Foswiki 2014 / 2015 Update

Hello Foswiki Community,

As 2014 draws to a close, we are much closer to beta for Foswiki 1.2.0.  This release has been several years in the making, and has an extremely broad list of features.    There are 397 Tasks with checkins and 49 FeatureProposals merged. Everyone's waited long enough for 1.2.0, and we hope to start the release process early in 2015.

You can see the complete list of major features at http://foswiki.org/Development/ReleasePlan#Release_1.2.   Some of the many accomplishments in 2014:

• Foswiki source now resides on Github. It's much easier to contribute to the project. https://github.com/foswiki
  • Fork your own copy to get started:  https://github.com/foswiki/distro/fork
• Major restructuring of the Foswiki Store has been completed.
  • Foswiki is now store-agnostic, and can use many different store backends as well as the current RCS.
  • Backends have been written for several database engines, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server and MongoDB.
  • Foswiki will default to a new PlainFile store on new installations.
• Configure has had a huge amount of remodeling and modernization.    It's now lightweight, javascript / jsonrpc based, and includes a shell interface for configuration changes from the command line.
• A new completely rewritten PageCache greatly improves performance.
• There is a new Editor interface,  NatEdit, and an updated TinyMCE.
• Several other extensions have been modernized.
• Foswiki now "bootstraps" itself, and will work even with a missing LocalSite.cfg.   unzip and go!
• Support for Nginx, Lighttpd and other FCGI web servers is all there.
• We've gone through several rounds of security audits and a lot of behind-the-scenes work to make Foswiki more robust and secure.
• The list of "real" release blockers is down to only a few minor issues:   http://foswiki.org/Tasks/MinorReleaseBlocker
• The Foswiki developers have been holding release meetings generally bi-weekly,  minutes at http://foswiki.org/Development/ReleaseMeetings.  Everyone is welcome to attend!  Meetings resume on Monday January 12th at 1300Z
• Or join an impromptu meeting on #foswiki anytime.

For stocking stuffers and New Year's resolutions, we need help with several things:

• There are a large number of tasks in status "New" that still need developer review.  We need help triaging tasks:
  • Assign a Component,   An extension or a core component, so we can find the tasks later
  • Set the status: Confirmed,   Waiting for Feedback,  or No Action Required.  Or a new status: Needs Developer
  • Please try not to leave tasks in status "New"
• Life moves on,  people change jobs,  and work gets left incomplete / extensions get orphaned.   These are a great opportunity to get some experience in development.   Many of us started with Open Source to "scratch an itch".  You don't have to start big.  If you've locally patched a bug, please contribute it back.   Anyone can "fork a repository" on GitHub and submit patches with a pull request.
• We need to reboot the Translation process.  As soon as we can get the translate software rebuilt we'll be asking the translators to begin their work. If you'd like to be involved, please subscribe to the Foswiki-translations email list at: http://sourceforge.net/p/foswiki/mailman/    If your native language is other than English, we need your help.

In summary, Foswiki is looking forward to a major release in 2015, consolidating the platform for the future. Any open source project lives and breathes through it's contributors, so please get involved today and help shape the future of this great project!

On behalf of the Foswiki Developers and the Foswiki Association, we wish you all a Happy New Year.

George.