In the press

[Ken Restivo]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 11:47:40PM -0600, Vinc Duran wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 11:17 PM, Curtis Vaughan <cavaughan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:47:51 +0800, Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:
> >
> > > Jay Vaughan wrote:
> > >>> This stood out for me "The tangled pile of mostly outdated and
> > >>> incomplete documentation at the OpenMoko wiki..." Is this an accurate
> > >>> evaluation of the wiki ? If so, what can we do to fix it up, how do we
> > >>> identify old content and schedule it for updating?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> I think, personally, its time for a 3rd-party site not related to
> > >> OpenMoko to pick up the slack here. So much stuff happens too quickly
> > >> for people who /should/ be updating the wiki to feel like its
> > >> productive to do so ..
> > >>
> > >> What I would like to see is something like an "mokofanboix.org" website
> > >> come up that has the following:
> > >>
> > >> - Daily blog news akin to the good ol' slashdot, of news from the
> > >> openmoko scene, gleaned from careful inspection of the mailing lists,
> > >> of IRC, of the codebase, of code delta's, etc.
> > >>
> > >> - Public free Repository of all the latest and greatest 'cool apps'
> > >> found for OpenMoko
> > >>
> > >> - Public forum for discussion of the news.
> > >>
> > >> This is, of course, sorta what we've got with things like
> > >> planet.openmoko.org (which I check daily), combined with the Scaredycat
> > >> repo's and other such things, but ..  for newcomers .. I don't think
> > >> any of this is as easily approachable as it would be if it were all put
> > >> under a single umbrella that is a bit more of an 'openmoko pop culture'
> > >> site than what we've got right now ..
> > >
> > > Jay
> > >
> > > These are all great ideas and would be very helpful for us. We are a
> > > small company. And really try to focus all we can on our products.
> > > Community help to make these more approachable is something that would
> > > make us all very grateful.
> > >
> > > Let me know if there is anything specific you think we (Openmoko) could
> > > do to help get this all started.
> > >
> > >    -Sean
> >
> > At this point it seems to me there are 2 approaches:
> > 1) The preferred would be to develop the wiki such that members can "set
> > it up" themselves.
> > 2) Have a 3rd-party site per Jay's suggestion that accomplishes that.
> >
> > I have the resources to set up such a site, but I definitely do not want
> > to do anything counter-productive. I would really like to see OM do what
> > they can as I prefer a "one-stop solution" as opposed to having to visit
> > numerous sites to find solutions.
> >
> > As an example, I have a Nokia N770, and I found the maemo.org site rather
> > well organized for finding solutions, as well as third-party apps. I'm
> > only mentioning it as a possible guide.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > Curtis Vaughan (no relation to Jay - I don't think....)
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Openmoko community mailing list
> > community at lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> >
> 
> As a *user* I'd really like it if there were always an easy to find place
> for what is known to work. It would be better for my piece of mind if it
> were something OM.
> V


By far, the best Wiki I've *ever* seen-- indeed the best documentation I've ever seen for *any* Open Source project, ever (I'm not kidding, it's really that good)--, is the OpenWRT Wiki.

It's amazing. Everything is right there. It's cleaned and scrubbed and pruned constantly. No cruft, no confusing outdated information, no ambiguity about what works or what doesn't or got decided or didn't. The instructions are dead simple and unambiguous and geared towards the end user. There are recipes there for just about any weird thing you'd possibly want to try with the product. There are detailed tables with every bit of hardware compatibility information you'd ever want.

It is a work of art. And it's maintained by the developers, mostly, but with a very good sense of what a new user would need to know. It does reflect on the product itself too, which is also very well organized, slick, reliable, and clean. I've had Linksys boxes running here for years on OpenWRT. It was easy to install and configure and it just works.

I can't speak highly enough of the project or the documentation. If the OpenMoko Wiki could be like that, it'd be real quiet in userland, because instead of pelting you with questions, they'd be busy using and enjoying and hacking their phones.

-ken