Re: CKAN user requirements half-day?
Antti Poikola
I will forward this email to the opengov_data developer list:
opengo...@googlegroups.com
Jussi Arpalahti made recently a quick review on the CKAN codebase and
hopefully shares his thoughts with you guys.
Basically it seems that opengov is so far much lighter and simpler
implementation that CKAN. CKAN is more datawarehouse oriented where the
opnegov is more usercommunity and UI oriented, though, not yet fully
implemented. In my opinion replicating things in two projects
(developing community approach, discussion and UI in CKAN or developing
advanced data directory related features in opengov) should be avoided
if possible. On the other hand putting two systems in one stack is not
allways so straight forward.
Of course this question goes beyond technology and the vision for good
data catalogues should be developed further. In Finland we have some
financial backing for developing the opengov further and I might be able
to get some more for something useful, but before that I would like to
push more the development of "international data catalogue builder
community".
So I suggest that (in this order):
1. Jussi shares his questions and thoughts for this group.
2. One of the CKAN developers takes a quick look at the opengov code
base: http://code.google.com/p/opengov-catalog/
3. Before going to wiki, let's have an 1,5 hour data catalogue visioning
session at Skype+Etherpad. After points 1 and 2, if there is interest
for this point 3, I can coordinate the scheduling.
-Jogi
Jonathan Gray wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Several people interested in using CKAN as a registry of open
> (government) data in their country have expressed an interest in
> having either a new front end, a different 'theme' and/or more user
> features.
>
> Antti Poikola (Finland), Daniel Dietrich (Germany) and James Burke
> (Netherlands) are going to take a lead in suggesting improvements and
> features that they would like to see, as well as in comparing it to
> other similar sites/projects. Perhaps as David Eaves (Canada) is also
> thinking about this, he might like to join in too?
>
> I suggest that Antti, Daniel, James and David (if he is interested),
> add their ideas and suggestions to the OKF wiki:
>
> http://wiki.okfn.org/ckan/ideas
>
> Perhaps, once they have done this, we can then schedule in a meeting
> with core CKAN developers/designers to talk about this. E.g. sometime
> in February? Also several people have suggested the possibility of
> finding other designers/developers (Python) to help out with this in
> respective countries...
>
>
Jonathan Gray
discuss CKAN UI stuff, CKAN/Opengov.x interoperability and suchlike!
(I guess the title will be something like 'Open government data
registry requirements'?)
Antti: can we action you with fixing a date/time that suits the main
people interested in participating with this? E.g. with a doodle poll,
say in February? (Not sure if weekday or weekend is better, AM or PM,
etc.)
Also it would be great if people could add relevant ideas/discussion points to:
http://wiki.okfn.org/ckan/ideas
Jonathan
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 6:37 PM, David Eaves <da...@eaves.ca> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> As someone seeking to set up a site that aggregates open data sets I'd love
> to be part of the discussion and help out as well.
>
> best,
> dave
> C: 778-227-4235
> www.eaves.ca
>
> On 10-01-15 8:52 AM, Daniel Dietrich wrote:
>>
>> Hi Antti and others
>>
>> I think this is really a great idea and I am happy to join / help.
>> I agree with the steps proposed and looking forward to jump in at step 3.
>>
>> Best greetings
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> -Jogi
>>>
>>>
>>> Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Several people interested in using CKAN as a registry of open
>>>> (government) data in their country have expressed an interest in
>>>> having either a new front end, a different 'theme' and/or more user
>>>> features.
>>>>
>>>> Antti Poikola (Finland), Daniel Dietrich (Germany) and James Burke
>>>> (Netherlands) are going to take a lead in suggesting improvements and
>>>> features that they would like to see, as well as in comparing it to
>>>> other similar sites/projects. Perhaps as David Eaves (Canada) is also
>>>> thinking about this, he might like to join in too?
>>>>
>>>> I suggest that Antti, Daniel, James and David (if he is interested),
>>>> add their ideas and suggestions to the OKF wiki:
>>>>
>>>> http://wiki.okfn.org/ckan/ideas
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps, once they have done this, we can then schedule in a meeting
>>>> with core CKAN developers/designers to talk about this. E.g. sometime
>>>> in February? Also several people have suggested the possibility of
>>>> finding other designers/developers (Python) to help out with this in
>>>> respective countries...
>>>>
>>
>> We are starting a little working group here at opendata network in Germany
>> to discus what features, functionalities, etc we would like to see for a
>> german data.gov.de - we also might find some coding recourses for coding /
>> design.
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
--
Jonathan Gray
Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org
Twitter/Identica: jwyg
Jussi Arpalahti
On Jan 14, 8:43 pm, Antti Poikola <antti.poik...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jonathan and others,
>
> I will forward this email to the opengov_data developer list:
> opengo...@googlegroups.com
>
> Jussi Arpalahti made recently a quick review on the CKAN codebase and
> hopefully shares his thoughts with you guys.
<snip>
> So I suggest that (in this order):
>
> 1. Jussi shares his questions and thoughts for this group.
>
<snip>
Hi.
The following is a rough overview I did on CKAN based on its web site,
development wiki and a cursory look at the source code.
CKAN is lacking technical documentation for the application structure
and I have yet to dive deep in
it. It's based on a Python web framework called Pylons that is by my
guestimate not nearly as popular as Django. It is said to be more
powerful
and customizable, which can be good or bad, depending on your usage
scenario. I prefer Django for its easy approachability.
Opengov_catalog and CKAN have some overlapping concerns, but they also
provide for different features. Catalog is more like a website, I
think.
CKAN looks like a directory. It is possible to bring CKAN features to
catalog or vice versa, but combination of the two can be problematic.
On
Django's side it depends how much CKAN relies on Pylons web
environment.
CKAN's dataset component would supercede catalog's. Pylons very
probably
has functionality for catalog's blog app, but how that would be
crafted on
CKAN I don't know.
In CKAN the dataset record can be written in any language, but I see
no
support for direct translations. Perhaps different languages' records
can be
linked somehow.
CKAN's L19N seems to use gettext, like Django. There is only a partial
french translation. I don't know how good is Pylons support for
multilanguality.
Opengov_catalog is (at the moment) much simpler than CKAN in the API
department. On the dataset part I think catalog is actually better off
with
its discussion option and suggestion form.
If we decide we need the versioning and flexible schema properties
like
CKAN, then there is not much point to re-implement them in catalog.
One can
probably use CKAN's code from Django directly, but if code has Pylons
dependencies, there might be conflicts with Django's expectations.
Support
for versioning records from database does exist as a Django app
already.
CKAN's schema modifications look like old fashioned key-value pattern,
like
tags with values.
I'd like to know how popular CKAN is with its users and outside
developers.
It feels perhaps too large a program for the intended use case.
Perhaps
catalog would work as a platform for gathering information about
country's
datasets that could be then transferred to CKAN for more complex usage
as
needed. If CKAN is already a healthy open source project with
financial
backing it could be more sensible choice futurewise.
In summary I don't immediately see CKAN as a full replacement for
catalog.
I fear that coexistence in the same software stack would be
complicated. I
wouldn't like to replicate CKAN's functionality in catalog, but that
depends mainly on usage scenarios we choose to support. Catalog could
support CKAN API for data import and export. For better analysis a
more
detailed look to CKAN code structure is needed.
Jussi
Antti Poikola
I made the initial Doodle poll here: http://www.doodle.com/smrbrg5uz3ihg3p6
Mark possible days in the poll and add free-form comments at the bottom
of the poll in the comments section please.
BR,
-Jogi (Finland)