Dotnet.org.za Subversion Access

In the past the maintenance of this site has pretty much been a one man show with the sad effect that when I'm busy very little is done in terms of updates or additions to the site. As one example - it's a shame that months after the upgrade to Community Server 2007 the site is still running the default theme . (there was reasons besides my lazyness but I won't go into them :)) While that is one area that will be addressed towards the end of August with a new theme and layout there is new services, CS modules and other additions released almost daily which unfortunately I don't always get around to implementing on the site.

Now in the past several members have kindly offered to assist with maintenance so in the coming weeks I want to make the process of enhancing the site a whole lot more agile, opening up the site and getting more people involved in this. In the past there hasn't been an easy way for someone to e.g. add a Digg option to his blog posts without bugging me until I gave in they give up. Hopefully with the new process this will be become a whole lot easier.

Here's a quick overview of how I see the new process working :

Step 1) Add and Commit - I've cleaned up the Subversion repository, excluded irrelevant folders etc and will be giving members interested in contributing to the site Subversion access. Just send me an email on armand@dotnet.org.za if you are interested in contributing and I'll create your account and send you credentials. (You wouldn't need to compile CS to contribute, it's a compiled build with just the web files required to run the site). If there is a CSModule, Theme or any other addition you feel you want to add to your blog or to the site you can do that on your local copy and once happy with your addition commit the changes back.

Step 2) Beta - Most members is probably familiar with continuous integration and the site will be setup in a similar fashion.  beta.dotnet.org.za will always be running the latest version from Subversion. CruiseControl.NET will be monitoring the repository for commits and will automatically deploy your additions to the beta site. If the server is still online after your commit and we're happy with the addition we can move on to the next step and deploy it.

Step 3) Live - For the final step I'll configure a private CruiseControl.NET project which will allow us to make the current beta build live. This step will initially be only available to myself and later to selected other members.

Most of the first two steps are covered or in place already and I hope to have the remained ready by next week so that we can start accepting contributions.

Any other thoughts, comments, suggestions or ideas on this?

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