Dear Community Members,
I am pleased to announce that I am finally able to build a new website for Xen.org. In fact some of the work has already started and it is time to get your input. The aim of this work is to create an engaging and integrated community web site that invites participation and acts as a portal for Xen users, developers and companies in the eco-system. You can get more detail about our plans and information about the site by going to the Xen Wiki.
The new site will have several main areas:
- The home page, which mainly acts as an aggregator for news and activity happening in the community. This should make it easier for newcomers to Xen, to have a brief look and get a feeling of the vibrancy of the Xen community. There is actually a lot of activity today: it is merely obscured and hidden as the activity is dispersed to many places. The home page will also provide a window into the new Xen.org blog, as well as sections for Xen events, etc.
- An area for users. This area will provide information about Xen and Xen projects, will help you learn about Xen, will point people to downloads and Linux/Unix distributions that contain Xen, will help you find documentation, will help you get help and support, etc. Xen has traditionally been a very developer focused community. As a consequence we have not supported our users that well. I have some open questions in this area, where I will be looking for your input. For example: is there a preference for mailing lists, forums, or stackoverflow like functionality? How should we best link to Linux distributions and other projects that distribute Xen?
- An eco-system area: this is essentially a searchable directory of product and projects that use Xen, modify Xen, build on top of Xen, distribute Xen, etc. It is also a directory of research around Xen and services such as consultancy, training, hosting and cloud vendors that are built on top of Xen. This section will be fairly interactive: the intention is that if you are a vendor, you can add an entry to the directory which will be approved by a moderator moderator before publication. As a user of the directory, you can rate, recommend, comment on vendors, products, projects, etc.
- An area for developers: this contains project descriptions, links to downloads, codelines, information about governance, mailing lists, etc.
- Other changes: the site will have the capability to register users. Generally, all areas of the site will be accessible without any user account, except for areas where you need to write to the site and identification is thus necessary. We envisage that we will be able to implement single sign-on capability for the new site and at least the Xen wiki. There will be user profiles that allow you to provide information about how you use Xen, but ultimately you only have to provide what you are comfortable with. The idea is for example that I can implement functionality such as the old community spotlight section by just maintaining a list of profile names. Name, pictures, bio, etc. would be managed and maintained by you. I am also looking at capabilities, such as being able to send newsletters, to registered site users.
We will consult you on questions such as look and feel, on a new or revamped Xen logo, on new panda’s, on navigation, on some of the headlines, taglines and many more items as questions arise. After all, this will be a website for YOU!. I will publish questions where I am looking for input on the Xen Wiki and announce on the mailing lists or here, depending on the issue.
Looking forward to hear from you!
Best Regards
Lars