GForge (SourceForge-like system) on ActionScript.org

[Jesse]

Last night, just before falling asleep, I had this sudden concept for an improvement to the site: imagine if we had our own sub-site (or sister-site), like SourceForge.net, dedicated to projects which are developed in/for Flash and ActionScript.

I figured that SourceForge, Mamboforge, et al. must use some sort of system to manage their projects. Today I went in search of the system and found GForge, which is in fact a fork from the source code which sourceforge.net ran on.

A quick search of sf.net reveals hundreds of ActionScript related projects. Some in ActionScript, some developing tools related to ActionScript (in other languages). But the question to then ask is: is it worth us bothering? It would likely take a bit of work to get this off the ground, and while I like the idea of encapsulating Flash/ActionScript related projects in one place, I don’t want to put in a big effort unless it’s warranted.

Opinions?

[senocular]

I dont know. Id DOES sound cool, but other sites out there are already doing this, so is it worth the effort to make AS.org another one? I think it might depend on how much extra work is involved.

[CyanBlue]

Yeah... It sure will be a cool one to have... But what about the projects??? Do you think we will have good amount of projects that we all can participate and improve???
I know there were several attempts to develop something among ourselves, and most of them just died because either lack of paricipation or lack of time/resource to advance onto the next level... That's something to think about as well... It could be just a waste of time if nobody participates in the projects... (I don't want to be sounding negative, but that's what I have been seeing so many times...)

[Jesse]

I'm not really thinking of it as being a resource that just current members would use. It’d be the sort of thing that brought people in, which is one benefit I see in it. Expanding the community.

I love sf.net. If I had to make one complaint it would be that it's sometimes hard to find stuff, coz there’s just so many projects there. I figure a repository for a particular field would be good because it would encourage people working in that field to look for a project before they started reinventing the wheel.

Today when I went over to sf.net, to look at what ActionScript projects existed I was absolutely amazed by some of them. Just had no idea they existed. I wonder if bringing them closer to a niche-relevant site, such as this one, would help promote their development and reuse.

Also I’m not thinking we’d be hosting big systems like OpenOffice (or its Flash equivalent) but this could be a great way of building a library of really well coded, reusable AS2 classes. Each ‘project’ could deal with just one class, and could perfect it. (I’ve become a process and efficiency geek over the last six months at work and I see real benefit in reuse and collaborative development like this).

Think of it as the ActionScript.org Library, or layer51 on steroids, with workflow control :) I think SF.net is kinda too big for this sort of thing... What say ye?

[senocular]

I want to think that there exists an SF-like alternative strictly for AS, but Im not finding it in my searches. If one doesn't exist, Im all for this. I think you're right in saying that SF is just too crowded and overwhelming. An AS-centric SF would be great to have and I think the as.org name will definitely help it hold its ground and help keep it from flopping as would be the case if it was based in some no-named site (which I thought the one I was thinking of was, but I can't find it anyway so oh well :-D)

[Jesse]

Haha maybe there was one but it flopped. I didn't hear of it; I thought my concept was totally original! :)

I agree that the existing user base here and the name would help promote the concept. I'd personally like to drive it’s use a little too; I think Flash development still has a little maturing (in CMMI terms) to do in order to be taken more seriously as software developers. Proper SDLC implementation, as enforced through a project management system, and frequent reuse would help a lot in this regard IMHO.

[senocular]

The recent drive towards RIA development would certainly seem to necessitate it.

[Cota]

I would defintely agree with Senocular, the amount of work involved would be a huge factor. Would the potential growth warrant the actual work? All in all in sounds like a great idea, I have 3 or 4 projects that would extend the usability of flash, but cant do it alone anymore. Plus, CyanBlue is right, a lot of us start with good ideas, but time and dedication end up killing it.

[senocular]

*raises hand* yes, Id say about 90% of my ideas never make it past 25% complete :D

[Cota]

I think thats the truth for most of us.....

[snapple]

What’s the difference between this and the library/movies section we already have, only perhaps with a new interface and better structured?

