VMWare Image, etc (was: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] 226 subscribers)

[Don McMorris]

<<SNIP>>
> Beyond making one (or more) VMWare images available, I hope to be able
> to help in a number of areas:
>
>   * documentation
>     * adding task-oriented documentation to the wiki beyond install
> and config, such as "Importing MARC bibliographic records and holdings
> into Evergreen" and
>     * contributing patches to add POD to the Perl scripts
>     * long-term: once the documentation starts stabilizing, setting up
> a nice documentation build system along the lines of
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/, http://php.net/docs, or
> http://help.eclipse.org/help32/
>   * support for localization / globalization / internationalization -
> our university is bilingual, so any thought of adopting Evergreen in
> the future is dependent on it offering bilingual support as good as or
> better than our current system; and that support is critical for
> Evergreen's possibilities in the rest of the world
>   * development - I have a broad technical background including Perl,
> C, SQL, XML, etc; given enough time to sink my teeth into a problem I
> can generally wrestle it to the ground, and I enjoy a good coding
> session every now and then.
>
> I would really like to know from the other members on the list:
> 1) if you actually are interested in a VMWare image -- if not, I
> shouldn't be wasting my time on it!
--Absolutely!

> 1a) if so, what is the expectation of what that image should offer:
> Completely empty, but ready for you to start figuring out what to do
> next? Preloaded with fake data, institutions, and patrons so you can
> play with a test system? Or completely empty, but with instructions
> for loading bibliographic data and patron data from "insert ILS name
> here"? Or both of these as options (yeah, I know, it's going to be
> both -- heh)
--I would be quite happy with an empty dataset.  Heck, after I enter
MY stuff in it (probably less than a hundred bibs and about 200
items), I'd be willing to export it for "Demo" data.

> 2) assuming that you have a successful Evergreen install, what are the
> "how-to" instructions that you need to get going? Instructions for
> migrating data from ILS XXX, of course, but if you can identify gaps
> in http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen-user:evergreen_end-user_documentation,
> for example, that would be really useful. I think :)
--Where can I find the XXX ILS? It sounds like something worth using! ;)
--Instructions for migration from other ILS's would be helpful in the
long-term.  You'd have to confirm with the guys, but I wouldn't think
there'd be a problem creating a "Data Migration" (or similar)
namespace under System Administration in the wiki.
--As far as tools, would you use it if theGuys(r) created a new CVS
branch for "conversion toolkits" (separate from the ILS branch)? Sorry
if my terminology isn't right on.... I'm not a big programmer/CVS user
yet.

>
> Anyways, that's me, or more than enough of me for now.
>
> Dan
>

Thanks for everything Dan! We'll be seeing you on #OpenILS-Evergreen
on the Freenode IRC network!

--Don