Askbot: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:18, 10 July 2011

http://askbot.org is a question and answer oriented forum similar to Stack Overflow or Yahoo Answers. It is written in Python and Django. You can file bug reports via http://bugs.askbot.org/ and the source code is at https://github.com/ASKBOT/askbot-devel/. It is primarily developed and maintained by Evgeny Fadeev.

Status

Rahul Sundaram is leading an effort to package Askbot and all its build time and runtime dependencies for Fedora. The goal is to get an instance of it running in say http://ask.fedoraproject.org and serve as a forum for questions and answers. The dependencies are useful for various other projects as well.

Toshio from Fedora Infrastructure team raised the question of liability and Red Hat Legal has clarified that there isn't any. It is like the users list where end users answer other user's questions and we don't have to moderate the answers for legal reasons. Thanks to Spot for helping with a quick response.

Rahul Sundaram is in touch with the upstream developer, Evgeny Fadeev (evgeny.fadeev gmail) who is willing to help out with the integration with Fedora Account System. He has made some changes upstream to make it easier to integration with a external authentication system. Refer to http://askbot.org/doc/askbot-as-reusable-django-application.html for more details.

Prasad.J.Pandit (PJP) has added support for Fedora Authentication System (FAS) in Askbot. These patches have been sent upstream. Upstream has agreed to make auth support extensible so that we can plugin FAS auth support without having to patch Askbot and has sent us (Rahul and PJP) a patch to test this. Rahul Sundaram will followup as required.
Rahul Sundaram has discussed several enhancements and bug fixes with upstream and upstream is making progress. Check status via http://askbot.org/en/users/309/rahul-sundaram/. Some patch discussions etc are offlist

Theming needed. Information on how to create a custom skin is available at http://askbot.org/doc/customizing-skin-in-askbot.html and http://askbot.org/wiki/index.php/Custom_Skins. Will request the Fedora design team for help when Askbot and dependencies are in the Fedora repo.

Review requests filed by Rahul Sundaram

django-keyedcache - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697492 (Lakshmi Narasimhan approved. In the repo now)

django-robots - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696516 (in the repo now)

django-countries - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696485 (in the repo now)

django-celery - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697483 (waiting on dependencies to be reviewed)

django-kombu - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696527 (approved. cannot be built without python-kombu in the repo first)

python-coffin - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699335 (in the repo now)

askbot - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699336 (waiting on dependencies to be reviewed)

Bundled dependencies split up

python-grapefruit - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720141. Filed by Praveen Kumar (Rahul Sundaram approved. Waiting on SCM)

django-recaptcha - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=716844 Filed by Jitesh Shah (PJP approved. In the repo now)

Upstream status - http://askbot.org/en/question/484/status-of-bundled-dependencies

Optional dependencies

django-avatar: Rahul Sundaram mailed upstream asking for a release since Askbot has a optional dependency on the development snapshot of django avatar and upstream hasn't responded yet. Praveen Kumar filed a review request of the devel snapshot at

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720138 (Rahul Sundaram has pre-reviewed. PJP approved. Waiting on SCM)

django-followit: Praveen Kumar has filed https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720149. (PJP will review)

Upstream status - http://askbot.org/en/question/483/status-of-extra-modules

Other dependencies (pre-existing review requests)

python-celery (dep of django-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=611277

django-picklefield (dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=611068 (Rahul Sundaram has approved)

python-kombu (dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691115 (Lakshmi Narasimhan has reviewed. Waiting)

python-html5lib (runtime dep of askbot) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=252108 (Rahul Sundaram has reviewed. Waiting)

python-msgpack (dep of python-kombu) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691114 (in the repo now)

TODO

Get the rest of the dependencies reviewed and in the Fedora and EPEL 6 branch (various people)
Package FAS auth support plugin (PJP)
Test Askbot in RHEL 6 with Askbot and dependencies from RPM packages (PJP)
Split up the rest of the bundled dependencies as appropriate and update the Askbot package (Rahul Sundaram)
File a request for resources with Fedora infrastructure team. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Request_For_Resources (Rahul Sundaram)
Test the instance including admin interface, fas auth support, setup cron jobs (collective effort)
Add identi.ca support, both as a login method and posting to it (owner needed)
Add a sidebar for announcements (owner needed)

Askbot Fedora team

Rahul Sundaram (packaging, upstream contact)
Prasad J Pandit (administration help, FAS auth support, packaging)
Saleem Ansari (administration help)
Praveen Kumar (packaging)
Jitesh Shah (packaging)

Askbot info

Feature list: http://askbot.org/en/question/43/askbot-feature-list

Moderation system: http://askbot.org/en/question/108/does-askbot-have-its-own-member-management-system

Management: http://askbot.org/doc/management-commands.html

Deployments of Askbot:

Also WindRiver (Intel) has a internal instance running according to upstream. More examples at

- http://askbot.org/en/question/28/list-of-askbot-sites

Alternatives:

Shapado - Shapado is an open source question-answer system written in Ruby, Mongomapper and MongoDB. http://ask.debian.net is running a instance of this.

OSQA - OSQA (Open Source Question and Answer) is an open source question-answer system written in Python with Django. Askbot is a fork of OSQA.

Question2Answer - PHP. Simple to setup. Lacking in features.

Stack Overflow - Proprietary. http://askubuntu.com/ is using this.

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