Deployment Source Code Repository (mSub)

Overview

mSub (or massively-inclusive Subversion) was implemented to provide each Sakai Partner organization with a common, shared space in which to keep a copy of their local Sakai implementation or implementations, a deployment source code repository. This approach offers a number of advantages to both the organization itself and the community as a whole:

  • easier to manage local customizations
  • easier to share production code with other organizations
  • easier to compare customizations across organizations looking for important trends
  • easier to contribute production-tested code, bug fixes, or customizations back to the community repository for inclusion in future releases

Thanks to Indiana University for hosting mSub as part of the existing Sakai SVN repository.

Requirements and Rules for Use

  • Currently mSub is only available to Sakai Partner organizations. (Join!)
  • Organizations and employees needing commit access must first complete Sakai contribution licensing agreements
  • No confidential or non-public code or data is permitted.
  • All msub directories will be anonymous read-only.

Requests for Directories and Commit Access

Jira, our issue tracking sysytem is used to manage mSub requests. There is a mSub project in Jira, and you can create "Directory Request" and "Commit Request" type issue to obtain an mSub directory and add/remove committers for it.

Organization of mSub Directories

The deployment source code repository is organized under a "msub" directory at the top-level of the current Sakai Subversion repository. Organizations have read-write access to a sub-directory named for their 2nd-level domain name; everyone has read-only access. Within that sub-directory are additional directories named for the organization's Sakai implementation (or implementations). For example:

  • msub
    • berkeley.edu
      • bspace
    • columbia.edu
      • courseworks
    • umich.edu
      • ctools
    • uct.ac.za
      • vula
    • ucdavis.edu
      • smartsite
      • mycourses
      • cere

Best Practices

Question to the community: _What do you put in your mSub diretory and how do organize and maintain it? (See David Roldán Martínez's email thread from 02-June-2009.)

mSub at the University of Western Ontario