[cgi-wiki-dev] Convergence with Kwiki?

[Peter Masiar]

Quoting Tom Insam <tom@jerakeen.org>:

> At 0:34 -0400 2003/09/14, <Martin@Cleaver.org> wrote:
> >Hi Kake,
> >More questions: has anyone proposed, and what's 
> >the general feeling about, merging the efforts 
> >of CGI::Wiki and Kwiki? I question the need for 
> >independent efforts and wonder whether a joint 
> >community would have better economies of scale.
> >Cheers,
> >     Martin
> 
> Apart form Jonathan's point, for me the main 
> difference is that Kwiki is a bit of CGI that 
> implements a Wiki. CGI::Wiki isn't, it's a 
> toolkit that lets you build a wiki. There's an 
> important difference - to change how Kwiki works, 
> you're removing bits of it and doing your own 
> thing. You don't need to change how a CGI::Wiki 
> engine works, hopefully, it's just a matter of 
> building the front end differently.

I am not sure I fully understand what do you mean by the way you describe 
how Kwiki works.
AFAIK (and IANAOOguru) Kwiki uses TT2 and other CPAN modules. 
In many discussions in IRC ingy mentioned his Kwiki will not be 
a "product" wiki, but a framework to build multiple sets of 
(possibly incompatible) kwiki distrubutions (Kwiki calls them "flavors")
using different sets of templates and plugins, with vastly different
functionality. IRC logs are available on Kwiki.org site. 

I do not know how functionality ingy promises will work and 
if it is even possible, but ingy is working full time on Kwiki 
(paid by Social Software),
and looks like he has a lot of support from other developers.

I.e. one guy works on database-bases storage system (a plugin),
also L10N (Localization) is in Kwiki core,
 http://www.kwiki.org/index.cgi?KwikiLocalization by author on CPAN
module for it.

I would like to see Kwiki as CGI::Application based wiki,
as I understand CGI::Wiki is C::A based (correct me if I am wrong).

I try to monitor both Kwiki and CGI::Wiki, and, like Martin Cleaver,
am interested how feasible is for both projects be integrated.

> Of course, having said that, I _did_ write 
> CGI::Wiki::Kwiki, which was intended to be a 
> simple Kwiki-like front end to CGI::Wiki that 
> Just Worked, but that was more of a 'move your 
> kwiki to a 'real' database' aid than anything 
> else.

I currently use Twiki and I like text file storage - for me
it is prefereable to database. Are you saying that
CGI::Wiki has only database storage? I see requiring DB 
as possible red flag for small wikis and unnecesary
installation hassle (although maybe important to get
wiki work under heavy load). IMHO there will be huge market
where simplicity of file-based wiki will be more important
 - and as I said Kwiki could have DB backend too in couple of months.

> There's no way that openguides could have been 
> built on a Kwiki without serious messing around. 
> Openguides is obviously a wiki, but not what I'd 
> think of as a 'traditional' wiki...

IIUC, CGI::Wiki is build first to be a wiki engine for openguides,
and only after that as a wiki framework - and for wikis with
database backend only.

Kwiki is being build as many different wiki clones now, 
one of them is openforge (OF) - a perl-based sourceforge clone.

Unlike sourceforge and GPL GForge, which are PHP-based, 
openforge is pure perl, uses SVN (subversion) and CVS, 
and integrates RT bug tracking system (and being developed 
in Taiwan, is localized in the core). 
Kwiki is expected to be a wiki for this project hosting
system. Unlike sourceforge, you will not host your project on OF, 
but install your own OpenForge, setup and manage it as *you* need.

I understand that my preferences are affected by Twiki and they might
not be for everybody, and openguides might have very good
reasons to do what you do. But in some responses there was some 
misunderstanding (AFAICT) about Kwiki (and I am not an 
Kwiki expert either :-) ) which I want if not explain, at least 
keep open for research and discussion by real experts.
 
I currently use Twiki, but (for reasons mentioned by Martin earlier)
want to move to a better wiki engine. As you can tell, currently
I am more inclined to Kwiki :-) - but I did not decided yet.

BTW new version 0.18 of Kwiki 
was just released and I'll be *really grateful* if somebody can 
point out where I am wrong and misleading myself :-)

Peter Masiar