Tool and Service Changes for Sakai 2.6

[Peter Knoop]

We are entering the early stages of the release process for Sakai 2.6,
and one of the tasks we typically face at this time is evaluating tools
and services for addition to the release, stealthing or unstealthing,
deprecation from the release, etc.  In the past this was captured as a
change in "Tool Status", which could be Core, Provisional, or Contrib;
however, that simple approach wasn't serving all the needs of the
community, so a working group was formed at the Paris Conference to
improve upon this system.  The goal of that group is to provide a
comprehensive "scorecard" for tool and service evaluation.  While this
group is actively working on the new scorecard, however, we still need
to start discussing what tools and services are appropriate for Sakai
2.6.  So this is a call out to the community for comments and
suggestions regarding tool and service changes for the release.

If you have any tools or services for which you would like to propose a
change in availability, please let me know.  (Please carry out
discussion on this topic on the management@... list;
we will also shortly be resuming the weekly QA/Release Team working
group meetings as another venue for this discussion.)  

The following changes have already been proposed:

* MessageCenter -- Has been deprecated for both the 2.4 and 2.5 release,
since its functionality was split into two independent tools: Messages
and Forums tools. For 2.6 it is proposed to remove it from the release.

* Email Template Service -- Add the Email Template Service to the
release, though disabled by default, so that tools can begin using it
going forward.

* Hierarchy Service -- Add the Hierarchy to the release, though disabled
by default, so that tools can begin using it going forward.

The list of proposed changes is being tracked in the "Tool
Promotions/Retirements" section of the Sakai 2.6 planning page:

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/FQDT

Please provide your comments or suggestions by 5 September 2008.

Thanks!

-peter
Sakai Project Coordinator

P.S. More information on the Scorecard Working Group can be found here:

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/FgDfAQ

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