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Project Management Infrastructure/Project Metadata

< Project Management Infrastructure
Revision as of 14:34, 17 September 2008 by Bjorn.freeman-benson.eclipse.org (Talk | contribs) ((4) Why is project status information important?)

(1) Using the Infrastructure

RAll projects are required to use the standard left menu on the project home page. See the detailed, but easy, instructions for how to make that left menu appear.

(2) What Meta-Data Does What

The project meta-data is maintained by project committers via the portal. Missing information on various eclipse.org website pages are caused either (a) by the project not providing the meta-data, or (b) by the project not having an instance of that resource.

/projects/ page

WhatData Storage w/ Link to How to Update
Project Name projectname in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Info PageStandard format page for all projects
Phase Foundation internal database. Email emo@
Home Page projecturl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Newsgroup newsgroup.name in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Mailing List mailinglist.name in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Wiki wikiurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
IP Log iplogurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.

Standard project information page

E.g., Project Dash's standard information page

For those more visual people, there's also an annotated screenshot of a standard information page.

Name Foundation internal database. Email emo@
Download downloadsurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Description descriptionurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.

Should be an html paragraph or two (recommended). If the url points to an eclipse.org website page, we attempt to extract the

midcolumn contents as the paragraph.
Logo logourl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Commits Activity sourcerepository in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Newsgroups newsgroup.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Mailing Lists mailinglist.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Source Repository sourcerepository.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Committers Foundation internal database. Email emo@.

Activity is taken from the commits explorer driven by sourcerepository in the project meta data. Use the portal. Active is any commit activity in the last three months, participating is any in the last nine months. Company logos are shows for member companies

of active committers.
Leaders Foundation internal database. Email emo@
Update site updatesiteurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Releases release.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. Valid release status includes: scheduled, completed, tentative.
Bugs bugzilla in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Website Foundation internal database. Email emo@
Wiki wikiurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Documentation documentationurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Project Plan projectplanurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.

Project Plan Page

Project Plan projectplanurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. Also see the documentation.

Mailing Lists Page

The eclipse.org list of mailing lists.

Mailing List mailinglist.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Topics Foundation internal database. Email emo@

Newsgroups Page

The eclipse.og list of newsgroups.

Newsgroup newsgroup.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Topics Foundation internal database. Email emo@

Timeline

The eclipse.org timeline page. <table border="1" <tr> <td>Releases</td><td> release.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. Valid release status includes: scheduled, completed, tentative.</td></tr> </table>

Categories

Category categories in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Description paragraphurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Homepage projecturl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Newsgroups newsgroup.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Mailing Lists mailinglist.* in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Wiki wikiurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Docs documentationurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Download downloadsurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.

(3) When is project status information considered out-of-date?

Different kinds of information go out of date at different rates and times, but here's an easy checklist:

  • All structural status information is out-of-date if it does not match the infrastructure. For example, if the project has added a new project-announce@ mailing list, but the project status files do not list that mailing list, then they are out of date.
  • Status summaries must be updated at least once a quarter. It's better to update them once a month.
  • Historical information (downloads, release information, and so on) and status summaries need updating with each release (obviously).

(4) Why is project status information important?

Eclipse projects belong to a larger community - Eclipse - which is comprised of a not only the committers and developers on the project, but also the developers on other projects, plug-in developers outside the Eclipse projects, and the entire ecosystem surrounding Eclipse. In order to keep all these people up-to-date on the direction and status of the Eclipse projects, each project needs to provide timely and accurate descriptive and status information. (See "2.4 Eclipse Ecosystem" in the Eclipse Development Process.)

The project status information drives a number of the eclipse.org web pages including the categories on the home page, the dashboard, the timeline, lists of projects, lists of [mailing lists and newsgroups, status pages, and more.

(5) What is project status information?

The project status information encompasses three kinds of information:

  1. Relatively static structural information such as the names of the project's mailing lists and newsgroups, the bugzilla products and CVS repository, etc.
  2. Historical information such as previous release downloads, release review slides and IP logs, etc.
  3. Status and future looking information such as the project and milestone plans, the features scheduled for the current release, release dates, etc.

(6) Who is responsible for maintaining the project status information?

Each Eclipse project's project lead is responsible for maintaining that project's status information. This information is an important part of being an Eclipse project and thus while we acknowledge that it is possible to write code without status information, it is not possible to be an Eclipse project without providing status to the rest of the community.

This page is moderated by Anne Jacko and Bjorn Freeman-Benson (Eclipse Foundation)

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