Response Notes: Andrew Garton

From apc.au wiki

Prepared by Andrew Garton on 30 Oct 2007 and sent to John Smithies:

I am particularly concerned that both Plumi and NGO In A Box were thought to be CMS's. A brief look at both web sites would have yielded enough information to realise that:

Plumi is a FOSS, fully integrated, multilingual, video management system supporting a Creative Commons licence management system.

NGO In A Box is a series of peer reviewed FOSS software packages designed for community groups, NGOs, etc. Each package is designed for a specific outcome and include tools for Sound & Video, Security, Administration, Printing, etc.

In addition, there is no clear comparative research on the various CMS options. Given that Plumi provides all the resources required of the proposed media platform, it seems odd that it was not even given a decent appraisal.

I was also somewhat confused as to why still camera's were reviewed and not video. Given that still camera's record video at mostly 640x480 resolution and at MPEG2 compression, it would not be possible to up-scale the Home Lands series for broadcast (eg. television).

I have a few other issues regarding rights management, assessment of hardware performance in remote locations, battery life and solar re-charge capability, why the media platform dB is housed in Australia given bandwidth cost concerns for hosting in general and that tools such as Plumi provide an integrated dB, and that server co-location be considered as a serious option for hosting of the project (also supported by Dreamhost and only recently available which would reduce hardware and maintenance costs...).