Tech Forum

Hey Tom (and others),

I wanted to get a post going to see just how much interest there was in getting a project going through the open source development. There is a flurry of activity on the boards, but how serious are people about really doing a project? We have talked about getting a project going on the Church's Java Stack.

What are some ideas of projects that you have seen thrown around here that would be a good candidate for this? I have seen some posted up like the Troopmaster stuff and others, but we aren't looking to role out something that is trying to replace a commercial product. What is a real need that the Church has that we could work on?

I'd love to get a project going around the stack. There are a lot of ideas. Some area already being done in the community but that does not mean that we can't work on new projects or enhance the existing projects with the use of the stack technology.

• Duty to God / Personal Progress Tracking
• Emergency Prepardness (help people track food storage, help organize service, etc).
• Gift of Family exchange (create an exchange of volunteers to help other's do genealogy)

What other ideas do people have?

Tom

I know that you (Tom ) and I need to do some leg work to get this going on our side. What can I help with?

B.

Bryan, prepare to release some stack documents. I'm working on some requirements. Once we get the ball rolling, I'm sure others will help but without good documentation and a roadmap, we won't get very far.

Tom

We have some fairly decent documentation and some training software that we put together. That one might get into the whole intellectual property space though and what they allow us to hand out.

I think that most people have a hard time understanding how this might work. Even if it is just a small "pet store" type application, seeing a concrete example might help developers see how their skills might fit in to where they can contribute. If there is a big learning curve or having an development / hosting environment which is difficult to set up, it will put off a lot of people. (That is why so many open source projects are built with PHP and MySQL)

Of the projects which I have seen, the most straight-forward may be the Scouting advancement tracking project. The exact list of advancement requirements is well documented (i.e., http://www.meritbadge.com/home.htm) and there is enough detail to break this down into a large number of tasks that multiple people can work on. More experienced developers can work on the architecture or set up the UI while others that want to learn can help flush out the requirements for each advancement or merit badge.

Even if the project team decides not to continue expanding this original project, it can serve as a starting point for further conversations.

haledn wrote: Of the projects which I have seen, the most straight-forward may be the Scouting advancement tracking project. The exact list of advancement requirements is well documented (i.e., http://www.meritbadge.com/home.htm) and there is enough detail to break this down into a large number of tasks that multiple people can work on. More experienced developers can work on the architecture or set up the UI while others that want to learn can help flush out the requirements for each advancement or merit badge.

I couldn't find this project on the link you provided. Can you give more direction on how to find it?

Thannks,
Ben

The link haledn provided was for the Scouting advancement requirements, not for the project to develop a program to help track advancement.

bhofmann wrote:I couldn't find this project on the link you provided. Can you give more direction on how to find it?

Thannks,
Ben

Yes, I was referring to a "proposed" project, rather than an actual one.

-David

haledn wrote:Yes, I was referring to a "proposed" project, rather than an actual one.

-David

Ahhhh. I see. I was excited to see someone working on it and was curious to see how it was going. Thanks for the clarification.