[DDI-users] A "home" for the DDI

Richard C. Rockwell ddi-users@icpsr.umich.edu
Fri, 18 Jul 2003 13:56:46 -0400


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This would be a good topic for the Alliance Expert Committee to discuss 
when it meets in Ann Arbor in October. The Alliance Charter is modeled on 
that of the W3C and includes some very specific steps that must be taken 
whenever a change is suggested.  Thus, we don't really anticipate seeing a 
massive number of changes but instead a small number of larger changes. 
Also, I would hate to see an already-overworked DDI staff take on a task 
that may not yet be central to our work, although I agree that version 
control is important.  Note that in the future we hope to have ISO 
recognition of the DDI.

At 05:02 PM 7/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>One very good future goal on the site:
>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/codebook/future.html
>
>*Identifying an ultimate "home" for the DTD where it will be maintained 
>and revised when necessary*
>
>I think getting the DDI under CVS control is critical to establishing a 
>stable location for it. CVS versioning is critical to both tracking 
>changes and accessing previous revisions.
>
>sourceforge.org is a free, stable, version controlled location to house 
>such content with $0 expense and minimal management overhead. Sourceforge 
>provides a large number of free services as well for group mailing lists, 
>feature requests, bug tracking etc to enhance the groups envolvement.
>
>It would be relatively simple to get a sourceforge site up to hold the DDI 
>DTD's, Schemas and related tools in such a fashion that a small group of 
>core Alliance developers/members could easily manage version control and 
>development independent of its "deployed" state on the ICPSR site.
>
>Also, by exposing both the "development" and current published versions, 
>we would create a "transparent" development environment where all 
>interested alliance partners can respond easily and influence the 
>advancement of the DDI at a development level as an OpsenSource project. 
>It is possible then that group members can and even provide patches of 
>changes that can be reviewed by the core team and applied to the cvs 
>copies directly. Alliance members who are very interested in 
>development  could be "voted" in to have cvs committer rights on the site 
>similar to the strategy used by the Apache Foundation.
>
>http://jakarta.apache.org/site/roles.html
>
>Having worked in CVS systems quite a bit for both the Virtual Data Center 
>project at HMDC and also for Apache Foundation projects, I have observed 
>how strong the influence of simply having shared CVS version control can 
>have on community involvement.
>
>I think such a transparent centralized location would really be very 
>critical to the future of the DDI. I have a couple sourceforge projects 
>going at this point, and I would be glad to lend a hand in the 
>establishment of a DDI Project on the sourceforge site.
>
>-Mark Diggory
>Harvard MIT Data Center
>
>_______________________________________________
>DDI-users mailing list
>DDI-users@icpsr.umich.edu
>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-users

--------------------------------------
Richard C. ROCKWELL
Executive Director, The Roper Center &
Institute for Social Inquiry
Professor of Sociology
University of Connecticut
341 Mansfield Road, U-164
Storrs, CT 06269-1164  USA
V +1 860 486-4440
F +1 860 486-6308
Richard.Rockwell@uconn.edu
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<html>
<font size=3>This would be a good topic for the Alliance Expert Committee
to discuss when it meets in Ann Arbor in October. The Alliance Charter is
modeled on that of the W3C and includes some very specific steps that
must be taken whenever a change is suggested.&nbsp; Thus, we don't really
anticipate seeing a massive number of changes but instead a small number
of larger changes. Also, I would hate to see an already-overworked DDI
staff take on a task that may not yet be central to our work, although I
agree that version control is important.&nbsp; Note that in the future we
hope to have ISO recognition of the DDI.<br><br>
At 05:02 PM 7/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>One very good future goal on the
site:<br>
<a href="http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/codebook/future.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/codebook/future.html</a><br><br>
*Identifying an ultimate &quot;home&quot; for the DTD where it will be
maintained and revised when necessary*<br><br>
I think getting the DDI under CVS control is critical to establishing a
stable location for it. CVS versioning is critical to both tracking
changes and accessing previous revisions.<br><br>
sourceforge.org is a free, stable, version controlled location to house
such content with $0 expense and minimal management overhead. Sourceforge
provides a large number of free services as well for group mailing lists,
feature requests, bug tracking etc to enhance the groups
envolvement.<br><br>
It would be relatively simple to get a sourceforge site up to hold the
DDI DTD's, Schemas and related tools in such a fashion that a small group
of core Alliance developers/members could easily manage version control
and development independent of its &quot;deployed&quot; state on the
ICPSR site.<br><br>
Also, by exposing both the &quot;development&quot; and current published
versions, we would create a &quot;transparent&quot; development
environment where all interested alliance partners can respond easily and
influence the advancement of the DDI at a development level as an
OpsenSource project. It is possible then that group members can and even
provide patches of changes that can be reviewed by the core team and
applied to the cvs copies directly. Alliance members who are very
interested in development&nbsp; could be &quot;voted&quot; in to have cvs
committer rights on the site similar to the strategy used by the Apache
Foundation.<br><br>
<a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/roles.html" eudora="autourl">http://jakarta.apache.org/site/roles.html</a><br><br>
Having worked in CVS systems quite a bit for both the Virtual Data Center
project at HMDC and also for Apache Foundation projects, I have observed
how strong the influence of simply having shared CVS version control can
have on community involvement.<br><br>
I think such a transparent centralized location would really be very
critical to the future of the DDI. I have a couple sourceforge projects
going at this point, and I would be glad to lend a hand in the
establishment of a DDI Project on the sourceforge site.<br><br>
-Mark Diggory<br>
Harvard MIT Data Center<br><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
DDI-users mailing list<br>
DDI-users@icpsr.umich.edu<br>
<a href="http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-users" eudora="autourl">http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-users</a><br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
--------------------------------------<br>
Richard C. ROCKWELL<br>
Executive Director, The Roper Center &amp; <br>
Institute for Social Inquiry<br>
Professor of Sociology<br>
University of Connecticut<br>
341 Mansfield Road, U-164<br>
Storrs, CT 06269-1164&nbsp; USA<br>
V +1 860 486-4440<br>
F +1 860 486-6308<br>
Richard.Rockwell@uconn.edu</font></html>

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