Finally... The Big Announcement!

[offroadgeek]

We've been working on a few things over the past couple of months, and it's finally time to release the wolves...

Please check out the following details, and be sure to read all the way to the bottom... that's where the scheduled outage is!

1.  Open Embedded Software Foundation (OESF)
    a.  This is the new nonprofit organization that was founded to support the Open Embedded community.  We are still working on finalizing the paperwork to create the corporation and obtain official nonprofit status.
    b.  The OESF will support all Open Embedded devices and projects.  This will move us beyond just the Zaurus.  The inclusion of the SIMPad and Familiar people are examples of this.  With this, the ZUG forums will move to the new oesf.org domain and will become the OE forums, and will be revamped to accomodate this change.
    c.  oesf.org has been created using mediawiki.  The ZUG How-To docs and Unofficial Zaurus FAQ have been moved to this new (powerful) wiki site.  This will enable the community to create and update the documentation as needed.  
**  Special thanks to Ben (ev1|) for spending many hours updating some of the older conent!
    d.  Once the OESF obtains nonprofit status, we will be able to apply for grants and solicit donations to help fund OE projects and purchase much needed hardware for development (such as devices for development teams).

2.  Embedded Linux Software Index (elsix.org)
    a.  Roy El-Rayes has done an awesome job in building the new ZSI (Zaurus Software Index)!  Roy developed everything from scratch with PHP using a mysql backend.  
    b.  Roy also worked with Sven (owner of the current ZSI) to obtain the ZSI database to populate the new ELSI.  Not a single project was lost!
    c.  The ELSI will also be able to host the files for the projects!  It will take some time to grab the files for the existing projects, but it will be great to know that we won't run into dead links when you're looking for a specific application.  Keep in mind though, project maintainers will still be able to host their files on their own sites (link to them), but we would prefer hosting the files on the ELSI, that way the project can take on a new maintainer without having to lose the files.
    d.  Current projects have no owner and may be claimed. Just sign up for an account and go to the project you wish to claim. Click on 'Claim Project' and that'll begin the process.
    e.  We are looking for volunteers to help mod the new ELSI.  If you're interested, please PM/email either dz or myself.
**  Thank you to all those that've helped the ELSI get going.  JCroto has dedicated many hours to weeding out spam and categorizing everything and deserves a big thanks.  As well, a thank you to all those who voted and participated in the layout contest.

3.  ZUG changes
    a.  ZUG is changing from zaurususergroup.com to zaurususergroup.org  This will keep the site in line with the new nonprofit status.
    b.  With the documentation and the forums moving to the new oesf.org site, the ZUG will change into a news and information site for all things Zaurus.

4.  Forum changes
    a.  The forums will be upgraded to a new version which has some pretty cool features.  My favorite new feature is the lo-fi version of the forums.  Perfect for reading the forums on low-bandwidth connections and great for viewing on any Zaurus.
    b.  All of the posts from the old devnet forums will be imported into the new forums!  We weren't able to get any of the user data from the devnet forums, so we won't have details such as who posted what, but at least the content will be there.

5.  The wonderful people over at ibiblio.org will be hosting all of this!  This means I can get rid of the $300/month SDSL that I'm currently using to host the forums.  ibiblio hosts many wonderful sites like Linux Documentation Project and Groklaw.

And now for the timing...

The ELSI is already built out and ready for prime time.  Roy (dz) is doing some final layout changes this week, and will be finished by this weekend.

The OESF site has it's framework built out.  For now we will be leaving it as a complete mediawiki site, and will just lock a minimal set of pages (like the front page, etc.).  People can create accounts and start updating the wiki (how-to docs and UZF) immediately!

The ZUG changes, change of domain (.com to .org) and the forums upgrade and move will happen this Saturday, January 15th.  The ZUG site and forums will be brought down completely during the upgrade from 6:00 PM PST (GMT-8) to at least midnight.  The zaurususergroup.com domain will have a hard forward to zaurususergroup.org.  

Remember that the forums are moving to the oesf.org domain.  So once the upgrade and move is complete, the forums will then be located at https://www.oesf.org/forums.  Please be sure to update your bookmarks accordingly.

Please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback!

-- your admin team

[Mickeyl]

I'm happy that you are cooperative and have a broad vision of what the Embedded Linux Community could be. I hope that in the future more developers will share that vision and stop doing their own things in their dark corners and instead come out and cooperate.

Well done - I'm looking forward to the changes and to continue participating in this forum.

[lardman]

Sounds good.

Thanks to everyone involved for their hard work in organising and implementing this.



Si

[ev1l]

I'm happy that you are cooperative and have a broad vision of what the Embedded Linux Community could be. I hope that in the future more developers will share that vision and stop doing their own things in their dark corners and instead come out and cooperate.

MTE. Nice job. As I get more time away from testing the KDE PIM suite I'll get back to updating the Z FAQ.

[Laze]

Sound great - we hope the project will be a succes...

But developers will still be developing different system and using different build system - but hopefully we will have a better knowledge exchange here and hopefully a better "developer" forum kinda seperated from the normal forums which is often flooded with the same question again and again.

No we are not always negative and we really hope its going to be a great succes, although we think the name is a bid odd and reminds us to much about Open Embedded project.