[Jesse]

Snapple - In the smallest sense, this would facilitate the growth of scripts, whereas library scripts are static, though the library itself grows. It would facilitate cooperative development on a much larger and more complex scale than the library or any existing system I know of.

As for the amount of work involved, it sounds like an out of the box product. The main concern for me is server load, but if it ever got to be big enough to warrant another server, we could plug one in at that time. Keep comments coming.

[senocular]

Would you be planning on hosting source files as well? Id like to think if not, the server load wouldn't be too terrible, especially if the interface was kept light. Im not sure how many DB hits something like that requires to throw a page up either.

I guess you never know until you try ;)

[Jesse]

Yeah we'd host it all; CVS, files, etc. By default the package allows shell access but I'm less keen on that...

According to docs main strain is on PHP and a PHP accelerator (cacher) shoudld be used. No biggie. If a switch to a new server was required (after some time, as the service grew) we might have to just do it. But advertising is going well enough recently to cover that.

But as I say, we might not need to. Sys admin says our current box handles things very nicely. I don't think we should let technical stuff hold us back from what would be a massive boost to the community... if in fact it IS a massive boost.

[senocular]

massive or not, a boost it would be, I think. And I imagine risk would be low if the current server can handle it. If current advertising can support a new box now, I think if/when needed, advertising would certainly be well enough to allow for that growth if it should happen.

To be successful, though, you might need some advertising of your own. Then again, like I said, the as.org name can certainly pull in some recognition and credibility towards this.

[Jesse]

I wish I shared your enthusiasm about current advertising revenue predicting future, but it's not always the case. It varies a lot with a lot of factors. Many with regard to who in the US is advertising and who they are targetting. Revenues are up on US targetted campaigns only, and only 35% of our traffic is US. It's unreliable at best. But that's for another time.

I'd love to hear what some others around think about this. Guess the thread is still fresh. I'll give it a few days to cycle trhough.

[JLM]

I would like a resource that was for "swf" related projects and did not just deal with just AS2 based projects, this would also allow projects from different tools areas to better be related. But I understand that Actionscript.org implies actionscript and therefore my suggestion may not be suitable. For instance there are projects such as "alph" which I wanted to try but gave up on (waits for better documention) and some open source swf creation tools as well as a few closed which may spawn quite a few interesting projects.

JLM

[Timmee_3Styler]

That was a AS/Flash project Tools open source project site just dedicated to it. Now I just gotta surf around in people's blogs and find it again :(

[tg]

I would like a resource that was for "swf" related projects and did not just deal with just AS2 based projects, this would also allow projects from different tools areas to better be related. But I understand that Actionscript.org implies actionscript and therefore my suggestion may not be suitable. For instance there are projects such as "alph" which I wanted to try but gave up on (waits for better documention) and some open source swf creation tools as well as a few closed which may spawn quite a few interesting projects.

JLM

my understanding of what jesse is suggesting here would be a repository for any flash/actionscript projects, and any other projects related to flash/actionscript... like if someone was creating a new ide (like we need another one) for actionscript, but written say in perl or something....

[JLM]

Tg

That's fine if I can get involved in projects like
Comunication between swishMAX code and proce55ing code
Displaying and creating maps with ming
some form of using Swift3D with blaze

oh I found a list of quite a few apps at flashguru and this link
http://www.swftools.com

JLM

[Timmee_3Styler]

ughhhhhh I remember visiting a link just last week that is basically what were trying to do here, or maybe it was just links to the actual sourceforge.net page

It had a list of all open source projects relating to flash, such as new development tools, server connections, add ons..etc

but I CANT FIND IT NOW :(

[senocular]

I know how you feel timmee, I couldnt find what I was thinking of either, it might have been the same thing (I dont remember heh)

[JLM]

now that you all mention it...
I rem seeing a post of bit's with said link to opensource flash projects at 12stone recently, but 12s it is down at moment, I think it was in a processing thread incase you visit there before me.

[mmm..pi..3.14..]

