[Phpwebsite-developers] phpWebSite-comm

[Wendall C. <we...@83...>]

Upon forming the community site, it was decided by the Sourceforge staff
that we couldn't have binary content in cvs because of the potential
abuse with graphics. The compromise was that we use SVG format.

I feel that this compromise needs to be revisited with the SF.net staff
as it has badly hurt the -comm project. I'll go into some details.

After Don, Mike, Adam and I did a lot of looking into SVG, it appears
that there is not a proper CL conversion tool to do releases with. Don
and I tested several, and they just make the graphics look like crap.
Another thing was that the total file sizes of the SVG graphics were
rediculously large and unnecessary for icons. If SVG could be used by
web browsers, it would be great, but alas, they cannot and this renders
the use of them worthless.

Enforcing the SVG rule has limited the amount of development for themes
to practically nothing. Don won't use the site. I was planning on
releasing rssfeeds, but cannot because I can't distribute with my icon.
The icons are a part of the look and feel of phpWebSite and not
distributing with one is just plain goofy. Sure, I could do my release
off site and attatch it to a tracker and have it manually done by the
SF.net staff with my icon included, but that makes the tools available
worthless and is alot of work to just do a release. I've concluded after
all this that it would be faster to submit a new project to SF.net
staff, get approval and release it from there than wait on silly
politics.

SF.net staff needs to understand how they are hurting the -comm project
and hurting one of the largest projects on SF.net by being resistant to
the growth of a project.

I propose we approach the SF.net staff and have them lift the black
cloud from the -comm project. Or alternately, find another cvs to use in
its place as the main project has. I would be willing to host the cvs
repository if App State cannot.

Mike Noyes has put alot of work into the -comm site and several other
mod developers have put some great mods out there. There are a few
themes, but these have been submitted as tarballs. This doesn't appear
to be a restriction for themes people, but it would be nice to have
these themes in cvs so they can be updated with changes in the core
releases.

I would like to see the -comm site succeed. No binary content is goofy.
phpWebSite is a mature project that takes care of itself. Any abuses
would be immediately dealt with. I find it hard to believe that the
SF.net staff aren't clued into this. If they aren't, they should be.

Wendall