Stuff I've been working on
I’ve been working on expanding the use of Foswiki Applications and in the process began to build (using TML) a much more usable user interface for configuring and managing your Foswiki.
So – to the picture show 🙂
Many of these features already do work in Foswiki 1.0.4 – by installing FoswikiApplications Contrib, but they are a work in progress – and getting more advanced every week.
Foswiki 1.0.4 has been released with more than 100 bug fixes and some small enhancements. Upgrading is highly recommended. If you did not upgrade from TWiki yet, now is a good time as Foswiki 1.0.4 fixes more around 300 bugs relative to TWiki 4.2.4.
Grab it now from : http://foswiki.org/Download/WebHome – the straight and upgrade archives, OSX installer and my Windows Installers are here.
My debian package repository now spans Foswiki 1.0.4 and 168 Foswiki extensions – its never been easier to install 🙂
see http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian
Over the 4 months of our project’s existence, 33 developers have been involved in making ~3000 commits – next up, the future !
I’ve set up a debian repository that you can help test the release package before it gets uploaded into debian proper.
To try it out, add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian/ stable main contrib
deb-src http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian/ stable main contrib
and then run
gpg --keyserver the.earth.li --recv-keys 379393E0AAEE96F6
apt-key add /root/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
OR (if theearth.li doesn’t work for you)
wget http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian/FoswikiReleaseGpgKey.asc
apt-key add FoswikiReleaseGpgKey.asc
apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 foswiki
This repository contains about 281 (Apr2011) foswiki-extensions – auto updated nightly direct from foswiki.org. The packages have as many dependencies as I was able to coerce my build scripts to work out – but there is more work needed.
In just 10 weeks, the Foswiki project has re-built the project infrastructure, fixed an additional 100 bugs over and beyond those we fixed in the TWiki source repository before the fork, moved to a new web application architecture (FSA) and undertaken a detailed security audit, fixing at their roots a large number of potential exploits.
Windows installer, Debian packages including Extensions, OSX installer, Virtual machine.
In just 10 weeks, the Foswiki project has re-built the project infrastructure, fixed an additional 100 bugs over and beyond those we fixed in the TWiki source repository before the fork, moved to a new web application architecture (FSA) and undertaken a detailed security audit, fixing at their roots a large number of potential exploits.
Additionally, we already have the following easy installers:
So given the over 1800 commits in 10 weeks, a release, and much much more, It seems to me that Foswiki is a success..
Yesterday I uploaded the first Foswiki Installer for windows to Foswiki Downloads. It will install Apache 2.2 (if you don’t already have it) and Strawberry Perl and then configure and install Foswiki v1.0.0 beta 3.
On the 26th of December 2008, Kenneth built Foswiki v1.0 Beta 1, and then Foswiki v1.0 Beta 2 on the 28th. Since then we’ve been busy testing and fixing things that are side effects of the Secure by default policy we’ve instigated.
I’ll be releaseing a Windows installer using Apache 2.2 and Strawberry Perl when Beta 3 is released – we’re still working through some Windows oddities.
its pretty amazing what has been achieved in the 2 months since the project forked.
Happy new year, and a happy new Data Wiki release.
In a clear example of TWiki.NET’s new no-testing policy [1], Their star worker has yesterday un-necessarily uploaded over 300 plugins from the wrong branch in Subversion.
Rather than testing each contrib before uploading, as has been the policy on TWiki.org since the Plugins web was created, TWiki.org is now full of buggy, outdated or just plain wrong packages. The only stable option they have is to revert the uploads using rcs – as many plugins are either not up to date in subversion, or worse, are works in progress in Subversion.
Adding that to the latest TWiki 4.2.4 release, which was released with failing unit tests, and some very dubious changes:
we have already submitted to them an updated exploit that is present in 4.2.4 for the CVE-2008-5304 XSS exploit
– presumably they will release 4.2.5 in the next week?
Its a pretty sad time for those of us with users on TWiki (as Foswiki hasn’t released yet), but it has certainly spurred us along, now we need it more than we ever expected.
[1] Tom Barton: issues … impeding progress: an excessively rigorous approach to testing that actually inhibited less experienced developers from contributing code; …
if you’re working or just running Perl on Windows, drop everything, run, don’t walk, to StrawberryPerl. Adam Kennedy has not only made a real Perl for windows, he’s made a proper Perl . One where CPAN just plain works.
Even better, he’s made a Perl that you can use portably, from your USB stick, so you don’t even need to install Perl on your locked down computer.
To learn about his code, I’m building a FoswikiOnAStick distro based on his code, and then I hope to work out how to extend the concept to other platforms.
3 weeks into a fork compelled by the Trademark problems of the 10 year old TWiki name, and we’re almost fully reborn.
Foswiki – started out as Free, Open Source Wiki – When Community matters.
Next steps for us will be to create the Foswiki Association, and to release Foswiki v1.0 – all before Christmas 🙂
We might not yet have a name, but we’ve had over 100 commits per week, plus the 400 odd coming from my importing into our repository. The rebranding changes for the ****** v1.0 release have been declared 80% done, so the worst case estimate would see the other 80% take about 8 weeks :).
Our bug and task tracking system’s live, with connections to svn commits, twitters and lots and lots of activity both on irc and the Wiki – Its almost impossible to keep up with everything.