The way I figure it...if it doesn't affect the look of the forums too much, I'm all for it :D

You could also sell stuff there...just need a snappy logo. Found this in the most recent PCWorld, had no idea you could stick your logo on a mouse pad, lol. I sure as hell would buy a few items :D

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/

[Vector Media]

couldn't we use this forum to invite people for a project just to see if people would be interested in cooperating?

maybe developing something with lots of people involved :confused:

I think before getting serious with this SF thing, we should test it somehow. I dunno.

[Jesse]

Vector: One important clarification - I'm not proposing a project which we all get together and work on, headed up by us, or similar. Rather I'm proposing an architectural framework for any projects which others see fit to launch, related to our niche. We'd be providing the tools basically. You guys come up with the ideas.

It's an "if you build it, they will come" kind of scenario. I don't know that there is a community need for this at this time, but I see that the community needs this sort of resource to foster more mature software development processes. The Flash community is SO open source; this is just a formalization of it in some manner.

[Cota]

Either way Jesse, myself and everyone here will support what ever direction you see fit for this community. I've been here for awhile and you havent made a bad desicion yet....

[farafiro]

First time reading Jesse's first post, got exicting for it
read the rest of valuable posts, and started to thinking a bit, and here is what I am thinking for this "idea" to become a big start. Basically you need at least:
1) A new idea of giving away the openSources files (something different than the current in the well known sites)
2) Someone who is fully responsible for this and very aware of what's published, what's new, most of flash forums,.... (and I think this is very important)

my 2 cents

[JLM]

Is this the link some of you were looking for?
http://osflash.org/

[senocular]

Bingo, I think thats it JLM :D

[Timmee_3Styler]

hehehe NICE find ;)

btw this sounds interesting but no longer active:

http://osflash.org/doku.php?id=sharpflash

[JLM]

(It was Bit that pointed me to the site in a thread at 12stone as I said. Took awhile to find the right thread:) )

[senocular]

As important as something like that should be, it seems awfully hard to find :-/

[pmineault]

If you're going to devote a lot more time on the site than you better make it useful. There's a lot of actionscript projects that are on SourceForge... Aral Balkan is also offering commercial access to CVS for large RIA projects. So what's the point then? On the other hand there hasn't really been any single place where components are stored since the demise of flashcomponents.net outside of Flash Exchange where it takes 3 months to get your stuff published. Also there isn't really, as Julian of FuelIndustries and Eric Doleki of ericd.net have pointed out, where JSFL snippets and mxps and other Flash extensions are grouped (again outside of Flash Exchange which has its own problems). However Sourceforge looks like the place to be for actionscript projects; they added AS as a programming language category a few months ago and since then it's been soaring.

Other better ideas if you're going to spend time on the site include getting the CMS sorted out for the tutorials, and actually editing the tutorials before putting them online. The thing is some of the tutorials here are GRAND, by the likes of Neil Webb, Guy Watson, Jesse and me... others are badly spelled, or just plain useless, like this one that was recently added:

http://www.actionscript.org/tutorials/intermediate/random_color_transition/index.shtml

It's not even a tutorial, it's a script and an email link ferchrissakes! It's not spell checked, and it bothers me that it sits next to my own tutorials which usually take two days to write and edit.

I'm saying both as one of the top tutorial posters here and as someone who's working on an open source AS-related project on SourceForge (AMFPHP). I think you're focusing on the wrong thing and what's going to happen if you keep adding more useless features and no content tutorials is that this is going to turn into Flashkit. In the end me and Neil and all the other quality tutorial writers are going to have to find somewhere else to post their content. (okay maybe I'm just a bit frustrated because I haven't received my Studio MX 2004 box yet and it's been two months).

[mmm..pi..3.14..]

I think if you did do it, alot of the things that people post should be "open", so that other scripters who find bugs, or ways to improve it can edit it and save it, so the whole thing just keeps getting better and better. I've seen countless tutorials on various sites where the code is a good idea, but I can see a way to simplify it or change the wording of a sentence to make it a bit easier to understand. The problem is that the tutorial is stuck the way it is so theres no easy way to make it better unless you were to contact the admins of the site and have them go in and change it. I think if each piece of code could be edited by other members it would be pretty cool. Also, all previous code would remain on the page, so just because you edit it doesn't mean the original code disappears, the newer code just gets added below it.

