Hi all.

What I would like to propose, is a collaborative writing initiative to document all the aspects of a variety of EFIKA projects in a series of highly detailed texts detailing every little step to get a certain set-up working.
I know there are initiatives such as the EFIKA Book, and there are the various blog posts and forum posts.
However, I would like to take this one step further and gather all this information into coherent articles, as this will make it easier not only for newcomers, but for users in general to have a comprehensive catalog in which to find needed information, without having to sift through forum posts etc. for the fine details.

That way, situations such as this one:

http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/vi ... =8711#8711 (Mark Benson's post) can be prevented.

I'm sure that with the combined effort of the talent here at PowerDeveloper, we can make a great library!


Post your thoughts.

Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Hi PurpleAlien (you are hardly an Alien or even Purple, Johan!),

This is exactly the right idea. You Project documentation is a very good example of the same (PowerProject #338). You are clearly a leader among the developers using the EFIKA. Whatever you want to do in this regard will have our full support. We are proud to have you involved!

Best regards,
R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

Hi Johan !

I've started the Efika projects book a month ago.
Would you like to participate to it ?

Hi Geoffrey,

Sure I would!

What do you think about splitting the "Efika projects book" into several different books?
In my opinion, there is so much information available regarding a lot of the projects, that each of them deserves an own book.
The idea behind this is also to simplify co-operation, as people can work together on a subject (project (s)) they are interested. Some of the parts will overlap, but the same would be true if everything would be in one book.
We can (and should) of course combine similar projects, and I think this would be a starting point for sure.

Just a thought.

Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Hi Bill and Raquel,
Thank you for those kind words! :-)

Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Hi Johan, Hi Geoffrey, (and hi Raquel & Bill)

If you're ok, you will also have my full support. Since I'm also conviced that giving concrete examples of how to use the EFIKA efficiently is the best way to get more people involved in the community.
Absolutely ;-). Moreover, we don't always make developments directly linked to our project... Classifing these "extra works" by subjects with others is better than merging everything in our main project blog. (someone else turns its EFIKA into a home automation system ?).

Note that some parts of my current project (#337) have their associated (technical) documentation on my website.

Last thing, I think a list of "tested working" hardware classified by categories coming with step by step explanations and/or ressources (if needed) could be interesting.

With kind regards,

Stellae

Hi all.

Alright! Glad to see some interest in this.
Let's get started :-)

The first thing every developer should do is get in touch with developers working on similar or related projects. We should try to create some smaller sub-groups that way - we don't want to put all the work on just a few people.

The next step, which can go concurrently even, is to work our way through the forum posts and blog posts we made relevant to the projects. Along the way, we should come across some interesting and relevant information posted by others. This can be a sign to contact said person in order to get them involved in this effort (i.e., the subgroups expand).

We should also identify the very basic information which is relevant for a number of projects (i.e., related to kernels, xorg, etc...). This in turn can become a separate "chapter" which can be written once, and then included in all the relevant books.

I am sure that the EFIKA book can be a great starting point for some of the information needed.

On a side note, my opinion (please let me know if you do or do not agree with this), is that we should stick to a certain format in our writings. I prefer to use the IEEE writing standard (http://standards.ieee.org/guides/style/index.html), let me know what you think, we could create a template for this.

Let's get this going!


Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Hi !

For the "Efika projects book", the first thing I started doing was a doc containing the various project listed on PowerDeveloper.org and sorted OS and activity (no blog information, power project or other...)

Today it's an unfinished OpenOffice doc, but I/we can put it on a collaborative wiki or something similar on efika.org or PowerDeveloper.org (for example) if you want to help.
Something with a smart search engine would be cool.

Then back into a doc when a first version is done.
Q.1: What do you think of it ?

Because of translation work, I would like to keep "the Efika projects book" separated from the current "Efika book". It would be only in English and focused on projects specific applications and targeted for Efika developers only.

The Efika book, on the other side, shall only contain info about the Efika hardware and Linux & MorphOS usage (or other OS) and should remain multilanguage, targeting all Efika users.

I don't know much about IEEE standards and I'm really to lazy to read that page (sorry).
But, maybe you can resume the main principle to us here ? :-D


Now, here is an example of the current unpublished and uncomplete Efika projects book.
For now, I only copy/paste project description, look at the blog to see if something is moving or not, and do the following, but that will evolve:
So, do you want to help on this or do something else ?

Hi Geoffrey.

I think your idea of creating an EFIKA projects book is really great to have an overview of the various projects, and I think a wiki would be a nice starting place to gather all the info. I will participate, I hope others will join in this effort.

This would be a starting point for what I have in mind. What I would like to see is a number of papers (books, whatever you want to call it) which combines all the information and technical documentation regarding a project (or groups of projects) in a coherent text.
The idea here is to be as detailed as possible, documenting all the technical aspects of the project in order to allow others to recreate the exact same set-up.
The reason for doing this is to make sure nothing will get lost in the future. I mean with this that if someone decides to quit his/her project, and at a later date someone else needs a system like that, the documentation will be available for this person to recreate the system.

Regarding the IEEE standard, don't worry. As soon as this gets organised, I will create kind of a template so no one has to go through that PDF, which I admit is rather boring :-)


Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

count me in. Now that my music projects are ending soon i'll have more free time for this kind of stuff.

I really DON'T think reproducing the projects data is a worthwile effort, especially in book form. The book will always lag behind the blogs, the information outdated.

Why can't you just look at the Projects site? All the information you need and a smaller download.. i.e. none.

There is a good case for a Wiki, although I am loathe to maintain one as they are notoriously hard to administer and moderate, and I don't think anyone would actually put any data in.

After all, anyone can write an article and put it online, it doesn't need to be centralised. I haven't seen a great deal. Anyone can submit an article or tutorial to Bill or I and we'll put it on Power Developer.

Most people simply use the forums, and the forums and project blogs have as many features as anyone uses on the Wikis these days anyway.

If you think there is something missing, I'd like to know about it.. :)

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Matt Sealey

Transparency is an essential ingredient for the free market to exist at its best. Creation that stimulates participation produces long term involvement and "ownership." This Collaborative Writing Initiative is a good thing.

Hierarchically flat, collaborative groups are best positioned to take advantage of transparency and the creativity that is inspired through collective participation. Not only can flat informal organizations access information more effectively, they can use it faster as well. Collaborative communities operate in the decision making cycle of companies. Rapid dissemination of information allows for ideas to be applied and improvised to speed innovation and products forward.

Collaboration is a durable service only when you continue to have collaborators. We hope we have enough here and interested to push this ahead.

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

Hi Matt,

here are some enhancement suggestions for your website for the http://projects.powerdeveloper.org/program/efika pages:

You could:
- add the following columns :
-> "OS" (MorphOS, Linux, Solaris, QNX, N/a.)
-> "Last blog entry" (date of last blog entry)
-> "Status" (Not started, Started, Finished, Abandonned...)
-> A power project icon when it is a "PowerProject" or Freescale demo

- add a sort function for each column like in a XLS sheet.

That would be nice and more practical to follow...