OpenQabal 0.0.3 available

OpenQabal 0.0.3 has been released and is now available from the SVN repo. As with previous releases, there are not yet pre-built binary releases available... you will have to check the code out from SVN and build it. Thankfully this process is now *much* easier as a result of massive work on the build system and the addition of scripts to automate most of the tedious stuff. You can now essentially build and install OpenQabal with 4 commands.

Changes in this release include:

• New, more modular build system using Ivy for dependency management and incorporating useful tools such as FindBugs, JDepend, PMD, TestNG, Cobertura, etc.
• New "User Dashboard" component that provides the main point of entry and ties the various components together visually
• Concordantly with the introduction of the new User Dashboard, all of the old Sitemesh stuff has been ripped out
• New configure and install scripts to automate most of the tedious parts of building and installing OpenQabal
• Addition of many unit tests (we still don't have 100% test coverage, but progress has been made)
• New "IdentityEngine" component introduced (more on this later)
• Posting blogs using MetaWeblogAPI now works with the OpenQabal IdentityEngine component
• Various minor bug fixes and tweaks

This release is a huge step in the direction of having a really usable system, but there is still a LOT of work to be done. Some things that had originally been planned for this release had to be deferred to 0.0.4, with OpenID support being the most notable such item. And of course there are still plenty of ideas on the roadmap that we haven't even gotten started on yet. But we're now in a lot better position to be able to start on some of the more interesting stuff, such as the "distributed conversation" support, tools for building a managing the "social graph," etc.

Look for a new post soon with more discussion of what the roadmap will look in the near future, as well as some discussion of some of the important changes that did make it into 0.0.3. And with any luck, the long-awaited "demo server" will be coming soon, as well as some screencasts and other ways of exploring OpenQabal.

Syndicated 2008-05-10 22:24:31 (Updated 2008-05-10 22:25:45) from openqabal

2 more tasks until OpenQabal 0.0.3 can be released

Finally getting closer and closer to getting this OpenQabal release out. The last two tasks to do are: A. verify the new SQL which includes a "seed" admin user, and B. make the install/config/uninstall scripts and any utility scripts working on Windows. Most of that stuff is in Ruby so it should be pretty portable, but there are some Bash scripts which will need equivalents written as DOS batch files. Ugh. Still, this stuff should be done soon, maybe tonight, which means the release should happen in the next day or two.

In other news, I've started working on getting setup with Amazon EC2, in order to host a "demo" instance of OpenQabal.

And after that, I think I need to go on holiday for a while. :-)

Syndicated 2008-05-04 21:46:48 (Updated 2008-05-04 21:49:26) from openqabal

OpenQabal Update

Ok, the new OpenQabal release that was mentioned a few weeks ago is *finally* eminent. No really, it's coming soon. The big hold-up turned out to be a bit of Roller integration that had been overlooked. Getting single-sign-on and integration with the centralized identity stuff working using Acegi and CAS takes care of web access; and that stuff has been in place for a while now. But at some point we realized that API access for posting new blog entries also needed to be wired into the new authentication stuff. And that's a whole new can of worms.

Basically, deciding to implement that in this release meant moving forward with implementing an initial version of what we're calling the IdentityEngine, which will eventually be the centralized source for all things identity, vis-a-vis OpenQabal. Even for OpenID logins or other logins using an external authentication provider, OpenQabal has to keep track of that that that such-and-such identity exists, and map it to resources, etc. So getting this piece in place was kind of a big deal, even if this first cut at it is fairly naive.

Anyway, with that in place and API access now working, the last things left to do before a release are basically all "fit and polish" work. Clean up some loose ends here and there, more testing, tweaking the SQL scripts and the install scripts. Oh, and the install stuff needs to be tested on Windows and any relevant tweaks made. At any rate, if things go well, look for the new release maybe this weekend, or early next week.

Syndicated 2008-04-29 04:09:50 (Updated 2008-05-04 21:50:28) from openqabal

Update on my Data Portability presentation @ "Refresh The Triangle"

So apparently there was some miscommunication or whatever, and I'm not going to be presenting at this month's Refresh The Triangle after all. I am, however, now officially "on the hook" to present a talk on Data Portability at the September "Refresh" meeting. The actual date will be Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008. Location TBD, as far as I know. Check the Refresh website for more details.

Syndicated 2008-04-16 19:28:00 (Updated 2008-04-16 19:28:46) from openqabal

Google is now an OpenID provider: Use your Google account to sign into any site that accepts OpenID

It appears that Google is now an OpenID provider, which means you can log into any site which allows OpenID logins using a Google account. This is a pretty big win for OpenID in terms of putting even more momentum behind the protocol. Of course the truth still holds - as said before - that "it doesn't matter if everybody and their brother is an OpenID provider, if nobody allows OpenID logins." But the number of sites that do accept OpenID appears to be growing and an endorsement by Google can't hurt in terms of encouraging others to move in that direction.

Unfortunately this blog itself doesn't actually support OpenID logins, which is something of a bummer. It'll be fun when we reach a point where we can go "self-hosted" using OpenQabal and use this blog as a place to play with some of the new and nifty stuff coming down the pipe. With some luck, that'll happen before the entropic heat death of the universe. <big-grin / >

Syndicated 2008-04-09 04:10:24 (Updated 2008-04-09 04:11:55) from openqabal