Welcome to the March issue of the Fedora Newsletter. In addition to the usual update on the latest developments within our community, we’ve included links to some further reading for your interest.
Membership - We can’t do it alone!
Fedora is an open-source, community-supported program funded entirely by membership contributions. This funding supports staff to work on developing, teaching, engaging and supporting Fedora users across the globe. Without our members, we would not be able to support the preservation of the vital content contained within the repositories of our users. Find out how you can help. Learn more and become a member today!
News
Fedora 6 Beta Release!
Just this past week we celebrated a momentous milestone on the road to Fedora 6.0 - BETA RELEASE! Most importantly, this brings Fedora 6.0 to feature completion and a full production release is on the horizon.
Highlights Include:
- Core is feature complete and fully aligned with Fedora API Specification
- Transparent persistence layer: OCFL
- Simple Search
- Improved scalability and performance
- Support for Postgres, MariaDB and MySQL
- Tools support
We are now ready for downloading and testing. You can DOWNLOAD THE BETA HERE. As always, we are seeking feedback/testing from users. We have compiled a list of performance and scale requirements for production release on the wiki and are encouraging institutions to fill in their specific use requirements.
The fedora-tech mailing list or the #fedora-6-testing channel in the Fedora Slack is where we are collecting any and all feedback on this release. So please dig in and let us know how the Beta is working for you!
Special Recognition
With Fedora 6.0 on the horizon we want to recognize the many individuals who have devoted time, resources and skills to helping us reach our goal. Their contributions and involvement cannot go without recognition and without their hard work we would not be where we are today. So from all of us in the community and at Fedora, THANK YOU.
Andrew Woods - Formerly Lyrasis
Daniel Bernstein - Lyrasis
Jared Whiklo - University of Manitoba
Peter Winckles - University of Wisconsin, Madison
Ben Pennell - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Aaron Birkland - Johns Hopkins University
Peter Eichman - University of Maryland
Mohamed Mohideen Abdul Rasheed - University of Maryland
Ben Cail - Brown University
Dan Field - National Library of Wales
Jenny A’Brook - National Library of Wales
Richard Williams - National Library of Wales
Michal Dulinski - National Library of Wales
Remigiusz Malessa - National Library of Wales
Jon Roby - University of Manitoba
Youn Noh - Yale University
We appreciate all of the efforts of people mentioned above. Additionally, there are individuals whose enormous contributions invite and require a special acknowledgement.
- Jared Whiklo (University of Manitoba)
- Peter Winkles (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Ben Pennel (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
These three have made, consistently and over many months, outsized contributions to the codebase, testing, code reviews, documentation, and community engagement. They have brought their expertise, energy, and goodwill to the hardest technical problems we’ve encountered with grace, style, and unrelenting effort. They have truly gone above and beyond the call of duty.
Fedora User Group Meetings
We are pleased to be hosting an Online User Group Meeting for those in European time zones this month. We have 2 exciting half-day sessions planned with a wide range of speakers joining us to present on the progress and development happening within our community. Registration is open now for this event. It is FREE to attend and we are extending the invitation to any and all interested parties, so make sure to spread the word!
DATES: March 16-17, 2021
REGISTRATION:
Day 1: https://lyrasis.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwkcuugqT0sGtRyfohKlOLn8_RBNlByjKLF
Day 2: https://lyrasis.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrd-qtqDouE9YT7DNSpM9ZdrB3JctARhJk
** Agenda will follow shortly**
And stay tuned for upcoming information for our next User Group Meeting for North American time zones which will take place the week of April 12-16, 2021.
IMLS Grant Update: Fedora Migration Paths and Tools
This grant (lg-246264-ols-20) is focused on developing, piloting, and documenting migration tools and paths for upgrading Fedora 3 repositories to Fedora 6. Fedora staff and the grant partners have been working hard on this project and are pleased to share the following updates:
- The University of Virginia pilot team has completed an initial migration of their Fedora 3 content using migration-utils. The next step is to index this content in their new Fedora 6 instance for further testing and configuration.