We hope the new site will cary on the good things from the old ZUG and leave behind bad stuff..

On behalf of the pdaXrom team

[maslovsky]

Great news! I especcialy like that ZSI is back in its new shiny shape

[raybert]

Awesome job guys!  Thanks for all the hard work!

~ray

[Greg2]

Very good news!


Thanks for all the hard work of those involved in accomplishing this.

Greg

[dahukanna]

Thanks for all the thought, effort and hard work that has gone into this.
Have you happened to have discovered the secret to human cloning ,  when have you had time to do the mundane, like work, sleep etc ?

Dawn

[slapout]

Thanks for all the hard work everyone has done and continues to do!

[offroadgeek]

I'm happy that you are cooperative and have a broad vision of what the Embedded Linux Community could be. I hope that in the future more developers will share that vision and stop doing their own things in their dark corners and instead come out and cooperate.

Well done - I'm looking forward to the changes and to continue participating in this forum.

Sound great - we hope the project will be a succes...

But developers will still be developing different system and using different build system - but hopefully we will have a better knowledge exchange here and hopefully a better "developer" forum kinda seperated from the normal forums which is often flooded with the same question again and again.

No we are not always negative and we really hope its going to be a great succes, although we think the name is a bid odd and reminds us to much about Open Embedded project.

"Why can't we all just get along?!?!"   but really...  in our case the name Open Embedded Software Foundation was chosen because it allows for flexability in our efforts.  It is not at all specific or tied to the existing Open Embedded project.   Our initial thoughts were that we would support any OE device and/or project.... which easily includes the OE project, OZ, pdaxrom, SIMpad, and familiar.  There is so much opportunity in this area.

The OESF is still in it's infancy.  It's not even a fully formed corporation yet, and there is still much to do with regards to developing our charter and goals.  We will be inviting certain individuals in the OE community to join the OESF in a "director" capacity to serve as leaders and help guide us in the right direction.

Also, many thanks for all of the nice words.  This is an awesome community and I'm just happy to be a part of it.  Special kudos should go to Roy (dz) for all of his hard work on developing the ELSI, as well as being a key person in helping with founding the OESF.

[Laze]

"Why can't we all just get along?!?!"

Well we can and we are actively trying to expand out and get more involved - basically we are trying to get all our linux friends and colleagues talked into getting into the Zaurus - so curently hopefully a lot more Zaurus developers will be available soon. We know some people see us as a small agressive group who keeps everything to ourselves. But we are working on expanding and we always release all we know :-) But one of the reasons why we are having such a fast developing image is that a we have a small and close development team.

[dz]

Thanks for all the thought, effort and hard work that has gone into this.
Have you happened to have discovered the secret to human cloning ,  when have you had time to do the mundane, like work, sleep etc ?

Sleep?  People sleep?  

Thanks for all the great comments.  This community here is excellent and anything I can do to help out is my pleasure.

Mike (org) and all the volunteers have spent tons and tons of time putting this together and it's really nice seeing all the feedback from the community.  I think we have the opportunity to really just bring everyone together and help eachother out.  After all, we're all that's left as far as actual tech support for the Zaurus devices.  There's no sense in fighting about who gets to be on top.  We're all equally good in what we do, and instead of trying to fight for who's better we should be helping eachother make our little devices even better.

Diversity is also a very good thing.  I think it's nice that we have several different roms for the Zaurus and honestly I dont think it'd be such a popular device if we had one main rom.  The fact that we have several functional rom choices is what makes our device popular.  Certain programmers will tailor to certain roms and that's fine.  There's always gonna be someone out there who uses the other rom and is just a good a programmer, and he'll fill the void.  Also, some programmers just like hiding in the corner and working on their stuff.  Doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing; it's just their style.  I'll admit I'm kinda like that.  I don't mind working on a team, but sometimes it's a lot easier to work on your own.  Great things can be achieved when someone has the drive to do it.  We just gotta remember to stick together and not alienate eachother.

I think eventually, it might be nice to find a standard for certain things.  For example, try and make a standard for all PIMs so that if I want to switch between Cacko and pdaXrom, I don't need to figure out how to transfer everything over.  That's all in the future though and we have plenty of time to figure it out.  Perhaps that can be one of the first tasks that we appoint to the OESF.  We'll sit down the major players in rom development and see if we can get all of us to agree on something that works for all roms.

Little steps..  our community might still be small (well, 6k isn't exactly small ), but we're mighty.  Mike and I have many things planned that we hope will really help out community and this is just the start of it all ~

[stupkid]

I agree dz.  I admire all the active projects for different reasons and as long as we all share ideas (and source ) with each other things will progress.  We can compete for developers and users.  That keeps the platform alive and healthy.

Viva La Embedded Linux!

[ludovicus]

First of all thankyou for all of your hard work and passion.  Linux-open source development is much like an art and in some ways a religion.  You definately don't do it for money and if it is beneficial monetarily you have most definately earned it.

A proverb I grew up with,  one who holds much cannot squeeze tightly.  I hope you all stay focused in your repective embedded projects.  Your respective projects is the momentum that drives this user forum.   I'm sure platforms and technolgy will change and become fragmented, just hoping ZUG doesn't become to thinly spread.

Good luck and I look forward to more Z compilations.

lu