Regarding where to migrate to: GitHub currently seems to me to be the standard for open source software projects. Some (including myself) are wary of it however, since it is part of Big Tech, being a subsidiary of Microsoft. The primary competitor that I know is GitLab and I think it would be worthwhile to compare the two.
A choice between the two should depend on their features, but also on our ideological preferences.
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I remember that @boercher hesitated whether we should 'put all our eggs in one basket', so having forum, documentation and code at the same place. Such 'monolithic' (not sure if this is the right word) set-ups can provide an efficient workflow, but also make one very dependent, of course.
On the other hand, Freeplane is still being successfully developed here at SourceForge, and I think that this platform itself has not developed a lot in the meanwhile.
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I would probably sum up our discussion a bit differently:
Instead of this discussion forum we could use discussion forum on GitHub and disable write access to this forum. However deleting it seems to be not a good option and migrating the content somewhere else seems difficult.
I think if we move all new discussions to GitHub I would also use issue tracker of GitHub instead of SourceForge.
There are some advantages of moving both to github: newer, better and faster UI, more registered users and better integration with code commits and pull requests.
Github is already our main code repository, the code on the SourceForge is just a unregularly updated mirror.
New documentation project https://github.com/freeplane/wiki is called "wiki" because it is a possible replacement for our current wiki. It is based on markdown, GitHub pages and docsify (https://docsify.js.org/). We have already discussed earlier why this solution seems to be easy to contribute, safe and flexible.
👍
1
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Yea and we've continued the discussion here cause we want to check in with others in the community that didn't get to attend or stay ( like @quickfold , @edo_f and others )
I personally like it because Github has recently launched the Discussions page which is much more intuitive than SF's (you can upload gifs and videos that can be watched inside Github and you can copy paste images easily in text posts which I think @euu will appreciate ). This is different from the Issues page, which is like the Bug Tickets of SF
Also notifications are handled much better there, it's easy to get notified on my Github account that there's a new reply to the thread instead of being notified only through email (like in SF)
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I remember that @boercher hesitated whether we should 'put all our eggs in one basket', so having forum, documentation and code at the same place. Such 'monolithic' (not sure if this is the right word) set-ups can provide an efficient workflow, but also make one very dependent, of course.
I think there is low risk in this. Documentation and Code Repository are both just repositories anyone can clone in its own computer. The wiki uses markdown which is not proprietary. With both (code and wiki) you can left Github any day you want.
The risk may be with the forum contents, but I don't think there may be any risk at all.
I think Github is the way to go. Also if we want to get more collaborators and new users.
Instead of this discussion forum we could use discussion forum on GitHub and disable write access to this forum. However deleting it seems to be not a good option and migrating the content somewhere else seems difficult.
I think migrating this forum to another one is not a good option. I think we should maintain this forum 'read only' and migrate the relevant knowledge in it to the new wiki if needed.
I think if we move all new discussions to GitHub I would also use issue tracker of GitHub instead of SourceForge.
There are some advantages of moving both to github: newer, better and faster UI, more registered users and better integration with code commits and pull requests.
Github is already our main code repository, the code on the SourceForge is just a unregularly updated mirror.
New documentation project https://github.com/freeplane/wiki is called "wiki" because it is a possible replacement for our current wiki. It is based on markdown, GitHub pages and docsify (https://docsify.js.org/). We have already discussed earlier why this solution seems to be easy to contribute, safe and flexible.
agree 100%
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in my opinion, the next forum should have some important features:
it should have 'labels', so we can easily categorize topics
it should have a powerful way to search topics in the forum and to sort the result of this search. This really important because until now the forum has relevant information that never reached the official documentation, and it is highly possible that this will stay so in the future.
I looked at Github documentation and it looks way better than in sourceforge.
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Can someone clarify the reasons that the FP conference group prioritized discussion about moving the forum? Is it just a general agreement that this forum is old-fashioned and feature-limited, or was there some specific issue that was important to people?
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Nothing specific if I remember correctly. After the topic was mentioned, lots of people mentioned the benefits of moving to Github which are now mentioned in this thread
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When I look at the topics that were discussed, I can see that the highest interest was about a functionality allowing simultaneous online collaboration on mindmaps.
The topic of our documentation platform came up as part of the roadmap discussion. I raised what I had mentioned in my recent post (below). The discussion segued from documentation platform to discussion forum.
To me it makes sense to have a single platform for documentation and discussions.