- The LYRASIS team is working on a validation tool that will independently validate a Fedora 3 to 6 migration. This tool will be used to validate that the University of Virginia migration has been completed successfully and all data has been migrated without loss.
- The Whitman College team is setting up a new Islandora 8 instance using ISLE. Once this instance has been set up the team will begin sample migrations based on previously established mapping decisions.
Stay tuned for future updates!
Communications
Demo Videos:
Stay in the loop on what to expect with Fedora 6.0 by subscribing to our YouTube channel. Last month Danny Bernstein, tech lead at Fedora, joined us to demonstrate how to launch Fedora 6.0 in a production cloud environment using the new AWS Deployer tool. You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/DiMPyWztc3U
Blog:
In case you missed it, last month we began a series of blog posts introducing you to members of our community. In the first edition we sat down with Etse Pope (Fedora Steering Chair) from Amherst College, and Tim Shearer (Fedora Steering Chair-Elect) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Read their stories here.
Activities in Related Communities - January
Islandora
- It is with a sad heart that we said goodbye to Melissa Anez, Project & Community Manager for the Islandora Foundation. Her time and devotion to the Islandora Foundation over her 8 years with the community will be sorely missed. We want to wish her all the best in her new role at LYRASIS!
- Arran Griffith has taken over the community engagement role temporarily on a part time basis to fill in for Melissa. If you need to reach out to her you can email her at agriffith@islandora.ca
- ISLE 1.5.4 (for ISLE, Drupal and Islandora 7.x) was released.
- Full release notes can be found here.
- An Islandora Open Meeting took place on February 23, 2021.
- You can find a link to Seth Shaw’s video recording from the session here where he discusses access control options for Drupal and Islandora.
Samvera
- Samvera Virtual Connect call for proposals now open!
- Submit your proposals here. Due Date: March 22, 2021
- Hyrax Development, Support & Engagement Working Group is seeking new members
- Charter is available here.
- Add your fun/interesting/notable holding from your Samvera repository to their map here
Coming Up Next…
Stay tuned this month for the following:
Intro to Fedora Workshop: This is a free workshop hosted by David Wilcox, Program Leader at Fedora. With limited registration, Fedora Members had early access to registration and we reached capacity in record time. But there are still waitlist spaces available so do not hesitate to sign up by registering here!
Workshop topics include:
- Overview of software and basic concepts
- Deployment examples
- Overview and demonstration of core features with a specific focus on new features in version 6.0
- Product roadmap and how to get involved
This is a technical workshop pitched at an introductory level, so no prior Fedora experience is required. General knowledge of the role and functionality of repositories would be beneficial. Attendees who wish to participate in the optional hands-on sections will need to access an online sandbox via a URL that will be provided ahead of the workshop. Laptop or desktop computers are recommended for the hands-on exercises.
Conferences & Events
In an effort to consolidate conference information for all community members, we have created an active Conferences section on the wiki which can be accessed at any time here. Our goal is to keep this as up-to-date as possible to provide a single source of information surrounding on-going conferences and workshops.
Upcoming Conferences
Samvera Virtual Connect (SVC)- April 21-22, 2021 (virtual)
- SVC is an opportunity for Samvera Community participants to gather online to touch base on the progress of community efforts.
- Call for submissions now open. Register here.
Fedora User Group Meeting (North American time zones) - (tentatively) April 13-14, 2021 (virtual)
- Join us for our 2nd annual Online User Group Meeting catering to North American time zones. This is an opportunity to share and discuss progress and developments from users across our community.
- Call for presentation submissions to open shortly. Stay tuned.
Get Involved
Fedora is designed, built, used, and supported by the community. If you want to get involved but don’t know where to start, dropping in to one of our weekly Tech calls is a great place to meet the team and find out what we’re working on. You can find more details here.
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.
