The Python Software Foundation's Infrastructure committee has been charged with finding a new tracker system to be used by the Python development team as a replacement for SourceForge. The development team is currently unhappy with SF for several reasons which include:
<br><br>* Bad interface<br> Most obvious example is the "Check to Upload" button<br>* Lack of reliability<br> SF has been known to go down during the day unexpectedly and stay down for hours<br>* Lack of workflow controls
<br> For instance, you cannot delete a category once created<br><br>For these reasons and others, we are requesting the Python community help us find a new tracker to use. We are asking for test trackers to be set up to allow us to test them to see which tracker we want to move the Python development team to. This is in order to allow the Infrastructure committee to evaluate the various trackers to see which one meets our tracker needs the best.
<br><br>Because we are not sure exactly what are requirements for a tracker are we do not have a comprehensive requirements document. But we do have a short list of bare minimum needs:<br><br>* Can import SF data<br>
<a href="http://effbot.org/zone/sandbox-sourceforge.htm">http://effbot.org/zone/sandbox-sourceforge.htm</a> contains instructions on how to access the data dump and work with the support tools (graciously developed by Fredrik Lundh)
<br>* Can export data<br> To prevent the need to develop our own tools to get our data out of the next tracker, there must be a way to get a dump of the data (formatted or raw) that includes *all* information<br>* Has an email interface
<br> To facilitate participation in tracker item discussions, an email interface is required to lower the barrier to add comments, files, etc.<br><br>If there is a tracker you wish to propose for Python development team use, these are the steps you must follow:
<br><br>* Install a test tracker<br> If you do not have the server resources needed, you may contact the Infrastructure committee at infrastructure at <a href="http://python.org">python.org</a>, but our resources are limited by both machine and manpower, so *please* do what you can to use your own servers; we do not expect you to provide hosting for the final installation of the tracker for use by python-dev, though, if your tracker is chosen
<br>* Import the SF data dump<br> <a href="http://effbot.org/zone/sandbox-sourceforge.htm">http://effbot.org/zone/sandbox-sourceforge.htm</a><br>* Make the Infrastructure committee members administrators of the tracker
<br> A list of the committee members can be found at <a href="http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSoftwareFoundationCommittees#infrastructure-committee-ic">http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSoftwareFoundationCommittees#infrastructure-committee-ic
</a><br>* Add your tracker to the wiki page at <a href="http://wiki.python.org/moin/CallForTrackers">http://wiki.python.org/moin/CallForTrackers</a><br> This includes specifying the contact information for a *single* lead person to contact for any questions about the tracker; this is to keep communication simple and prevent us from having competing installations of the same tracker software
<br>* Email the Infrastructure committee that your test tracker is up and ready to be viewed<br><br>We will accept new trackers for up to a maximum of two months starting 2006-06-05 (and thus ending 2006-08-07). If trackers cease to be suggested, we will close acceptance one month after the last tracker proposed (this means the maximum timeframe for all of this is three months, ending 2006-09-04). This allows us to not have this process carry on for three months if there is no need for it to thanks to people getting trackers up quickly.
<br><br>As the committee evaluates trackers we will add information about what we like and dislike to the <a href="http://wiki.python.org/moin/GoodTrackerFeatures">http://wiki.python.org/moin/GoodTrackerFeatures</a> wiki page so that various trackers and change their setttings and notify us of such changes. This prevents penalizing trackers that are set up quickly (which could be taken as a sign of ease of maintenance) compared to trackers that are set up later but possibly more tailored to what the Infrastructure committee discovers they want from a tracker.
<br><br>If you have any questions, feel free to email infrastructure at <a href="http://python.org">python.org</a> .<br><br>- Brett Cannon<br> Chairman, Python Software Foundation Infrastructure committee<br>