RTx::Foundry - Base classes for the RT Foundry system
This document describes version 0.01 of RTx::Foundry, released March 28, 2004.
Not at the moment. See http://rt.openfoundry.org/ for a demo.
Currently, the only way to install RT Foundry is from the ports files in http://rt.openfoundry.org/Foundry/Project/Download/?Queue=OpenFoundry, which requires a FreeBSD system to run on.
The RT Foundry project is the code behind Taiwan's OSSF initiative, as part of the Free Software Promotion Project, executed by the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica (IIS).
This is a very rough outline. More information will be translated from Chinese in due time.
What is "RT Foundry"?
- Decentralized development environment - Modular services - VCS, tracker, listserv... - Multi-modal workspaces - Web, email, irc... - Loosely connected - REST, multi-host, cross-foundry support... - Like sf.net/collab.net, but *not* monolithic
Monolithic design - Why not?
- Hard to maintain - No reusable parts - Single method of access - Single point of failure - Difficult to integrate with existing process
Neat things about RT Foundry
- Free software under GPL / Artistic license - Based on mature projects - Perl, Apache, OpenSSH, PAM, RT, Sympa, CVS, Mason... - ...and "emerging technologies" - Subversion, Kwiki, VCP, Mech, REST, RDF... - Easy to hook up other services - even across machines
Metadata
- Based on DBIx::SearchBuilder - Supports MySQL, PostgresSQL, Oracle, Sybase... - Users - Contact info - Privacy settings - Projects - Planned and actual releases - DSLIP: maturity/support/license/interface/language... - Groups - Project admin and members - Object admin and watchers
Revision control
- Based on SVN/Perl - Public CVS interfaces - Import vendor sources - CVS - Subversion - Perforce - SourceSafe (untested) - Smoke tests and snapshots - Cross-repository support with SVK
Issue tracking
- Based on RT3 - Owner, Requestor, Cc, AdminCc... - Types - Defect, Patch, Task, Feature, Enhancement... - Global custom-fields - Status, Resolution, Priority... - Project-specific fields - Component, Version, UserDefined...
Forum and mailing list
- Based on Sympa - Customizable TT2 templates - PGP and attachments support - Web interfaces also serve as forums - Web-post support - Shared folders and files
Documentation and news
- Based on Kwiki - Page-specific read/write policy - Revision-controlled pages - Track modification times and diffs - Allow imports from remote text documents - May be checked-out as SVN/CVS repositories - Generate "project blogs" automatically
Statistic reports
- Based on RTx::Report and DBIx::ReportBuilder - Supports all major GD::Graph flavours - Flexible Join, Limit and OrderBy support - Handles multiple metadata sources - Exports XML, HTML, SXW, PDF, MSWord
Web
- Based on RTx::Foundry and RTx::TabbedUI - Unified interface to remote services - Internationalized and multilingual - Tabbed look and feel derived from GForge - Accessible and friendly to text-only browsers
Email
- Based on RT's mailgate and scrips - All transactions can send notifications - Users can sign up as project/issue watchers - Add correspondence and comments via email - Eventually allow PGP-signed commands
Command line
- Based on RT's bin/rt tool - Just another REST client - Soon will become Net::RT::Shell - Full manipulation of all core objects
IRC
- Newsbot: report new events and issues - Blogbot: add news posts for users - Logbot: record meetings into Wiki pages - Infobot: find people, leave message, display RSS feeds
Other possible interfaces
- Separate views in individual services - Curses/Tk/Gtk/Qt/XUL based frontends - BBS gateway via OurNet::BBS - NNTP gateway
Authentication
- Based on PAM and RT::ACL - Role-based rights - Each object has its own ACL table - Delegable rights for users and groups - REST API for permission query - Single sign-on - e.g. for authenticating CVS commits
Web "scwrapping"
- Based on WWW::Mechanize and Template::Extract - Use persistent "agents" to proxy for users - Incorporate remote pages into local display - An easy way to add new services - Example: repository viewer backends - SVN::Web - CVSWeb - P4Web
RDF resources
- RSS feeds with parameters - "new tickets in the past 5 days for project foo" - "3 most recent CVS/SVN commits" - Fetch and aggregate remote RDF resources - Remote project metadata - Remote member profiles - All objects and transactions should become URNs
REST interface
- Web objects will have equivalent REST endpoints: /REST/1.0/ticket/10/attachment/1 - Accessible with command line utility: rt ls tickets -i "Priority > 5" | rt edit - set status=resolved - Published WSDL definition - Easily manipulatable with scripting languages - .NET and J2EE compatible
Current status
- Alpha testing on rt.openfoundry.org - Self-hosting with 10+ project members - Separate components released on CPAN - RTx::Foundry - RTx::TabbedUI - RTx::Report - FreeBSD port (www/rtfoundry/) imminent
Future Plans
- Offline operation with RT3.2 and SVK - GUID-based RDF interfaces - Decentralized file distribution mechanisms - Integration with rt.cpan.org and other CPAN services - Web UIs should be in XHTML and skinnable via CSS - Patches welcome!
RTx::Foundry Demo: http://rt.openfoundry.org/
OSSF Website: http://www.openfoundry.org/en/
RT: http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/
Subversion: http://subversion.tigris.org/
SVK: http://svk.elixus.org/
Kwiki: http://www.kwiki.org/
Sympa: http://www.sympa.org/
This project is sponsored by: Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
Implemented by: OurInternet, Inc.
Based on works contributed by: 104 Technology, Inc.
In collaboration with: Best Practical Solutions, LLC.
Copyright 2004 by Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
(Except where explicitly superseded by other copyright notices)
This work is made available to you under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public License. A copy of that license should have been provided with this software, but in any event can be snarfed from www.gnu.org.
This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
To install RTx::Foundry, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm RTx::Foundry
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install RTx::Foundry
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.