To All OpenLinkers and ODSers,
Hey, folks, I'm just sending a note to say Thanks! and provide my first
impressions on working directly with the ODS code base. As many of you
may know, I wrote a fairly detailed product review a couple of months
back (http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=355). The research behind that review
convinced me to use ODS for some of my own projects.
So now, I am getting even more under the hood. I may be one of the
first outside of OpenLink to probe the framework and its applications
pretty deeply. I appreciate Mitko and Rumi's and everyone's efforts to
answer my questions, which (fortunately or unfortunately, however you
look at it :) ), will likely continue at a pretty aggressive pace.
You all are to be congratulated and thanked. This is a very powerful
system, with a singularity of vision about breaking down the barriers
between data silos that I believe is timely and important. Therefore, I
also believe it has very great commercial potential, as well! :)
The scope of the effort is also impressive. There are so many useful
apps under this ODS umbrella, representing nearly complete coverage of
all existing social and collaboration apps on the Web. (BTW, is the
historical 'wa' from Web apps?)
However, like any such effort that has been undertaken over a period of
time and without (yet) much external use, there are rough spots, gaps
and inconsistencies within ODS. This is to be expected. The fact there
are as few as I am seeing speaks well to the original vision and
approach taken behind this platform.
I am aggressively customizing the platform through its available UI,
making modifications directly through code, and generally trying to
immerse myself as much as possible into a crash education in the system.
While I applaud the direction of ODS to host external LAMP and other
applications (I myself have been an aggressive user and specifier of
WordPress, Joomla, and MediaWiki, for example), I have chosen to focus
on OpenLink's internal approach with XSL, VSPX and its extended SQL for
my efforts.
(That is because I believe there is also a powerful vision and
integration potential behind these foundations and their relation to
Virtuoso as well.)
In the process, I am:
1. Drafting missing documentation and 'how to' instructions
2. Keeping a journal of suggestions and recommendations for how to
improve the existing framework
3. Making notes on natural extensions and applications of the ODS
framework in a variety of venues.
So far, my documentation runs to scores of pages (granted, some of that
is file and directory documentation!) across a dozen topics or more.
OpenLink will have complete use of this documentation for however it
sees fit.
So, everyone, in part I wrote this, again, to say Thanks! for this great
effort. But, because of my use and likely continued posts to this
forum, I wanted everyone to know the background in advance. And I'd
especially like to thank Kingsley for supporting my interest in ODS.
So, everyone, if I sound critical or make many suggestions as these
threads continue, please know that is because I like what you have
created and believe in its potential -- which I would like to help
promote in some small manner -- and am trying to understand and document
it as best I can.
Thanks for your understanding, and I look forward to working with all of
you more in the coming weeks.
Best regards,
Mike Bergman
