Askbot

http://askbot.org is a question and answer oriented forum similar to Stack Overflow or Yahoo Answers. It is written in Python and Django. You can file bug reports via http://bugs.askbot.org/ and the source code is at https://github.com/ASKBOT/askbot-devel/. It is primarily developed and maintained by Evgeny Fadeev.

Status

• Rahul Sundaram is leading an effort to package Askbot and all its build time and runtime dependencies for Fedora. The goal is to get an instance of it running in say http://ask.fedoraproject.org and serve as a forum for questions and answers. The dependencies are useful for various other projects as well.

• Toshio from Fedora Infrastructure team raised the question of liability and Red Hat Legal has clarified that there isn't any. It is like the users list where end users answer other user's questions and we don't have to moderate the answers for legal reasons. Thanks to Spot for helping with a quick response.

• Rahul Sundaram is in touch with the upstream developer, Evgeny Fadeev (evgeny.fadeev gmail) who is willing to help out with the integration with Fedora Account System. He has made some changes upstream to make it easier to integration with a external authentication system. Refer to http://askbot.org/doc/askbot-as-reusable-django-application.html for more details.

• Prasad.J.Pandit (PJP) has added support for Fedora Authentication System (FAS) in Askbot. These patches have been sent upstream. Upstream has agreed to make auth support extensible so that we can plugin FAS auth support without having to patch Askbot and has sent us (Rahul and PJP) a patch to test this. Rahul Sundaram will followup as required.
• Rahul Sundaram has discussed several enhancements and bug fixes with upstream and upstream is making progress. Check status via http://askbot.org/en/users/309/rahul-sundaram/. Some patch discussions etc are offlist

• Theming needed. Information on how to create a custom skin is available at http://askbot.org/doc/customizing-skin-in-askbot.html and http://askbot.org/wiki/index.php/Custom_Skins. Will request the Fedora design team for help when Askbot and dependencies are in the Fedora repo.

Review requests filed by Rahul Sundaram

django-keyedcache - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697492 (Lakshmi Narasimhan will review by weekend)

django-robots - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696516 (in the repo now)

django-countries - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696485 (in the repo now)

django-celery - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697483 (waiting on dependencies to be reviewed)

django-kombu - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696527 (approved. cannot be built without python-kombu in the repo first)

python-coffin - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699335 (in the repo now)

askbot - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699336 (waiting on dependencies to be reviewed)

Bundled dependencies split up

Grapefruit - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=716808. Filed by Praveen Kumar (PJP is reviewing)

Django-recaptcha - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=716844 Filed by Jitesh Shah (PJP is reviewing)

Upstream status - http://askbot.org/en/question/484/status-of-bundled-dependencies

Other dependencies (pre-existing review requests)

python-celery (dep of django-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=611277

django-picklefield (dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=611068 (Rahul Sundaram has approved)

python-kombu (dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691115 (Lakshmi Narasimhan has reviewed. Waiting)

python-html5lib (runtime dep of askbot) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=252108 (Rahul Sundaram has reviewed. Waiting)

python-msgpack (dep of python-kombu) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691114 (approved)

TODO

• Get the rest of the dependencies reviewed and in the Fedora and EPEL 5 branch (various people)
• Package FAS auth support plugin (PJP)
• Test Askbot in RHEL 5 with Askbot and dependencies from RPM packages (PJP)
• Package django-avatar (Praveen Kumar)
• package django-followit (owner needed. upstream expected to do a release in pypi shortly)
• Split up the rest of the bundled dependencies as appropriate and update the Askbot package (Rahul Sundaram)
• File a request for resources with Fedora infrastructure team. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Request_For_Resources (Rahul Sundaram)
• Test the instance including admin interface, fas auth support, setup cron jobs (collective effort)
• Add identi.ca support, both as a login method and posting to it (owner needed)
• Add a sidebar for announcements (owner needed)

Askbot Fedora team

• Rahul Sundaram (packaging, upstream contact)
• Prasad J Pandit (administration help, FAS auth support, packaging)
• Saleem Ansari (administration help)
• Praveen Kumar (packaging)
• Jitesh Shah (packaging)

Askbot info

• Feature list: http://askbot.org/en/question/43/askbot-feature-list

• Moderation system: http://askbot.org/en/question/108/does-askbot-have-its-own-member-management-system

• Management: http://askbot.org/doc/management-commands.html

• Deployments of Askbot:

• http://ask.sagemath.org
• http://answers.ros.org/questions/
• http://asterisk-support.ru/questions/

Also WindRiver (Intel) has a internal instance running according to upstream. More examples at

- http://askbot.org/en/question/28/list-of-askbot-sites

• Alternatives:

• Shapado - Shapado is an open source question-answer system written in Ruby, Mongomapper and MongoDB. http://ask.debian.net is running a instance of this.

• OSQA - OSQA (Open Source Question and Answer) is an open source question-answer system written in Python with Django. Askbot is a fork of OSQA.

• Question2Answer - PHP. Simple to setup. Lacking in features.

• Stack Overflow - Proprietary. http://askubuntu.com/ is using this.