Beyond Code: Content Management and the Open Source Development Portal (Position Paper)

Open source project collaboration web portals (e.g., Mozilla.org, SourceForge.net) have become the focal point for interaction with and development of most open source software projects. These collaboration portals allow considerable community interaction with a project while respecting and maintaining effective control by the project’s leaders over process, architecture, participation, and quality. A variety of successful and widely used open source collaboration tools have evolved (e.g., CVS, Bugzilla, Mailman) specifically to support tool mediation of this interaction. However, use of a Content Management System (CMS) beyond simply storing the web site’s contents alongside the project’s code within CVS is rare. Is there a real need for a CMS within an open source project portal? What attributes does a CMS system need to be adoptable? Is more ambitious CMS adoption consistent with open source practice? We take the position that an advanced CMS is a useful addition to an open source development portal and is consistent with the current trajectory of open source collaboration tool evolution. However, to be adoptable a CMS must respect and follow open source practice—not try to redefine it—and facilitate an incremental transition from existing content management methods. In addition, as open source practice is clearly not homogeneous, a “one-size-fitsall” CMS will not be successful. As a project’s community grows to include individuals with strong supporting roles other than programming (e.g., documentation, translation, QA) the need for a CMS becomes more acute. What can a CMS do for an open source project? It can aid project information awareness, assist project/personal workflow, and facilitate the use and maintenance of models. These are significant functions that can help projects express/exploit more information regarding design intent, provide better degrees of assurance for code safety/dependability, and perhaps even facilitate a more agile approach to structural/architectural change.