This a continuation of the discussion started in bug-3113, where Dimitry wrote (excerpt)
Documentation mind maps distributed with Freeplane
a bunch of pdf documents, article series and video tutorials with slightly overlapping slightly different content
Our Freeplane Forum.
[...]
And if you ask me which of the above collaborative wiki tools I prefer, I think that https://github.com/freeplane/wiki has the most flexibility and configurability (docsify), allows to create better quality content with less effort, uses standard language (markdown), the right entry barrier important for spam protection ( a github account, Pull Request and easy way to get editor rights), quite good github's own in-browser markdown editor, versioning, and it the most up-to-date tool.
It has just got quite little content after it was started. And I would like to have a plan how we want to develop it.
Regarding the code and the forum, I agree with @dpolivaev's and @edo_f's responses. Switching fully to GitHub has many advantages. Moreover, a proper migration of the forum is not really necessary, especially if this forum is kept available read-only.
I mentioned GitLab during the community meeting. I talked to a friend who has used it and he says that some features are implemented better, but still, GitHub is currently the standard.
To specifically mention a disadvantage of our current structure: I think the current SourceForge base may make new contributors hesitant to contribute. (I also thought Freeplane primarily worked through SF and that GitHub was the mirror!)
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Regarding the documentation: I think the current MediaWiki system is already great, because it is based upon very stable free and open-source software. Also, the current version of MediaWiki contains a 'visual editor', which should help users to contribute.
Still, the docsify wiki Github looks nice as well, and it is probably easier to keep documentation up to date by working within the same systems (GitHub, Markdown and git) as the code.
I would like to help with the documentation on either of the two platforms 👍
Last edit: 1-dimensional box 2022-03-09
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If I remember correctly, we decided against MediaWiki because we wanted a solution that would host the documentation (Dimitry didn't want to host it himself or have to update the platform and the current server was an old version of MediaWiki), Dimitry had specific requirements for spam protection etc., we wanted something where people could easily sign-up to contribute. AND, I strongly pushed for Markdown syntax rather than MediaWiki because it was what I was used to writing in and it was the most interoperable format in my view. But if I'm not in charge of documentation, others might disagree and prefer MediaWiki.
Also, if anyone wants me to send them all of my current notes that combine existing FP documents/info so they can take charge of documentation, I'm happy to. I'll likely still contribute, I'm just not planning on taking charge of the effort at this point.
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I'm not comfortable doing that, but I will share with individuals who want to work on the files themselves and contact me directly (Sourceforge messages reach me fine).
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Hi all,
Please find a summary of this important discussion, about migrating from SourceForge, attached as a mindmap and below as HTML.
migrating from SourceForge
the code is already on GitHub
GitHub is the standard now for open source projects, but that also gives it monopoly position
To clarify, it seems that there are three possible migrations which are part of this discussion:
Regarding where to migrate to: GitHub currently seems to me to be the standard for open source software projects. Some (including myself) are wary of it however, since it is part of Big Tech, being a subsidiary of Microsoft. The primary competitor that I know is GitLab and I think it would be worthwhile to compare the two.
A choice between the two should depend on their features, but also on our ideological preferences.
I remember that @boercher hesitated whether we should 'put all our eggs in one basket', so having forum, documentation and code at the same place. Such 'monolithic' (not sure if this is the right word) set-ups can provide an efficient workflow, but also make one very dependent, of course.
On the other hand, Freeplane is still being successfully developed here at SourceForge, and I think that this platform itself has not developed a lot in the meanwhile.
I would probably sum up our discussion a bit differently:
Instead of this discussion forum we could use discussion forum on GitHub and disable write access to this forum. However deleting it seems to be not a good option and migrating the content somewhere else seems difficult.
I think if we move all new discussions to GitHub I would also use issue tracker of GitHub instead of SourceForge.
There are some advantages of moving both to github: newer, better and faster UI, more registered users and better integration with code commits and pull requests.
Github is already our main code repository, the code on the SourceForge is just a unregularly updated mirror.
New documentation project https://github.com/freeplane/wiki is called "wiki" because it is a possible replacement for our current wiki. It is based on markdown, GitHub pages and docsify (https://docsify.js.org/). We have already discussed earlier why this solution seems to be easy to contribute, safe and flexible.
