2.7 Exercise

What follows are notes on the first concrete round of Product Council activity - a review of incubated Sakai 2 tools in anticipation of 2.7.

In taking this approach there is a danger of getting off on the wrong foot by suggesting that the Product Council's primary function is simply gatekeeping for the release, rather than being stewards for an entire development life cycle (which is the intent). But it also seems to be the most pragmatic way to get started in trying to formulate clear guidelines and objective criteria.

Council Straw Poll

Member	Profile2	Conditional Release	Tiny URL	Comments
Nate Angell
Noah Botimer				Reducing friction against innovation is important - BLTI and CR offer strong extension opportunities and strategic value for the platform. Link shortening is important but a one-way door once used; want to be careful.
Eli Cochran
Michael Feldstein	?	?	?	The Profile2 thing should be resolvable with a call for some other institution to step up on maintenance. Not sure how to handle the TinyURL, but that strikes me as resolvable too. I agree with the proposal to include the conditional release service only, but I don't know if that makes the light bulb on or off.
Clay Fenlason				CR in with UI features disabled by default, Basic LTI still needs a help bundle, but that's traditionally handled during QA cycle. Need to know more about the extent of work required for Profile2 to not use TinyURLService.
David Goodrum			/	If PC requirements (based on community input and prior work) include appropriate levels of institutional commitment, documentation, maintenance, and so on, then this decision becomes pretty straight forward. All of these are projects I would want to see us encouraged and nutured. And any enhancements not getting out of incubation are still available to the community.
John Lewis
Stephen Marquard				CR: Service available, UI exposure off by default. Profile2 if independent of TinyURL. More exposure and discussion of TinyURL implications required.
John Norman				I agree with Clay, but think putting TinyURL in the next Kernel release means this should not get an "on" bulb. I wish I could say "on" for Profile2 and Basic LTI as I think both are ready and good things, but I want to get the community thinking about broad support at least until/unless we have a maintenance team to take such things on.
Max Whitney

Review Update

Updated Nov. 21, 2009

Site Stats:

Technical worksheet worked through by Nuno: Technical Elements and Interoperability - SiteStats Dry Run
Actively worked on by developers at two institutions (UFP and UPV).

GB2:

Technical Review worksheet: Technical Elements and Interoperability - Gradebook2 Dry Run
There is a potential licensing issue with ExT GWT that we need to get a legal opinion on. Nate was going to follow up on this, since he'd thought Chris C and Kirk had discussed it, but we still need confirmation. Amateur opinions seem divided.
GB2 does not yet have online help content, though Kirk claims there is an agreement with rSmart for them to supply this.
Development has been carried out by only one institution (UCDavis), and while there are others ready to assist (Georgia Tech, rSmart) it's not clear how well they'll be able to do so. Georgia Tech, for example, has no experience with GWT.
mail list discussion re. the licensing issue

Profile2:

Technical Review worksheet filled out by Steve: Technical Elements and Interoperability - Profile2 Dry Run
A first look suggests a shortage of maintenance resource may be a concern. Patches have already been contributed by Texas State and LOI. Steve has documented production plans of various institutions.

Conditional Release:

Technical Review worksheet filled out by Zach: Technical Elements and Interoperability - Conditional Release Dry Run
A help bundle for user documentation is needed.
The capability without broader tool participation is worrisome for the UX. It may be that the right first step is to focus on getting the service into a kernel release, with documentation for how other tools may take advantage of it.
Produced by contracted development, which may be concerning for a maintenance plan. Zach has however agreed to help maintain it indefinitely, Georgia Tech is also familiar with the code and prepared to help maintain it, while Rutgers sponsored the work to prepare it for 2.7, and is also presumably prepared to work on patches.

Basic LTI:

Technical worksheet filled out by Noah: Technical Elements and Interoperability - Basic LTI Dry Run
A help bundle for user documentation is needed.
Development and maintenance is happening at only a single institution - Michigan.

TinyUrlService:

Technical worksheet filled out by Steve: Technical Elements and Interoperability - TinyUrlService Dry Run.
Development/maintenance by a single developer, though admittedly a rather small and lightweight service.

Categories of Review

As a reference, see work that emerged from the Scorecard discussions. We borrowed some of those categories to help subdivide our effort by area of expertise.

Technical Elements and Interoperability
- Former user (Deleted) and Max Whitney
- Technical Elements and Interoperability Worksheet and a first cut of answers for GB2:
Interaction, Visual Design, i18n and Accessibility
- Eli Cochran
Documentation and Community Support
- Clay, Michael Feldstein, David Goodrum