Announcement: New TWiki version -- TWiki codevelopment plan
		  Date: Sat, 03 Jul 1999 03:18:47 -0700
		  From: Peter Thoeny 
			 To: Wiki Discussion List <wiki@rc.bel.alcatel.be>,
				  Non Disclosed List <peter.thoeny@takefive.com>

Hi,

I am sending this email because you showed interest in the Wiki and TWiki technology in the past. Please drop me a line if you do not wish to receive further TWiki announcements.

Annoucements are archived in http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/bin/view/Main/TWikiAnnouncements

A new version is available: Production release 01 Jul 1999. The change history is at http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/bin/view/Main/TWikiHistory

Twiki is now much easier to install and is also documented better. A new configuration file (wikicfg.pm) eases the upgrade of TWiki installations. It also allows customized extensions to TWiki without affecting the TWiki core.

http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/bin/view/Main/TWikiDocumentation has more documentation on installation.

To request the latest source, please fill in the form at http://www.mindspring.com/~peterthoeny/twiki/ . (I will send a separate email with download instructions to people who requested TWiki source in the past)

I am pleased to announce that the system administrators of JOS and I decided to merge JosWiki and TWiki. It is still work in progress. I prepared TWiki for the merge and handed over the code to Iain Shigeoka. Once he is done with the merge I will incorporate his changes back into TWiki and make a new release.

TWiki is now extensible with customized rendering rules and customized variables. This could be appealing to other Wiki authors as well. Please let me know.

TWiki is already feature packed and is suitable to develop further. Rather then continuing this as a one person effort, I would like to form a community of people interested in codeveloping TWiki. I am volunteering to coordinate the development efforts and create releases. I am very much inspired by Eric S Raymond's Cathedral and the Bazaar speech at http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-paper.html .

I plan to manage the TWiki development as kind of an open source project. People like you who are interested in the Wiki technology could contribute if you wish. I plan to make very frequent Beta releases, and Production releases from time to time. This allows the co-developer to work closely together and discuss further directions of TWiki. I would inherit changes to the latest Beta, incorporate them and immediately make a new Beta release available (now I can generate a Beta release with the push of a button). I can't promise to accept all changes, there must be a clear focus so that TWiki does not die from featurism. Of course, contributions will be credited accordingly in the TWikiHistory topic.

We need a medium for discussions. We could use TWiki with email notification, a dedicated mailing list, or a news group. This has not been not decided yet. Please let me know what you prefer. For now I prepared a TWiki Development web at http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/bin/view/Codev/

This team development effort will make TWiki even a better tool, a tool for everybody to use.

Please drop me a line if you would like to participate in the TWiki development.

-- PeterThoeny - 03 Jul 1999