Back To: Proposed SME Server Community Constitution Docs

The SME Server is a Linux server distribution focused on simplicity, stability, reliability, and security. It is built using only components that have an extensive track record in these areas. The server is designed to be maintained by people with little or no technical background.

Communications Group Guidance


The Communications Group will therefore pursue the following goals, as time and resources permit:


Provide the information and support needed to help inexperienced users receive the benefits of using SME Server

This is the primary goal of the Communications Group. A concerted effort will be made to focus, for this purpose, on the exact minimum information needed by the inexperienced user. More extensive information may be available, and should be easy to find, but the first-time SME installer should not need to deal with them before the need for this information becomes apparent. The main methods used to achieve this goal shall be:


Make the existence of this help as widely known, as easy to find, and as generally useful as possible

Information is not very valuable if people do not know it exists, can't find it when they need it, or can't understand it when they do find it. Therefore, The Communications Group will work to:


Provide training materials and guidance to help less experienced users gain expertise

Many, perhaps most, users will be happy to get SME installed and working, use the gateway and ibays, perhaps install a CMS, and do the occasional update. Of course, this is perfectly fine - it's what SME server is for. However, as they gain experience, some will want to learn more about what SME can do, or have questions about security or extensibility that only a deeper knowledge can answer. Some will want to help out in the community, or learn how to build and share contribs they have used.


The Communications Group will therefore work, as time and resources allow, to provide the following:


Methods and Materials


SME Server and community documents must be available to all interested parties in a form they can use. Therefore, The following methods will be used to distribute these documents.


Core SME Server and community documents will be made available in plain text format.


These documents will be made available in a location that can be reached without extensive gui navigation, such as an ftp repository (using the mirrors).


The SME Server Release Notes and the changelog, in plain text format, must be included in the release ISO of any new version of SME Server.


For distribution into the predominately gui-based computing environments worldwide, core documents will be available in .pdf format


It is not necessary for these documents to be available before the release of a new version of SME Server


For daily use, and point-of-presence of the SME community and its activities, all documents will be available on a website(s) and readable through a web browser. No compatibility with any particular browser is required – it is expected that standards-compliant technology will be used and that this will suffice for a majority of community members.


Within the guidelines stated above, A web site will be created and maintained by appropriate subteams. At a minimum the website:


It is expected that the website will be built using a CMS portal that supports multiple domains and is maintainable by our Hosting Provider, such as Social MPN.




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