It's sorta like PHP.net, when you look up a reference to a function PHP first gives you a few examples of how the function works, but after that theres usually a big list of handy functions/helpful hints that various people have posted. Often times when I need some PHP help I find the answer to be in one of those comments that someone else posted, and not in the original PHP help files...make sense??

Eric :)

[pmineault]

Agreed. Maybe the tutorials section should be a wiki? Or a limited number of people should get access to the tutorial section for cleanups and such. I know there are countless times I would have modified some of the tutorials to correct a typo or something ;)

[CyanBlue]

Yeah... I think pmineault has a good point... I'd probably try to find a way to make the existing thing better than starting the new one... (I am not saying that the SF idea is bad... It's actually good, but I think we should take care of the Tutorials page first... That's all I am saying... ;))

Having said that, Wiki sounds pretty good... Not sure how we can decide 'who' get to have a chance to edit the tutorial or how the original author would react if somebody modifies the tutorial or how we can decide what'd be the end point of editing the existing tutorial...
For example, if somebody writes a tutorial on how you can load an image via loadMovie() function... Somebody starts to edit the tutorial and it might end up on the gallery script and so on...
Once again, I am not saying that it'd be a bad way, but the basic loadMovie() tutorial has its own use and if we don't provide that sort of basic tutorial, the job goes back to forum and we end up telling people how you should use loadMovie() function...

That'd be the most important thing you'd need to think about if we were to go to the Wiki direction... That's my 2 cents... ;)

Oh... How come pmineault did not get the program yet??? We don't want to send it to him when we have new version of Flash... Hurry up!!! :D

[Cota]

I'd probably suggest appointing a few editors for the tutorials. Much like the Mods here, a few people to just proof read the tutorials. You might even go as far as to add a forum category for those additions to tutorials and the proof reader could decide if it becomes an addition to the tutorial or not...

Like CyanBlue said.....just my 2 cents.

[Grizzly]

Hi, just wanted to say I think this is a great idea, just wanted to ask if non-expert actionscripters(like me) will be a part of this too? :)

[Jesse]

<off-topic stuff>
Hey Patrick. This is the first I'm hearing about you not receiving your prize. Neil contacted me several times and we've chased it up with Macromedia on his behalf. I also asked them to be sure yours had been distributed, but having not heard from you or them to suggest otherwise, I thought all was OK. Please email me today and we'll get the problem resolved.

On the CMS front, while this is the first time the discussion has really gone public here's the scoop:
We have been working for ages (me personally for over 12 months) to find a mature and proven CMS (pref. open source) which meets the many and varied requirements we have. (And have learned in the process that "CMS" and "mature" often don't go together in the same sentence!)
We think we've found one and have spent a lot of time over the last six months evaluating it, and more recently, moving all the tutorials there. That is what's been keeping us from our normal duties and leading to delays in submissions going live, competition results, etc. (That and other issues which won't be discussed here.)

All the concepts being discussed here (thus far) for improving the content management process are appreciated and have already been considered. Yet we haven't made any announcements. Why? Because the CMS is simply too buggy to go live with at the moment. I am the first to agree that our current content management process is slow and ungainly, hence my push for a change but we want to move to something which is actually an improvement, not just a different set of problems.

Tutorial quality is something to be addressed when we move to a CMS. Hopefully the CMS will (immediately or eventually) also allow original authors to edit their tutorials and keep them 100% up to date too. We're not sitting on our hands; we're looking for real improvements.

The lack of a proper existing system to manage components anywhere on the web is a real issue, I agree. It's the sort of thing we might hope our CMS would support; although it's so specialized it might have to be a plugin we write ourselves. Our current Components section was a quick fix which I coded ages ago. It's not worth improving. It would be better rebuilt. Building systems takes a lot more time (in my experience) than moving forward with a plan like this new section, which would be handled by an existing, open source application which we can use. I see your point though; this proposal is creating a need, whereas a Components section would address a need.

