Dear Community Members,
I am finally able to build a new website for Xen.org. The aim of this
work is to create an engaging and integrated community web site that
invites participation and acts as a portal for Xen users, developers and
companies in the eco-system. You can give input on the site by going to
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/New_Xen_Website
The new site will have several main areas:
The home page, which mainly acts as an aggregator for news and activity
happening in the community. This should make it easier for newcomers to
Xen, to have a brief look and get a feeling of the vibrancy of the Xen
community.There is actually a lot of activity today: it is merely
obscured and hidden as the activity is dispersed to many places. The
home page will also provide a window into the new Xen.org blog, as well
as sections for Xen events, etc.
An area for users. This area will provide information about Xen and Xen
projects, will help you learn about Xen, will point people to downloads
and Linux/Unix distributions that contain Xen, will help you find
documentation,will help you get help and support, etc. Xen has
traditionally been a very developer focused community.As a consequence
we have not supported our users that well. I have some open questions in
this area, where I will be looking for your input. For example: is there
a preference for mailing lists, forums, or stackoverflow like
functionality? How should we best link to Linux distributions and other
projects that distribute Xen?
An eco-system area: this is essentially a searchable directory of
product and projects that use Xen, modify Xen, build on top of Xen,
distribute Xen, etc. It is also a directory of research around Xen and
services such as consultancy, training, hosting and cloud vendors that
are built on top of Xen. This section will be fairly interactive: the
intention is that if you are a vendor, you can add an entry to the
directory which will be approved by a moderator moderator before
publication. As a user of the directory, you can rate, recommend,
comment on vendors, products, projects, etc.
An area for developers: this contains project descriptions, links to
downloads, codelines, information about governance, mailing lists, etc.
Other changes: the site will have the capability to register users.
Generally, all areas of the site will be accessible without any user
account, except for areas where you need to write to the site and
identification is thus necessary. We envisage that we will be able to
implement single sign-on capability for the new site and at least theXen
wiki. There will be user profiles that allow you to provide information
about how you use Xen, but ultimately you only have to provide what you
are comfortable with. The idea is for example that I can implement
functionality such as the old community spotlight section by just
maintaining a list of profile names. Name, pictures, bio, etc. would be
managed and maintained by you. I am also looking at capabilities, such
as being able to send newsletters, to registered site users.
*Where I need your input*
**
We will consult you on questions such as look and feel, on a new or
revamped Xen logo, on new panda's, on navigation, on some of the
headlines and taglines.
In some areas we do not quite know what you want from Xen.org: e.g.
should we have a user mailing list, user fora and/or support forum
functionality similar to stackoverflow? Should we make the developer
mailing lists accessible via the website?
I also wanted to get views on whether it is OK to require logging into
the site before you download a Xen or XCP binary. My thinking is that
this is not good, but that it is OK to ask you nicely to sign in and/or
create an account before you download. Having some information about its
users is important to maintain the long term health of an open source
project: today Xen has very little information about its users.
Mainly,because we never asked. Providing information is an easy way how
you can give something back to the community.
Another area where we will consult you is on how we migrate you from
existing systems to the new one. Is it OK, to migrate existing users to
the new site (using some kind of opt-out or activation scheme)? Is it
not, etc.?
Links to feedback sheets, mockups, etc. can be found here:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/New_Xen_Website
Looking forward to hear from you
Best Regards
Lars
**
I am finally able to build a new website for Xen.org. The aim of this
work is to create an engaging and integrated community web site that
invites participation and acts as a portal for Xen users, developers and
companies in the eco-system. You can give input on the site by going to
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/New_Xen_Website
The new site will have several main areas:
The home page, which mainly acts as an aggregator for news and activity
happening in the community. This should make it easier for newcomers to
Xen, to have a brief look and get a feeling of the vibrancy of the Xen
community.There is actually a lot of activity today: it is merely
obscured and hidden as the activity is dispersed to many places. The
home page will also provide a window into the new Xen.org blog, as well
as sections for Xen events, etc.
An area for users. This area will provide information about Xen and Xen
projects, will help you learn about Xen, will point people to downloads
and Linux/Unix distributions that contain Xen, will help you find
documentation,will help you get help and support, etc. Xen has
traditionally been a very developer focused community.As a consequence
we have not supported our users that well. I have some open questions in
this area, where I will be looking for your input. For example: is there
a preference for mailing lists, forums, or stackoverflow like
functionality? How should we best link to Linux distributions and other
projects that distribute Xen?
An eco-system area: this is essentially a searchable directory of
product and projects that use Xen, modify Xen, build on top of Xen,
distribute Xen, etc. It is also a directory of research around Xen and
services such as consultancy, training, hosting and cloud vendors that
are built on top of Xen. This section will be fairly interactive: the
intention is that if you are a vendor, you can add an entry to the
directory which will be approved by a moderator moderator before
publication. As a user of the directory, you can rate, recommend,
comment on vendors, products, projects, etc.
An area for developers: this contains project descriptions, links to
downloads, codelines, information about governance, mailing lists, etc.
Other changes: the site will have the capability to register users.
Generally, all areas of the site will be accessible without any user
account, except for areas where you need to write to the site and
identification is thus necessary. We envisage that we will be able to
implement single sign-on capability for the new site and at least theXen
wiki. There will be user profiles that allow you to provide information
about how you use Xen, but ultimately you only have to provide what you
are comfortable with. The idea is for example that I can implement
functionality such as the old community spotlight section by just
maintaining a list of profile names. Name, pictures, bio, etc. would be
managed and maintained by you. I am also looking at capabilities, such
as being able to send newsletters, to registered site users.
*Where I need your input*
**
We will consult you on questions such as look and feel, on a new or
revamped Xen logo, on new panda's, on navigation, on some of the
headlines and taglines.
In some areas we do not quite know what you want from Xen.org: e.g.
should we have a user mailing list, user fora and/or support forum
functionality similar to stackoverflow? Should we make the developer
mailing lists accessible via the website?
I also wanted to get views on whether it is OK to require logging into
the site before you download a Xen or XCP binary. My thinking is that
this is not good, but that it is OK to ask you nicely to sign in and/or
create an account before you download. Having some information about its
users is important to maintain the long term health of an open source
project: today Xen has very little information about its users.
Mainly,because we never asked. Providing information is an easy way how
you can give something back to the community.
Another area where we will consult you is on how we migrate you from
existing systems to the new one. Is it OK, to migrate existing users to
the new site (using some kind of opt-out or activation scheme)? Is it
not, etc.?
Links to feedback sheets, mockups, etc. can be found here:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/New_Xen_Website
Looking forward to hear from you
Best Regards
Lars
**