Welcome
Hi, and welcome to contribs.org !
So you want to learn about the contribs.org community and the Koozali SME Server project? Good, you came to the right place :-)
About contribs.org
Contribs.org is an on-line community of volunteers and enthusiasts of the Koozali SME Server project. (See this link to learn more about Koozali SME Server). Just like you, we either use or want to use the Koozali SME Server (or help someone else with it). Or you simply (want to) sympathize with what we are doing here.
So to make you more acquainted (or you may have forgotten ;-) ) with our community and how we operate, we'll explain a bit below. Please read it at your own pace, and if you're stuck on a subject or have some questions then please don't hesitate to ask on the forums in our general discussion section. Over time, you will notice that you will get to know your way around here, and before you know it, you are helping others!
Again, welcome and enjoy!
Netiquette
First things first. We are all here because we share a passion or an interest. And to be able to work together on a virtual basis, we have to have some guidelines on how we can and how we maintain this in a sustainable way. Now we can direct you to the formal 'rules of engagement' with and among this community (and for that matter, your on-line expressions in general) here, but let's cut to the chase. Here are some general guidelines, but we also do trust on your own sense of responsibilities and attitude:
- Be respectful. A persons judgement on you is based on who you are and on your attitude, not on what you think you know, or who you know
- No harsh/foul/profanity language or flaming
- No political, religious or sexual related topics or expressions
- contribs.org is a global community. Time Zones, workdays and holidays may differ from yours. Be patient.
- Be brief, but be as complete as possible with information
- Skills and understanding of things from one person to another may differ. Be patient and helpful
- The default language on contribs.org is English. We do try to catch other languages, but that's no guarantee
- Please share and help, don't hold back
- Sentiment and enthusiasm are not to be confused. We love enthusiasm
- Finish your conversations and wrap them up. On the forums, on our Bugzilla and on our mailing lists.
- The only stupid question is the question that you did not ask
- Have fun!
The policy on contribs.org is that you will get warned and you will get banned eventually if you do not adhere in a normal fashion to these simple guidelines. Sort of a '3 strikes and you're out' kind of rule. 'Nuff said about this.
Koozali Foundation Inc.
Please see our donate page for more background information on the Koozali Foundation Inc. and why Koozali Foundation is governing the Koozali SME Server project.
Our infrastructure and tools
To be able to provide all the services mentioned here, we need some stuff. First of all, we need an infrastructure of hardware connected in a safe way to the internet and on top of that all kinds of application.
Our hardware is located in Paris, France, at a large and secure Tier 3/4 data center. So for all the services provided by contribs.org, the default Time Zone is Paris, France. It consists of a HA cluster of real and virtual servers (a mix of CentOS and SME Servers) and redundant internet connections. Obviously backup management is thoroughly implemented, and they do go off-site. Next to providing services that are visiable to you, there is some other interesting stuff going on behind the scenes. Most mentionable is our own build system with which we manage and build our updates and bugfixes and build updated RPM's and ISO's. A thing of beauty all by itself.
Next to our hardware infrastructure, obviously we have our applications. As for the applications and software systems, we are solely using Open Source solutions available:
- SME Server as part of our hosting platform and infrastructure
- CentOS and Redhat as our base for Koozali SME Server itself as a server distribution, and as our clustering and hosting platform for contribs.org
- Zabbix as our infrastructure and services monitoring and alerting platform
- Mediawiki as our wiki
- Simple Machines Forum as our forums platform
- Bugzilla as our bug tracker platform
- Mailman as our Mailing Lists manager
- Pootle as our translation management platform
- SourceForge CVS as our source code and patch management platform
- Yum as the Koozali SME Server maintenance and update mechanism
- Rsync to update our voluntarily download and updates mirrors.
- Freenode as our IRC channel provider (#SME_Server)
Unfortunately we do not have a transparent authentication back end across all services provided yet. So we kindly ask you to register for the individual services of your choice. It's a bit annoying, we know, but it is only a one time, one minute action.
Our Infrastructure and applications 'Jedi', who co-designed, has implemented, is maintaining and leading all of this is Daniel and his team (Who is who). All voluntarily in their own free time and on a daily basis! Our setup is an impressive one, and a one that would make a large company pretty jealous :-) On a daily basis we process and serve tens of thousands requests on the forums and wiki within milliseconds per request, 24/7/365, at an up-time of seven 9's in 2015.
Wiki
As mentioned above, for our documentation and logging our knowledge, we are using Mediawiki, one of the most widely used and professional wiki engines available.
Yep, we know, our wiki does not qualify as 'fine art' or the most appealing wiki sites out there, but we _are_ getting the job done. With over 17 million hits to date (since 2007), and currently with over ten thousand hits a day, we are doing a pretty good and people tend to find their answer on our wiki. See our wiki statistics page for some more numbers on how we are doing.
Navigating our wiki or searching for your topic of interest can be a bit confusing (and we are working very are to get that simplified). However we have categorized our wiki to assist you.
Most noticeable categories (but not all, a complete list is here) are the:
TBA, WIP
Forums
TBA
Mailing lists
TBA
Bugzilla
Bugzilla is our bugs and issues system.
Contribs & howto's
TBA
Developers
TBA
Who is who
Now that you have reached the end of this page, it's time to introduce you to some important individuals that coordinate and take care all of the above.
Please visit our Who is who page to get to know them.
Thanks
Thanks for your interest in the Koozali SME Server project and for your time reading all this. We hope that we have provided you some guidance and that you are able to find your way around on contribs.org and are able to make new friends within this community.
Again, if you are stuck or feel that you need some additional guidance, please ask on the forums in our general discussion section, and we're sure that within no time a community member will be there to help you out.
Thanks!