So yes: new component section needed. Hear you loud and clear. I'll even take it on, but not by myself. If a custom solution needs building I need either (a) time; (b) funds; or (c) and existing system which we can just use, or (d) support from PHP gurus to code it. Neither (a) nor (b) is coming any time soon. So (c) or (d) it is. People who feel strongly about this, email me.
</off-topic stuff>

Phew! :rolleyes:

<on-topic stuff>
If we make a careful distinction between whether this is actually a bad idea, or whether investing time in other things first/also would be a wiser move, does anyone still have an issue with this concept?

This concept wouldn't happen instead of a move to a CMS, or other improvements. It would happen in addition, while our hands are tied on other fronts and we wait for a new release of the CMS we have decided upon. And yes, we're pretty much decided because I couldn't bear the thought of spending all my spare time for another fortnight playing with all the new builds of all the new CMS's, to find the one which suits us. I've done that twice already in the last year.
</on-topic stuff>

:)

Now back to work before I get fired.

[Jesse]

Oh and the "have content managers, like moderators but for the rest of the site" is a great idea and fundamental to our considerations when looking for a CMS. We're looking to involve people coz we know we can't keep managing the site entirely ourselves unless one of us takes it on as an actual 9-5 job.

Oh and my tone above is "brutally efficient at work and should be doing work stuff but feel people need to understand more facets of this situations to make an informed judgement" tone. I'm not angry or anything crazy like that.
:)

[Cota]

I think you'll find that you have a large pool of possible "content managers"....Guys like Xeef and Eric, who are newer, but have made a large impact, and the many others. You have an army at your disposal. :)

[CyanBlue]

Well... Here is a thought... :)
We know what we want in the backend of the AS.org and we have somebody who can document the required features... (YOU, Jesse... :D)

Why not make it the #1 project??? This way, somebody who knows PHP can give you some hands when they are not busy, and we can see how this SF idea can take off just by watching how this project is going... If it takes off, we'll have a good CMS product in shorter period... If it does not take off, we are back to square one, but nothing is actually lost...

That's my another 2 cents... :)

[Jesse]

I thought of that too but does it count as a "Flash related" project? Don't want to get off on the wrong foot now do we? ;)

[mmm..pi..3.14..]

I'd be willing to "step up to the plate" and keep watch over anything that needs to be kept track of on the site. I'm on the computer almost 12 hours a day (would be longer...but I have a life :p) and for those 12 hours I always have actionscript.org open in another tab in Firefox. So every 2-4 minutes I refresh the page and see if theres any new threads I feel like putting in a word or two. I could easily keep an eye on something else if you wanted me to...no problem ;) I think Xeef would feel the same way too but probably not want to put in as much time, he's got really important flash jobs goin' for him...a busy guy indeed :D

Eric

[farafiro]

That's my another 2 cents... :)if this thread goes longer, we'll have all your money here

[madgett]

I think this ideal is great. Especially for a search for thousands of files relating to flash that don't qualify for tutorials. As long as we have the system keep track of the original author (some form of credit) this would be really cool. However, fla files can get buff, so the HDD space as[org] will take a hit.

I know I have hundreds of fla files that I could hook into this :). I also don't think that we should not do this because there are already sites out there that do it...We have a growing community and a site dedicated to these kinds of things will fail without a strong community. Plus, we can have it easily integrated into the search for example: "Drawing a circle with actionscript" → pulls up the search's on the forums and possible file matches through this GForge thing...I see potential :).

[pmineault]

I'm not saying the gForge thing is a bad idea. Installing it would take like an hour, that and a CVS server, and it would be nice to have a central place where as-related projects can go. However, I think that the administration involved would be enormous. Handling new project requests in itself would be a daunting task. Also much like the CMS you mentioned it would require some mods which will eat up time. So I'm thinking that this will probably take much more time than you expect. Thus if you're going to start such a project, I think it will mean that other parts of the site will have to be left alone to save time. In the end I'm thinking limited resources and more work, something's gotta give.

Also I'm not sure we want to balkanize the actionscript community because we're using Flash instead of Java or whatever. Major actionscript projects on SourceForge give credibility to the Flash platform; I mean, something like AMFPHP is in the 96th percentile for activity on SourceForge, basically saying to all the naysayers this isn't a kiddie tool. Why would we want to isolate ourselves?

