the answering machine. "unimplemented" / "proposed features" wiki pages

Stroller stroller at stellar.eclipse.co.uk
Thu Jul 24 12:56:23 CEST 2008


On 23 Jul 2008, at 09:51, Ferenc Veres wrote:
> Stroller wrote:
>> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Voice_Mailbox
>>
>> It looks like the current Voice_Mailbox wiki page is simply a
>> wishlist and unless anyone is implementing its specifics then that
>> page is pretty much useless.
>
>
> Please note, that there are many pages like that. These are - as I see
> them - plans for software, and good place to collect ideas, links to
> possible ported software and so on. These pages are for keeping  
> track of
> what SHOULD be included in the phone, to evolve the system to a  
> general
> purpose smartphone. (Hehe, nice.)

Ok. Can we change the "unimplemented" category to "proposed  
features", then? For the sake of clarity?

> Authors of these pages designed a template to include the most  
> important
> information easily.
>
> More examples are:
> ...

Yikes! Please don't use the "word" template outside of the context of  
the wiki software's technical meaning. You will only confuse me!

I can see from those examples they laid them all in a common style.

> I think the idea of keeping the Wiki as planning platform is also
> important. Of course it must contain {{unimplemented}}.

This brings us back to the Voice_Mailbox page.
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Voice_Mailbox

When someone is implementing something like this (an  
"unimplemented" / "proposed features" page), then those pages need to  
reflect it. The authors need to put their names on the page saying  
"I'm working on a project to implement this" and "here are some  
contact details if you want to help / get involved". (Also estimated  
timescale for completion and "status" should be shown).

If we're keeping these documents - because anyone can create a page  
in this category and say "I want the moon on a stick please" - we're  
effectively saying they're worth something and are valuable.  
Therefore the content of the page should be considered before  
implementing the idea - anyone can knock up a quick Calendaring  
program, but if people are doing so without referencing these wiki  
pages then there's no point in keeping them.

If these pages are worth keeping, then we need to get developers on  
board. I can see that sean (he's @openmoko, right?) and Kpr (also?)  
contributed to the Calendar page [2], which reads like a decent &  
proper design document. I'm not sure if they're reading, so maybe  
Brenda & Michael could ask & see if these pages are or were  
reflecting "official Openmoko" intents.

These pages are only worth anything if they're used, otherwise I  
maintain they're just junk (candidates for deletion). If they're to  
be used we need to get Openmoko to announce on the -dev and - 
community lists asking developers to do so. Not wishing to pick on  
Frederik, but if these pages have any status then a GSoC project  
shouldn't have been started without referencing them (in fact, I'm  
surely not picking on Frederik, not only because he may well have  
read & considered the Voice_Mailbox page, but also because I don't  
think these pages ARE worth anything, at least at present).

As things stand these pages are being written in a vacuum and  
developers of new apps are (surely) just ignoring them. There are  
surely a hundred people developing apps for the Openmoko platform who  
simply aren't aware of these wiki pages. It'll be a pretty big job to  
change that, and to get developers on-board with tolerating the  
community saying "oooh! I want your app to do this".

Stroller.


[1] http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Calendar





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