DotGNU project looks for ideas, developers during 36-hour IRC meet-a-thon

– By Grant Gross –
DotGNU, a Free Software Web services project that’s a response to Microsoft’s .NET, is hosting a 36-hour marathon IRC meet-a-thon this weekend aimed at interested developers and experienced contributors to hash over some issues.

DotGNU could be known as the Free Software .NET-like Project That Isn’t Mono, but developers there say the less publicized project is making good progress, with a heavy-traffic email list as part of the evidence.

The IRC meeting runs from 10 a.m. GMT Saturday to 10 p.m. GMT Sunday and is organized into sessions starting every four hours, with the first 12 hours being “the tourist session of the meeting” to introduce new people to the project, according to Gopal.V, one of the event organizers. Among the topics will be .NET, general Web services and “their implications on freedom.” The meeting will be at irc.openprojects.net#dotgnu.

Organizers say the long hours of the meet-a-thon should insure that developers and interested people from across the globe will have a convenient time to chat. But the DotGNU team is unsure of how many people to expect for this kind of event. Gopal.V says the project has 20 to 30 core developers who are working on a variety of proposed Web services projects.

“Also more people (non developers) are expected. I think this will bring more developers, users and testers. (we need all of ’em),” Gopal.V writes in an email. “The GNU project has always been a community project — DotGNU is still unborn as a community, and its all going to change now.”

Adds Barry Fitzgerald, another DotGNU developer: “Basically, it’s open floor for a 36 hour developer meet/hack-a-thon. Anyone is invited — whether you have an idea, need clarification on something that’s being done, or just want to chat about future
possibilities. The goal is to get as much done as possible. The more
documentation and code we get out of it, the better — of course.”

After the first 12 hours, the talk will turn to specific sessions for developers and those interested, including information about the current status of the project. Gopal.V says the group will talk about some features being worked on, including:

• A C# compiler/runtime that runs purely off GNU programs like Linux and Hurd
• A groupware suit that supports XMLRPC and SOAP
• A set of authorization/authentication platforms.

The group will also talk about some new ideas like Web services over Jabber, a distributed execution environment, a P2P virtual remote server and XML standards.