CSLA contributor site/locationIn no way am I pressuring people to give up control over projects or anything remotely like that.
If one were to contribute a project to that site, is that what would happen? Or am I misunderstanding?
Are the authors able to choose any license for their code they want?
I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not trying to co-opt other people's hard work, I'm just trying to help out by finding a visible home for these disparate efforts.
![Smile [:)]](/emoticons/emotion-1.gif)
Sounds interesting. I've already asked the question if anyone is interested in an NHibernate extension to the ProjectTracker example. CodePlex would seem like a good place to share this type of work.
I vote for CSLAContrib. It seems more in line with the open source style (e.g. NAntContrib, NHibernateContrib, etc.)
Another possibility is CSLA-COOP for cooperative, but it also could imply an "enclosure", a "house", a "collective".
Jav
I have started the process of setting up the CodePlex project under the name of CSLAcontrib. I am framing this as a "project of projects" - and we'll have to put in some thought to make the source control work for us in that capacity.
But before they'll set up the project we need to determine what license to use. Here's the information provided by the CodePlex team:
Please prepare a copy of the license you intend to use for your project on the CodePlex site. The CodePlex team cannot itself offer legal advice regarding the software you wish to make publicly available, only your own legal contacts are the appropriate advisers for that, but we can point out that there are many choices available on the Internet for licensing. Some of the more popular licenses are the following:
Microsoft Shared Source Licenses
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx
Microsoft Permissive License (MS-PL)
Microsoft Community License (MS-CL)
Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL)
The following sites provide some other possibilities:
http://creativecommons.org/license/ à Provides a wizard to help you choose which license is appropriate for your project.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/
I very much hope this doesn't lead to a big dogmatic discussion on the various merits of the various OSS licenses out there - that would be a huge waste of time. I think we need to identify a license that has the least possible constraints on the contributors and consumers of the CSLAcontrib project.
This is particularly true because some contributions might include code bits that are directly included in someone's business solution - and something like the GPL makes that difficult at times.
As far as I know, once we get the license sorted out we are ready to go!
Here is some more information from the CodePlex team on both the multi-project and license questions:
I should mention a few things that might help you and your CSLA team members come to some decisions:
1) You can create multiple projects on CodePlex that is not a problem, so please don’t feel any contstaints in that respect. There is ample opportunity to link different CSLA projects via the Wiki in each project, and this can be leveraged in powerful ways. Using RSS-linking between projects could also be very helpful. Also, we’ll be adding a feature in the near term where there will be the concept of linked groups that can be accessed from a single launch point ( I guess the rough equivalent is “Featured Groups” on GotDotNet’s CodeGallery).
2) The Creative Commons license wizard has been really helpful to people even if they don’t plan on using a Creative Commons license. It takes you through the logical considerations that need to be made about long-term distribution of your code base and presents scenarios that get you thinking about what you might want to do with it.
You may already be familiar with it, but just in case, here is the site: http://creativecommons.org/license/
Looking forward to having your project up on the site, there is a lot of excitement on the CodePlex team around this one.
I am gathering (by the resounding silence) that licensing is not an interesting topic ![Big Smile [:D]](/emoticons/emotion-2.gif)
So I propose this: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
The license basically grants people the right to do whatever they want with the stuff in CSLAcontrib, as long as the original author is attributed. It also provides as much legal "provided as-is" protection as we're likely to find with any license. It also means that the contributor retains ownership, but grants wide rights of use to the world.
Barring any nay votes within the next couple days, I propose we use this license and just roll forward?
Rocky,
I have actually been granting this right so I'm ok with granting user to do whatever they please with it.
The CodePlex site is now set up. I've also added a forum here specifically for CSLAcontrib discussions.
http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=CSLAcontrib
and
http://forums.lhotka.net/forums/8/ShowForum.aspx
CodePlex does have its own forum capability, but I'm nervous about using it, as it would mean managing two different forum locations and I fear it would confuse newcomers (and others even).
If you have a project (tool, customized class, data portal channel, whatever) that you'd like to put on CSLAcontrib please either post here or send me an email at rocky at lhotka dot net and I'll add you to the project as a developer. Before doing this make sure to sign on to CodePlex and provide me with your CodePlex username.
Thanks!
Hey Rocky,
forgive me if this has already been discussed, but will you be putting the source code for CSLA.NET in to this CodePlex site?
From: Gravy [mailto:cslanet@lhotka.net]
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 6:25 AM
To: rocky@lhotka.net
Subject: Re: [CSLA .NET] RE: CSLA contributor site/locationHey Rocky,
forgive me if this has already been discussed, but will you be putting the source code for CSLA.NET in to this CodePlex site?
RockfordLhotka:
The source code for CSLA .NET is available in various ways today:Anonymous cvs access is available as well
From: Fabio [mailto:cslanet@lhotka.net]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:06 AM
To: rocky@lhotka.net
Subject: Re: [CSLA .NET] RE: RE: CSLA contributor site/locationThe source code for CSLA .NET is available in various ways today:Anonymous cvs access is available as well
Sorry if i use this thread...
From few weeks i can't update CVS version..
cvs [update aborted]: authorization failed: server cvs.lhotka.net rejected access to /csla for user cslaanon
Which is the problem?
Thanks.
Fabio.
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