[senocular]

I'm not saying the gForge thing is a bad idea. Installing it would take like an hour, that and a CVS server, and it would be nice to have a central place where as-related projects can go. However, I think that the administration involved would be enormous. Handling new project requests in itself would be a daunting task. Also much like the CMS you mentioned it would require some mods which will eat up time. So I'm thinking that this will probably take much more time than you expect. Thus if you're going to start such a project, I think it will mean that other parts of the site will have to be left alone to save time. In the end I'm thinking limited resources and more work, something's gotta give.

Also I'm not sure we want to balkanize the actionscript community because we're using Flash instead of Java or whatever. Major actionscript projects on SourceForge give credibility to the Flash platform; I mean, something like AMFPHP is in the 96th percentile for activity on SourceForge, basically saying to all the naysayers this isn't a kiddie tool. Why would we want to isolate ourselves?

That makes sense.

[Jesse]

The balkanization point is the strongest to me, as it seems to be the hardest to overcome. It's also a cool word :)

I'm still not decided whether the net outcome is positive or negative on balance. Separation of AS projects could conceivably lead to less recognition of their true professional status, as Patrick says. On the other hand a localized repository, combined with the active promotion which would follow on our part, will increase what I think is currently very low awareness of the benefits of utilizing real SDLC management tools in ActionScript development. This in turn could have an equally positive effect in terms of professionalizing Flash development by showing people we (Flash developers) are serious. It would also increase visibility of serious ActionScript projects.

The AMFPHP case is a good one to make us think. What I was looking for with this post was not only approval but a refinement of the idea, assisted by each of you. My original concept was vague and didn't include some of the great ideas which have been put here directly, or have sprung up in my mind as a result of this lively discussion. I still see real value in a repository for, if nothing else, development and distribution of foundational ActionScript classes for RIA development. Even if our forge was only that, I think it would add value.

Retorts, support and musings welcomed and appreciated. We're still not decided.

[senocular]

Whats the G from? Shouldnt it be something like ASSForge? (ActionScript Source Forge) :D


...

*runs away*

[Jesse]

GForge is the product name. But that's a brilliant naming concept ;)

[Cota]

that was great....Senocular said ASSforge...... :D
Yes, I'm very childish... :p

[farafiro]

Whats the G from? Shouldnt it be something like ASSForge? (ActionScript Source Forge) :D


...

*runs away*
*catch senocular*
I'm with this :D

[madgett]

I think the poll shows that this is a great idea Jesse :). I say throw something up, the worst that can happen is the lack of people using it...however, that will be easy to see once it's in place. The other thing is that it will be a collection of all kinds of files, I just think that is fantastic in of itself...yeah sourceforge is cool, but it has no real community, it's just online storage in my opinion...this would have files directly related to flash. Go for it! :)

[ELT]

The idea is good for sure but its all do u have the time do manage all that ? I dont know all sites for sure related to flash but maybe make links first to existing interesting AS opensource projects first in diferent categories or/and a page where people can submit what project they have and the link to there page and description whatever else u see would be good :)

Dependeing on that see what goes next if its really required or not. Just my opinion. For sure could be cool to know those AS project exist and where they are on the net.

cheers

[sleekdigital]

I am mostly in favor of the idea of AS.org hosting something like Source Forge. If you do use the same base softwate as Source Forge I hape you address the issue of how difficult it can be to find things... although I suppose it will be less of a problem since it will be just for Flash projects.

[pmineault]

Looks like Aral Balkan has been having way too much extra time, he may have one-upped you:

http://www.osflash.org/

[sleekdigital]

Yeah, that site was already mentioned in this thread. It is similar, but it does not have alot of the features that Source Forge has.

[pHrOsT]

It would be nice to have something of that nature hosted at actionscript.org because of the already well established community here. I don't know about you guys but I would love to see some of the projects that get developed through the talent of some of the posters here! It's also nice to have all your needs in one place (tutorials, forums, source projects...), makes things a lot easier in my opinion. Anyway I think it's a great idea!

