DevelopSpace Information Systems

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This project serves to orchestrate the efforts of creating and maintaining DevelopSpace's information systems. At present, the primary focus is on identify what functionality is desired in DevelopSpace's systems in order to meet its goals. You can help by expanding on the content here.

Our Objectives

What are the objectives of DevelopSpace's information systems? What functionality is desired?

See the SiteRequests page for a listing of requested/suggested features.


Comments

I think there are a few things we should be trying to do with the DevelopSpace website:

  1. Foster a community of people interested in the technical aspects of space development
  2. Provide informational resources for people to both learn how to engage in relevant technical activities and aid them in doing so
  3. Provide services (such as project hosting), for groups and individuals engaged in space technical development
--Pwooster 23:46, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Potential Models

There are many existing open source (and other community-based) websites around that can serve as potential models for DevelopSpace. A number of these are listed below.

Open Source Software Hosting Sites

SourceForge.net

SourceForge.net is the leading open source software hosting site. A listing of features is provided here. Being able to provide at minimum a set of services similar to those provided by SourceForge would be useful in terms of attracting open source space software developers to DevelopSpace.

Originally the software behind SourceForge.net was open source, however it has since been closed. Two forks of the software, GForge and Savane, now exist which could be candidates for a basis for a DevelopSpace project hosting service.

Other Open Source Hosting Tools

There are many other open source hosting tools available. Trac is a popular source code hosting tool and Drupal is a popular content hosting system. It could be worth combining a source code hosting tool with a content hosting tool since there don't seem to be any available tools that do both functions well.

Engineering, Design, and/or Science Related Sites

iMechanica.org

iMechanica calls itself a "web of mechanics and mechanicians". It appears to have a relatively vibrant community of mechanics researchers and practitioners engaged in discussion of research results and general mechanics related topics. Their website is based upon Drupal.

OpenWetWare.org

OpenWetWare is an effort to share information among researchers and groups in biology & biological engineering. They appear to be providing hosting services for a large number of (primarily university) labs and some other biological research groups and and activities. Their website is based upon MediaWiki.

Open Architecture Network

Open Architecture Network aims to use collaborative design to improve the living standard of people throughout the world. The site hosts architecture projects that openly make available their designs under various Creative Commons licenses. Wired has an article regarding the project.

Eng Tips forums

Eng Tips provides forums for engineers to ask questions of other engineers on various technical topics and receive relevant feedback. Receiving such mentoring and advice (directly related to space fields) could be quite useful for new engineers or engineers moving from other domains into the space engineering world.

General Information Open Content Sites

Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation operates a series of wiki-based websites aiming towards "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Their most well-known project is Wikipedia, an open-content, wiki-based encyclopedia, although they also have a number of other activities of note to DevelopSpace, in particular an open-content, wiki-based textbooks project called Wikibooks. MediaWiki is an open source software project based on the software running these sites.