*SourceForge.net provides a valuable service to the Open Source
community, but its implementation and user interface could be improved
in many ways*.  (TavisRudd_ in WebwareSourceforge_)

The biggest improvement would be to get the browser out of the way. I
cringe every time I need to search a mailing list (or worse, a
Sourceforge "forum") for a specific keyword or conversation through
some strange web-interface. IMAP, which was designed for exactly that
purpose, does the job thousands of times faster with far less drain on
both human and computer/network resources. (NNTP is also ok, but
requires the *client* software to do the searching, thus causing
*more* load on the server by having to transfer all of the articles,
rather than just the interesting ones.)

I think that a key benefit of the webware approach over the Zope 
approach is that you can design your application without being 
constrained by a browser.  Roundup's design is a good example of
this. It uses the most approriate protocol/tool for each task, 
instead of trying to shoehorn everything into "stateless" HTTP
transactions.

Therefore: a "webware application" such as this proposed collaboration
suite, should be first an *application* with a *thin* adapter to
create a browser-based UI generated using webware components.

Please read these before you start:

* http://udell.roninhouse.com/GroupwareReport.html
* http://www.byte.com/documents/s=593/byt20010425s0012/index.htm

And beware of this (another "feature" of the current sourceforge development model):

* http://www.byte.com/documents/s=620/byt20010504s0007/index.htm

(Can you tell that I *strongly dislike* web-only interfaces? 8-D)

-- TerrelShumway_ - 16 Apr 2002