Some thoughts:
Firstly; there is a serious financial cost to hosting something like this which is
probably why we aren't attempting it.
Secondly; It's actually an excellent idea to bring other open source projects and
software products in on our development process (as stakeholders) and it would give us
boatloads of handy analytical metrics for what customers are seeking / what aspects they
are utilising….
I don't know that we'll ever get to this place unless “sugardaddy shadowman”
grants us the both the financial means and a strategic green light for both infrastructure
and development time.
IMHO a central online ecosystem for templates would be the absolute best way to foster
community growth but there are more barriers than other tactics.
TL;DR
Something similar has being done, we can't afford / don't want to do it for
ourselves ….(yet)
Andy
On 08/06/2012, at 2:47 PM, Dan Macpherson wrote:
Hi guys,
I've been following the Aeolus Community Assessment conversation and I though I might
start a separate e-mail chain regarding an idea I had instead of railroading the original
conversation.
From what I saw of the original conversation, we're looking to build our community
and evangelize Aeolus' strengths.
It's also been questioned as whether we'd recommend using Aeolus in it's
current state in a production environment. This got me thinking... there's a
difference between what we'd recommend to users, and what they'll actually do. By
this, I mean that there might be a boffin or two somewhere who could devise some unique
uses for Aeolus that we've never even thought of. And I think that what some might
consider Aeolus's biggest weakness (it's still experimental) could end up being
its biggest strength (experimental is fun and exciting!).
My proposal
-----------
We develop our own (for lack of a better word) "Apps Store" -- a place when
users can share Image and Deployable templates for Aeolus, much along the same lines as
addons.mozilla.org or
extensions.gnome.org. And following these subdomain conventions, I
suggest...
templates.aeolusproject.org!
How it works
------------
A user writes an image template and deployable for a particular application. For example,
they might want to launch a base Drupal installation in EC2 using Fedora as an OS. So they
write an Image Template that includes the relevant Apache and Postgres packages. They also
write a Deployable Template that installs and configures Drupal (via Audrey) to an
instance with httpd/db.
Then the user thinks, "Hey, I bet there are others out there who want to install
Drupal in the cloud. Maybe I should share these templates with the world."
The user uploads the templates to
templates.aeolusproject.org, tags them as an Image
Template and Deployable Template respectively, and create an associates between the two
(basically a way of signifying a relationship between an image/deployable pair that works
well together).
So then, I want to create a Drupal site on a standalone instance in my own RHEV
environment.
I search
templates.aeolusproject.org and find someone has already created the templates I
need. Perfect. (Plus I could substitute the Image template for one with a different distro
if I prefer).
I use both these template in Aeolus and install Drupal on EC2. It works great!
I go back to
templates.aeolusproject.org and give the template author a 5-star rating.
Great job, everything went better than expected. Plus, the rating helps his Deployable
Template becomes TOTM (Template of the Month).
But I also leave a comment to say, "Hey, great templates, but I think you should
include a param in the deployable that allows a user to input a comma-separated list of
additional modules for their Drupal installation." This way I'm helping improve
the content of
templates.aeolusproject.org through feedback.
Benefits
--------
templates.aeolusproject.org does a couple of cool things:
1. Encourages people to join, contribute and collaborate to the Aeolus community
2. Encourages people to experiment with Aeolus and share their results
3. Helps new users wanting to learn more about TDL/Deployable XML
4. Provides users with a library of applications to launch into their cloud (and only
needing two XML files to do so)
5. Gives us a better idea of how people are using Aeolus so that we can enhance the
features they like and improve the features they don't like
These are very rough ideas that I've come up with in a day, so please forgive me if
they seem a little ill-thought. Regardless, I do think is an idea that can really enhance
the Aeolus Community and the project too. If anyone has an ideas, suggestions, drawbacks
or general comments, please share them.
Dan Macpherson
Content Author
Engineering Content Services
Red Hat Asia Pacific Pty Ltd
Brisbane, Australia
e: dmacpher(a)redhat.com