[GUYINTHECHAIR]

This idea sounds great. I know i just started a project that seems out of m league, so i came here to get some ideas, and so this AS source files server would definately help out alot. and once ive got some basic parts of my project running, i would upload all the source files. and people, *.as files arent really that big, and *.fla files dont have to be, if we code all our objects in the *.as files

[Trebormojo]

it would be good for promoting the use of flash, bad for developers. just like all these open source content management systems and such have lowered the value of everyone else's hard work.

a good thing about flash development is that not everyone can do it ;) with programmer salaries falling, i don't think we need to take flash designers down with it. flash has always been sophisticated, this would ruin the brand.

[CyanBlue]

In that sense, I am not supposed to create any sample or even answer the question for people who has no idea what AS means, Trebormojo, because that threatens other developer's job security, am I right???

Come on... Give it a break... We're here to share the knowledge not to extract what's inside of our brain... I think it's good if somebody learn AS and become a good developer by the help of any of the threads in the forum... :)

[sleekdigital]

I also disagree with Trebormojo. Bad for developers? ruin the brand? Some heavy statements here with nothing to back them up. From what I saw at Flash Forward, much of the community and even Macromedia itself is pretty excited about the recent increase of open source activity related to Flash (osflash.org for example). A site like this would not be targeted to script kiddies looking for short cuts. It would be targeted to serious develpopers who want to release their projects as open source and collaborate with other serious developers. How is that bad for developers or hurt the brand in any way?

[SuperApe]

Anything that pools resources, gets people to network and is productive is okay by me. It sounds like an excellent way for others (onlookers) to learn as well.

[scot]

my 2 cents.... GREAT IDEA I've been playing with flash since ver 4 ..... AS has improved greatly over the years... I've been developing all my flash apps in 100 % actionscript... no more draggie on stage and give instance name..... A site for prototypes... and Classes..... when ... can I offer my server / and skills for this ....... :eek:

server -- slackware 10 / apache 1 / mysql / php
skills -- AS / PHP / MYSQL (any database really).. and a lot more......

and how about ... OSAS Open Source Action Script ..........

[JamesonH]

I think this would be a great idea and a big contribution to the Flash community.

[retrotron]

I think it'd be a good idea. I reckon that it should be 'project' focused rather than just a repository of code. It would definitely need CVS. And each project should have a project manager, one senior coder who manages the development and expansion (like a proper CVS project). That would be the 'moderators' thing.

In any case, I'd be happy to contribute my Thoth (http://www.absconditus.com/index.html?page=thoth) project.

[Billystyx]

nothing much to add - but it sounds good to me.
billystyx

[Ricod]

I want to be in favor as it sounds great. Just the memory of the Flash chat project is keeping me a bit skeptical and this sounds so much bigger. :(

If the ASSForge (I guess that's about decided ;) ) section is going to be adopted we're definitely going to need more help. Then again, that's probably not going to be much of a problem as there are a lot of members who would qualify for such a position. If they're willing of course (Thanks for stepping up Eric, you get my vote for any position I can think of).

For the rest, I don't think I'm really qualified to make an opinion as I don't know exactly what's involved. As a AS[org] user : Sounds cool !

[primusluta]

So is this going to happen? I think it could be really useful and would love to contribute.

[Jesse]

Yup it's still on a back burner. In accordance with the commitments we made above, we're moving to a CMS first, and fixing up some other elements of the site. But this will come after that.

[Jesse]

Yes, yes, it's still on the way. I've jsut moved house. get internet again soon. Then CMS. This will likely come around the end of the year if it's feasible. Still need to look into it more, mainly from the server requirements perspective.

[CyanBlue]

Here is the perfect candidate for this job...
I don't think Jesse will be ready to create the environment for this specific one, but if you guys are interested, dive in... Make something good... ;)
(I heard that this is F8 project...)

http://www.actionscript.org/forums/showthread.php3?t=87498

[Headshotz]

Orighty :D

[Cota]

Apparently I missed something..whats happening?

[Headshotz]

I dont know, I just saw, check this out and help here so I decided to.