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Re: [school-discuss] appindex?



Michael Shigorin wrote:

On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 11:44:34AM -0500, Doug Loss wrote:


Sorry-sorry-sorry, I must go help AppIndex if I've got that much
free time to type things in! (actually, not that much even)


Funny you should mention that...



Not that funny, remembering how often it helped *me* some four
years ago or so. Having looked over it a bit, couldn't remember
what would be missing there -- everything related I maintain or
have subscribed to at freshmeat seems in place.


It's not so much what's missing (although I suspect much is) as bad links in some records, maintainers who are no longer with the project, etc.



The AppIndex is badly maintained these days (entirely my fault)



Why fault? It's working and it has the information. Getting an
initial base and infrastructure is far more painful than getting
worthy educational apps there as they arrive (it's not my main
interest these days but still eye-catching enough).


As I said above, plus the categories (which I basically made up) don't seem well-selected. They categories should be redone, and the database reindexed accordingly.



and needs someone to keep up on it. Les Richardson has done
what he could when he could, but it's not enough. We have some
ideas on how to fix things, but no one to do them. Are you
interested in this, Michael? Or anyone else, for that matter.



I'd gladly like to, but taking on just as much projects as can
handle efficiently is not my strongest part already. Still at
the office, and it's not unusual.


I certainly can identify with that! :)

*Maybe* and article on Freshmeat would be worth it: there's
similar audience regarding "software announces/catalogue"
although wider in interests. Combining what's there, what needs
fixing and how it's implemented at the moment ("a set of Perl
CGIs") could help find a new maintainer (or team for good).


That's one of the long-term goals for the AppIndex, to take a feed from FreshMeat of info about the various packages so we won't have to maintain them separately. That's where we need some help!

Also forwarding the message to local edu lists -- although
that's kind of slippery on my side...



We'll take any help we can get. Once things are properly setup, I think the maintenance shouldn't be that time-consuming.

Doug