ScriptRepo
Perhaps I’m overthinking this…
I went into the new design of ScriptRepo thinking that it would be awesome if scripts authors could ‘maintain’ their own scripts. Update it as needed. Listen to comments. That sort of thing. However, as I’ve been looking at this, I’ve been rapidly getting the impression that I am mistaken. Typically scripts appear to be written as an as-needed basis and then shared with the world from time to time. That said, perhaps I need to reevaluate my script handling scenario back to a similar method in which the old site operates… that being, you submit your scripts via some form and then the scriptrepo maintainers look it over and commit it. This, I believe, is what I am likely going to set up.
In my previous design, a person would create an account and then “create a script project” similar to how one might do things on sourceforge or something of that nature. Future updates could be done by the author themselves.
I don’t want to implement both designs, that’s likely to end up a waste of my time and more importantly, hold up the new scriptrepo site even longer.
Instead, I will go with the different “submit and get approved” philosophy. This is actually similar, but not exactly the same as, the way that the Jabber Software Map is handled. This will actually create a lot more leeway in things like… what if someone comes along and updates someone else’s script? In this scenario, they simply submit the new version as an “update” to the old one, and it gets approved like anything else.
I want this to be as painless on submitters as possible. I will provide a lot of fields for describing a script and such as I had planned out, but I will not force them. At the end of the day, if someone want to submit a script, all they will -really- have to do is upload the file like they would any other web form.
Will I enlist others to help with submissions and such? If folk are interested, then likely at some point. At first, no. I will want to observe how the site works in practice and work out and kinks I hadn’t thought of. If anyone is interested in helping with the site at some point, though, let me know and I’ll keep you in mind. =)
Anyway, it’s actually going to be a bit of a relief to not end up doing the “author owns their stuff” parts. That brings up the question, however, of… why bother allowing folk to create accounts? Well, that’s sort of a good question. That part is already implemented. (dooh) Anyone have any thoughts on this? I mean I’ll need a way for admins (me… whoever else in the future) to log in to do administrative tasks. Other than that.. what’s the point of having an account? Well, I won’t wipe the code for that until I’m sure there is or is not a reason to have it.
Scriptrepo, cont.
Ah plans don’t always come out as they seem, do they? I think I’m going to vow to stop giving any sort of time frame on anything I do. Life often defeats timeframes. In a lot of cases, the conflicting life = work. 
No matter, just I need to learn to stop saying “I’ll probably have this out by Monday”.
That said, the new ScriptRepo is not done. I have, however, put up a link to the old script repo stuff at the new site (http://scriptrepo.blathersource.org) for folk to get access to in the mean time. Hopefully I’ll get some time to work on it here soon. I’m quite excited about it. =)
So I’ve gotten a lot of questions as to what ScriptRepo is. Much to my surprise, not many knew of it. What it is is a repository of various scripts that folk have written that relate to Jabber. This includes init scripts for various servers, monitoring scripts, migration scripts from one jabber server to another, all kinds of things. Often folk write wonderfully helpful shell scripts and such and wouldn’t really justify creating an entire project somewhere to house it, so this fills that need.
The new site will basically allow folk to upload their own scripts and update them on the fly as they see fit. I’m thinking about incorporating some sort of tutorials and such ‘amongst the scripts’. For example, there might not be a script to migrate from, say, jabberd2 to ejabberd. However, there might be a script to migrate from jabberd2 to jabberd1, and then another to migrate from jabberd1 to ejabberd. So I wanted to incorporate some way to show stuff like that amongst the scripts so you only really have one place to look.
ScriptRepo coming along
Well, this is taking longer than I expected. I’ve got old stuff copied over and have gotten a good deal of the new interface worked out. Have a batch of other things to add and need to import the old scripts over. Then I will try to contact the original authors and “own them” their own scripts. Anyway, I’m ceasing work on the new site today and will pick it up tomorrow.
Come hell or high water . . .
I will have scriptrepo moved to blathersource today. The new location will be http://scriptrepo.blathersource.org/. It’s dead on jabberstudio, and you know what, I don’t really care. It just means I’m moving the site quicker than I expected. I’ll post something on the various lists once it’s moved and ready.