Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 12:12:25 +0200 From: "Simon L. Nielsen" <simon@FreeBSD.org> To: Daniel Gerzo <danger@FreeBSD.org> Cc: glebius@FreeBSD.org, www@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Discussion: FreeBSD.org search engine Message-ID: <20061003101224.GB982@zaphod.nitro.dk> In-Reply-To: <1152359325.20060930001147@rulez.sk> References: <1152359325.20060930001147@rulez.sk>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 2006.09.30 00:11:47 +0200, Daniel Gerzo wrote: > What I want to bring to the discussion is a pretty nice service that > is currently hosted at (IIRC) the second biggest russian search > company, Rambler. It is currently available through > http://freebsd.rambler.ru/ and provides fairly sophisticated FreeBSD > mailing list search. I have already contacted glebius@ who works at > Rambler (and he is not the only FreeBSD committer working there) > and it seems like Rambler would like to support FreeBSD with their > search engine. One of the problems that has been revealed is that > Rambler is currently missing English help. On the other hand, > glebius@ has already called Russian committers for help and there > are at least 3-4 of them willing to help with translation to > English. The other thing might be that the Rambler search engine > binary must not be leaked; that means if Rambler provided the binary > to us in any possible way, it will certainly not be available for > everyone of us. As long as we don't lock our self into a position where we cannot switch to another search engine in the future if needed (and I don't see that happening here), I don't consider the closed search engine a big problem. When I talked to glebius about this some time ago we discussed simply hosting the search engine on a system at rambler and then only allowing rambler employees, and potentially other people who have signed an NDA, access to the system. I think that would be preferable to "The FreeBSD Project" having to handle access to the system to avoid any potential legal problems. I do have one thing which I don't like too much about using rambler by default and that is that rambler basically mirrors the mails so we have yet another place for mail references (we already both have docs.freebsd.org and lists.freebsd.org). I'm not sure if there are any solutions to this, but it would be nice to handle this somehow. That said, it's not a showstopper for me. > Currently, we are not aware of way to make Rambler to search in more > specific mailing lists, say freebsd-doc and freebsd-www; only in one > at the moment. It is essential to be able to limit search queries > to more maling lists and glebius@ is quiet sure that will not be a > problem at all. He also noted, that the Rambler developer will add > any additional functionality that would be needed. OK, sounds good to me. One minor nit which should probably be handled is that rambler currently doesn't display the message ID - that should be there since that's the best persistent reference for a mail. > I have also asked, if it is possible to search FreeBSD.org web site > with Rambler. I have been told, that currently that is not the > case, but the code is prepared. It just needs to be enabled to > index the pages. OK, if we are going to switch it should IMO be for both mail and web site. > Now, what I would like to hear from you guys is, what do you > think about Rambler -- do you like the idea? What do you see as a > requirement for us to be able to switch to Rambler? Reasons that > would prevent us to take a step forward and improve our web and > mailing list search? There are some issues which should be worked out, and you mention the ones I can recall in your mail, other than that it sounds a feasible way ahead. Of cause, it requires someone to take the lead on this... hint hint :-). BTW. you might want to poke wosch directly to hear if he has any comments, since he is the one handling the current search system. Also note, that you should read the lack of other responses as "No objections" :-). -- Simon L. Nielsen
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20061003101224.GB982>