[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/serendipity/index.php?/archives/109-Data-Centric-programming-a-new-start-at-Alioth..html (Must try to make my blog titles shorter. . . ) I'm looking for new blood, fresh faces and a new desire to take my current free software projects forwards. The driving force is data freedom [0] - creating data-driven applications that are completely agnostic to where and how the data happens to be stored. It is user data, it should be as free as the source code that wrote it. Who cares what format it is in? Let's get it into a format that some other program can use and make use of the existing data instead of duplicating it all the time. [0] http://www.data-freedom.org/ DWI [1] Data With Interaction (aka DUI -- Data Under the Interface) is what can provide the missing interfaces. It'll take a while to get it back up to date and available in Debian but it can provide the link between data and interfaces. GNU/Linux users should be able to design an interface purely on the basis of the data that it needs to handle and not care one jot about how that data comes from one free software app and goes on to the next free software app. QOF is gaining a connection to libgda which means that data can go to and fro between a whole range of databases and file formats. Homebank and pilot-qof can gain new data inputs (and possibly outputs) by utilising the existing import/export support in new ways via DWI/QOF (as libqof2). That can give a complete interface for all PIM and financial data for a typical SOHO user and all based on SQL-type queries so that every stage of the process can be tweaked and optimised according to user requirements at runtime. [1] http://dwi.sourceforge.net/ Is this groupware ? No - it is personal, ultimately flexible and entirely customised for particular users by the users themselves. It's about small niche markets, about independent business people with bespoke and highly specialised requirements. No one is going to spend time writing their reports in Scheme, Lisp, lua or Haskell, because they are the only people who need that particular report. Instead, that individual user needs to be empowered through a simple and intuitive interface to take a piece of data from one source, correlate it with a static piece of data from individual configuration sources, calculate a result according to a third piece of data from a completely separate source and combine them all into a new set of objects that can be used in other queries. It's about preparing invoices from Palm data, it's about handling customer accounts for a one-man company or handling a stocks and shares portfolio for a partnership. Ultimately customised, ultimately flexible and completely format-agnostic. These are the kind of applications that hold people back from GNU/Linux migrations - bespoke applications that are developed for just a few small companies or just a few situations. Free software finds it hard to provide those apps because free software depends (currently) on someone else being motivated to write a bespoke program and that person rarely understands the niche. This is a chance to put the development into the hands of those with the motivation to do the work, by making the development process more WYSIWYG. If this sparks your interest, join the QOF-devel mailing list: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/qof-devel (but be prepared to develop the code and do the work - this isn't a list for interested users, it is intended for developers to thrash out the complications in the various codebases and devise patches.) All the compiled code is currently in C, all the GUI code is currently GNOME/Gtk+ but there is also a need for C++ and KDE/Qt implementations. There is perl code and XML as well as ODBC, SQL and shell programming involved in various areas. Other roles include submitting patches to a variety of upstream projects, cajoling and persuading other teams to take these ideals on board, helping with documentation, maybe providing that IRC channel and anything else that gets more developers involved in this area. One of the simplest things is persuading various upstream projects that a sane import/export mechanism that actually covers all the data within the application is not just "nice to have" but a major usability issue for GNU/Linux as a whole. I said this above but it bears repeating: This is user data - free software applications have no right to hoard it! Data on GNU/Linux should be as free as the code that created it. It's high time to call a halt to application-lock-in. It's frankly shameful that free software treats user data little better than proprietary software. It's your data - reclaim it. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
-- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html