[Commotion-dev] Draft Roadmap

[Josh King]

Hi Hans-Christoph,

My comments are below:

On 07/29/2011 08:37 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> 
> On Jul 27, 2011, at 9:07 AM, Josh King wrote:
> 
>> Hey everyone,
>>
>> I have published a draft roadmap for the project at:
>>
>> http://tech.chambana.net/projects/commotion/wiki/roadmap
>>
>> This is rough so far (and software focused, still working on adding in
>> more documentation and outreach tasks), but I think serves to give an
>> overall view of how the project is laid out and where it's heading.
>> Recognizing that the project is made up of a large number of different
>> pieces on different platforms, I've made a few structural decisions as
>> far as the roadmap (and a coincident refactoring of the website):
> 
> Its good to see a overview of the time and the chunks.  I just noticed
> that you have listed "native mesh network configuration GUI" for Windows
> and Mac.  That sounds like the best plan in the long run, but perhaps it
> makes sense to have a cross-platform Java or something GUI to get the
> ball rolling.  I'm not sure yet which approach is best in the time
> frame.  Writing native apps for each platform will be more work, but I'm
> a big believer in having things feel seamlessly integrated, and often
> native apps are the most effective approach.

I probably shouldn't have used native there. While I do definitely like
having apps that fit as seamlessly into the native environment as
possible, I mostly meant "non-web or text interfaces." A cross-platform
GUI would definitely be a good way to get things moving.
> 
>> * The project has been re-structured into a number of subprojects, as it
>> didn't make sense to me to put a large number of projects with
>> substantially different codebases into one git repository. I realize
>> that if we end up having a large shared codebase at the end then we may
>> want to re-integrate, or create a shared repository drawn on by all
>> sub-projects. Other people may have other takes on this. In any event,
>> there are subprojects "Commotion-Openwrt", "Commotion-Android",
>> "Commotion-Windows", etc. I hope that this will also help to clarify
>> confusion between Commotion the overarching project and Commotion the
>> OpenWRT embedded firmware (now Commotion-OpenWRT). All issues from
>> subprojects are visible in the existing "Commotion" superproject.
> 
> I agree it makes sense to split up into multiple git repos.  The most
> useful rule of thumb I've seen for where to make the dividing lines is
> thinking about it in terms build automation: any commit to a repo will
> trigger a build, is that build going to be relevant to the commit?  One
> example we have is an app suite for J2ME, Blackberry and Android.  All
> Java, all the same goals and features, currently all on git.  The J2ME
> and Blackberry code ends up being very much interwoven, while the
> Android code ended up being unrelated.  The next step might be to split
> out the common Java code into a library, then make separate git repos
> for J2ME, Blackberry, and Android.
> 
> The Android OS is also a good example, it is made up of many many git
> repos. That reminds me of another rule of thumb for where to set the
> dividing lines for git repos:  ideally, it should be possible to have
> the git commit messages make sense without having to add the context to
> the message itself.

I think it's difficult to say at this point how the repos will be
structured, but fortunately it's (relatively) trivial to move things
around in Redmine to accomodate any future restructuring. We could also
potentially have some shared projects for cross-platform stuff that we
set up as git externals or submodules.
> 
> .hc
> 
>> * The roadmap is structured into a number of 'releases.' The first one
>> is a pre-release at the end of October, which will serve simply to pull
>> together all of the disparate software elements in their current form,
>> as well as give me some time to work on some features for the
>> Commotion-OpenWRT firmware to bring it up to feature parity with some
>> other firmwares out there in order to make it more useful to the
>> community networks we're working with to deploy and test it. Past that,
>> there are 4 "Developer Releases" which are split up in roughly 2-month
>> increments through the year, with a "Finished Release" next summer. I
>> structure it in this way to recognize that we need some general
>> milestones to hit, but that each piece of component software has its own
>> versioning and there's no need to try and change that, and the DR1-4
>> naming scheme is not likely to strongly conflict with any other
>> versioning scheme in use. Feedback around this is welcome, and the
>> timeline is likely to change slightly as the release date as required by
>> OTI's Internet Freedom grant award is predicated on when we actually get
>> the check from the US State Department, which is not yet.
>>
>> I'm currently still putting items from the roadmap into the issue
>> tracker as it makes sense, and adding users from the existing project
>> into the subprojects (Redmine doesn't automatically migrate them).
>> People should feel free to add to the roadmap for now, just ping the
>> list when you do so to help me keep track of what's changed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for
> machines to execute.
>  - from Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
> 

-- 
Josh King
Technologist
Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 262 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/commotion-dev/attachments/20110807/e3883782/attachment.bin>