Rules based policy engine

[Ben Batt]

>> I understand that you must be thinking, "This phone is fully programmable,
>> so I can make it do whatever I want". True. Now, by defining sets of
>> possible conditions and actions and letting the user make rules out of
>> these, you're basically saying: "Here is a computer. You can program it to
>> do whatever you want". While this might be usable for someone who is a
>> programmer (and who's willing to be a programmer when they deal with their
>> cell phone), it's not a killer application. It's an absence of
>> application; it's rather an interpreter for a programming language in
>> which a user can write themself a killer application.

Personally I think this sounds pretty awesome, and I'd love to play
around hacking together some useful rules, but it wouldn't be just
end-users writing the rules - there could be simple front ends that
use this engine for implementation.

Many people would want their phone to have this kind of intelligent
behaviour, but the exact behaviour needed is different. Having a good
engine to do the common stuff (checking location, checking time,
blocking calls, changing alert profiles, etc.) avoids duplication of
effort and allows more people to focus on users' requirements rather
than re-implementing the basics over and over.

> Yes, that's what I want, I'd be happy with text config files to start with.
> Even an offline webapp to make/test the rules, is not disagreeable to me.
> People could publish their recipes, rulesets.

Indeed! Similar to the Stylish/Greasemonkey/Adblock Firefox
extensions, which seem to be fairly popular :-).

Ben