Yea and we've continued the discussion here cause we want to check in with others in the community that didn't get to attend or stay ( like @quickfold , @edo_f and others )
I personally like it because Github has recently launched the Discussions page which is much more intuitive than SF's (you can upload gifs and videos that can be watched inside Github and you can copy paste images easily in text posts which I think @euu will appreciate ). This is different from the Issues page, which is like the Bug Tickets of SF
Also notifications are handled much better there, it's easy to get notified on my Github account that there's a new reply to the thread instead of being notified only through email (like in SF)
Hi all,
my 2 cents:
@one-d-box said:
I think there is low risk in this. Documentation and Code Repository are both just repositories anyone can clone in its own computer. The wiki uses markdown which is not proprietary. With both (code and wiki) you can left Github any day you want.
The risk may be with the forum contents, but I don't think there may be any risk at all.
I think Github is the way to go. Also if we want to get more collaborators and new users.
@dpolivaev said:
I think migrating this forum to another one is not a good option. I think we should maintain this forum 'read only' and migrate the relevant knowledge in it to the new wiki if needed.
agree 100%
in my opinion, the next forum should have some important features:
I looked at Github documentation and it looks way better than in sourceforge.
Can someone clarify the reasons that the FP conference group prioritized discussion about moving the forum? Is it just a general agreement that this forum is old-fashioned and feature-limited, or was there some specific issue that was important to people?
Nothing specific if I remember correctly. After the topic was mentioned, lots of people mentioned the benefits of moving to Github which are now mentioned in this thread
When I look at the topics that were discussed, I can see that the highest interest was about a functionality allowing simultaneous online collaboration on mindmaps.
The topic of our documentation platform came up as part of the roadmap discussion. I raised what I had mentioned in my recent post (below). The discussion segued from documentation platform to discussion forum.
To me it makes sense to have a single platform for documentation and discussions.
This a continuation of the discussion started in bug-3113, where Dimitry wrote (excerpt)
I believe it would be beneficial to have a single documentation platform. It might make sense to move everything to https://github.com/freeplane/wiki, decommissioning https://www.freeplane.org/wiki and https://sourceforge.net/p/freeplane/wiki and to list the links link to pdf documents and video tutorials. It would help promote https://github.com/freeplane/wiki and might attract more documentation writers.
I will definitely continue to contribute to https://github.com/freeplane/wiki. I can also take a whack at moving the content from the other platforms to https://github.com/freeplane/wiki, if we agree it makes sense.
I think it's good to reiterate that there are three entities here that can be migrated:
These three things can be migrated separately (even though it is good to also look at them as a whole).
Last edit: 1-dimensional box 2022-03-09
Regarding the code and the forum, I agree with @dpolivaev's and @edo_f's responses. Switching fully to GitHub has many advantages. Moreover, a proper migration of the forum is not really necessary, especially if this forum is kept available read-only.
I mentioned GitLab during the community meeting. I talked to a friend who has used it and he says that some features are implemented better, but still, GitHub is currently the standard.
To specifically mention a disadvantage of our current structure: I think the current SourceForge base may make new contributors hesitant to contribute. (I also thought Freeplane primarily worked through SF and that GitHub was the mirror!)
Regarding the documentation: I think the current MediaWiki system is already great, because it is based upon very stable free and open-source software. Also, the current version of MediaWiki contains a 'visual editor', which should help users to contribute.
Still, the docsify wiki Github looks nice as well, and it is probably easier to keep documentation up to date by working within the same systems (GitHub, Markdown and git) as the code.
I would like to help with the documentation on either of the two platforms 👍
Last edit: 1-dimensional box 2022-03-09
If I remember correctly, we decided against MediaWiki because we wanted a solution that would host the documentation (Dimitry didn't want to host it himself or have to update the platform and the current server was an old version of MediaWiki), Dimitry had specific requirements for spam protection etc., we wanted something where people could easily sign-up to contribute. AND, I strongly pushed for Markdown syntax rather than MediaWiki because it was what I was used to writing in and it was the most interoperable format in my view. But if I'm not in charge of documentation, others might disagree and prefer MediaWiki.
Also, if anyone wants me to send them all of my current notes that combine existing FP documents/info so they can take charge of documentation, I'm happy to. I'll likely still contribute, I'm just not planning on taking charge of the effort at this point.
Quickfold, what do you think about creating a zip file with your current notes and posting it here?
I'm not comfortable doing that, but I will share with individuals who want to work on the files themselves and contact me directly (Sourceforge messages reach me fine).
Hi all,
I was thinking about Freeplane's documentation and came to some thoughts and ideas that I wrote in the GitHub forum.
Please take a look at them here and share some feedback.
thanks,
edo