[IMPORTANT] SIMILE ends Phase 2

[Stefano Mazzocchi-2]

Greetings everybody,

with this email I would like to draw your attention to the blog post

  http://simile.mit.edu/blog/?p=65

where we outlined some of the changes that this project is undergoing
due to the end of our second round of funding.

The most important change for many of you is that questions regarding
Timeline, Timeplot, Timegrid and Exhibit will *NOT* be answered anymore
on this list.

Those project now have a life on their own on at this location:

  http://code.google.com/p/simile-widgets/

please bear with us while we transition the documentation and the wiki
over (and place proper redirection in place) but you should be
considering unsubscribing from this mailing list if the only reason for
your interest in SIMILE is for those javascript widgets and subscribe to
the ones indicated in the URL above.

(that includes all of you that thought that SIMILE (or, worse, SMILE)
was, in fact, the name of a javascript widget).

We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you but we hope you
realize that the reason for this spin-off is precisely to avoid doing
potential harm in the future would the research agenda of the next phase
of SIMILE fail to align with the development and maintenance requirement
of the javascript widgets.

Also note that the original developers of such widgets (David and myself
included, of course) are subscribed to those new mailing lists and will
continue development over the new google-hosted subversion repository
(the SIMILE one is now out of synch and should be considered real-only
for all practical purposes).

--
Stefano Mazzocchi
Digital Libraries Research Group                 Research Scientist
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E25-131, 77 Massachusetts Ave               skype: stefanomazzocchi
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307, USA         email: stefanom at mit . edu
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[Bruce Robertson]

> We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you but we hope you
> realize that the reason for this spin-off is precisely to avoid doing
> potential harm in the future would the research agenda of the next phase
> of SIMILE fail to align with the development and maintenance requirement
> of the javascript widgets.

This suggests that something of the SIMILE Exhibit/Timeline etc. project
might continue; and that the implementation might be in some other form than
javascript.

Any comments?

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[Stefano Mazzocchi-2]

Bruce Robertson wrote:
>> We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you but we hope you
>> realize that the reason for this spin-off is precisely to avoid doing
>> potential harm in the future would the research agenda of the next phase
>> of SIMILE fail to align with the development and maintenance requirement
>> of the javascript widgets.
>
> This suggests that something of the SIMILE Exhibit/Timeline etc. project
> might continue; and that the implementation might be in some other form than
> javascript.
 >
> Any comments?

The research agenda of the next phase of SIMILE has not been even
written yet so it's all a matter of speculation at this point.

One thing I can tell you though: since SIMILE (and other projects at MIT
already undergoing and funded) are heavy users of those widgets, it is
not in MIT's best interest to fork or otherwise damage the evolution and
maintenance of these projects. We rather want to help such tools become
self-sustaining and long-lasting open projects and we think that being
independent (aka MIT is not the controlling entity) makes it more likely
for these projects to establish and nurture a diverse and healthy open
development community around them.

So, in short, no, there is no interest for porting or forking those
project, or maintain separate branches. The only interest is to continue
to use them and contribute back at need but without having a special
role in their evolution like before.

--
Stefano Mazzocchi
Digital Libraries Research Group                 Research Scientist
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E25-131, 77 Massachusetts Ave               skype: stefanomazzocchi
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307, USA         email: stefanom at mit . edu
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