[Zope-dev] re: Open Source design competition

[gvwilson@nevex.com]

Hi, everyone.  I got word last Saturday that the U.S. Department of Energy
is giving me an $860,000 grant to produce a new generation of Open Source
software engineering tools in Python. The project's long-term objective is
to encourage scientists and engineers to treat programs in the same way as
they do other experiments, i.e. to calibrate, test, peer review, and so
on.  My feeling is that if we can make good practice accessible to
scientists and engineers, we'll also have made it more accessible to
professional programmers, computer science students, and everyone else.

To kick-start things, we're going to be holding a two-round design
competition.  Anyone (individual or team, professional or student) can
submit a short entry for the first round; the judges will pick four
candidates to go forward in each of four categories, and those individuals
or teams will be asked to submit full entries. The four categories are:

* an issue tracking system to replace Gnats and Bugzilla;

* a build system to replace make;

* a platform inspection and configuration system to replace autoconf;
  and

* a testing framework to replace XUnit, Expect, and DejaGnu.

The official announcement of the project's start will be on January 14. By
that time, I'd like to have a Zope-based web site for the project up and
running, capable of handling FAQs, discussions, mailing lists,
submissions, check-ins, and everything else.  I'm looking for volunteers
to help set it up, since I'm going to have to work flat out to write the
content.  I think it will be great publicity for Zope, and the site will
of course include links to the home pages of its creators and maintainers.

If you're interested in helping out, please contact 'gvwilson@nevex.com',
and include a link to a Zope-based site that you've already built.

I look forward to seeing you at IPC8 in January,
Greg

p.s. while I would be grateful if you could let people know about the
project, I'd also be grateful if you wouldn't broadcast the news before
the web site comes up on January 14.