This is the September 2020 edition of the Fedora Newsletter. This newsletter summarizes the most significant activities within the Fedora community over the last month.
News
IMLS Grant Work Begins: Fedora Migration Paths and Tools
This month marks the beginning of the IMLS-funded Fedora Migration Paths and Tools project, which seeks to bring the community forward to a modern, supported version of Fedora via migration tools, documentation, guides, best practices, and other pathways. The first phase of the grant focuses on two pilot migrations, the first at the University of Virginia and the second at Whitman College. The grant team will meet with each pilot institution this month to kick-off the project and establish roles, responsibilities, goals, and timelines. Stay tuned for more information as the grant work progresses!
Slides and Recordings: Online Fedora Users Group Meeting - European Timezones
The second Online Fedora Users Group Meeting, this time based around European timezones, is now complete. The meeting featured a number of great presentations and updates from Fedora community members, along with discussions around migration and organizing a future meeting. 25-30 participants attended sessions throughout the day. Slides and notes are available on the wiki, and all the video recordings have been uploaded to YouTube. Feel free to share these resources with your colleagues.
Slides and Recordings: Online Fedora Users Group Meeting - American Timezones
The first Online Fedora Users Group Meeting (based around American timezones) is now complete. The meeting was well-attended, with between 35 and 45 participants throughout the two day event. Slides are notes are available on the wiki, and all the video recordings have been uploaded to YouTube. Feel free to share these resources with your colleagues.
Fedora Sprints
A Fedora code sprint took place August 3-7. The accomplishments include:
- Support for the creation of external binary files
- Progress on the Fedora 4 & 5 to Fedora 6 migration tooling
- Search service refinements.
The current sprint takes place September 7 - 11. The goals include:
- Fedora 4 & 5 → Fedora 6 migration (upgrade-utils)
- Integrate fcrepo-storage-ocfl into core
- Fedora API Alignment
- Prefer header (Inbound references)
- Direct and Indirect Container Support
- * Valkyrie verification
Through December of 2020 we will be holding one-week-long Fedora 6 mini-sprints during the first week of each month.
This will allow for consistent progress towards the Fedora 6 release, as well as a clear schedule for you to plan towards participating on sprints. If you miss one month, you can join the next!
The next sprint will take place October 5-9. Please add your name to any of the upcoming sprint dates on the wiki.
Activities in Related Communities
Islandora
- All the recordings from Islandora Online are now available on YouTube
- A new Islandora 8 users call has been scheduled
- The Islandora Foundation has extended its timeline to end support for Drupal 7
Samvera
- The Hyrax Maintenance Working Group has two open positions for a QA Lead and a Developer
- The Samvera Connect program committee is seeking volunteers to help with support groups for the conference
Oxford Common File Layout
The latest OCFL community meeting took place on September 9. Notes from the call are available online. The meeting focused on editorial updates, including the proposed extensions review and merge policy, and reconsidering 'range' for string parameters. The next community call will take place on October 14th.
Conferences and events
In an attempt to simplify the task of keeping up with Fedora-related meetings and events, a Fedora calendar is available to the community as HTML and iCal .
If you have not already joined the fedora-project Slack workspace please start by visiting the self-registration form. Come join the conversation!
Membership
Fedora is funded entirely through the contributions of members that allocate their annual funding to Fedora. This funding supports full-time staff to work on Fedora and provide technical leadership, direct strategic planning, organize community outreach, and coordinate timely software releases. Membership also provides opportunities to participate in project governance and influence the direction of the software. If your institution is not yet a member in support of Fedora, please join us today!
Register Your Repository
Is your repository listed in the registry? Help us maintain reliable information on the community of Fedora users around the world by registering your repository today. You can also request an update to an existing entry by selecting your entry and filling out the online form.
Get Involved
Fedora is designed, built, used, and supported by the community. An easy and important way that you can contribute to the effort is by helping resolve outstanding bugs. If you have an interest in gaining a better understanding of the Fedora code base, or a specific interest in any of these bugs, please add a comment to a ticket and we can work together to move your interest forward.
