Mission Statement revision, documentation, a few other ideas
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Benjamin Burt
Dec 21, 2013, 3:58:22 PM12/21/13
to Coin Box POS - Main Mailing list
Hello everyone,
It has been a while sense I have emailed anything to serious to the group...well even emailed the group at all. Sorry. :/
Anyways, I have been rereading "Producing Open Source Software" by Karl Fogel and was noticing somethings that I missed or forgot to cover as this project was getting put together so I was wanting to get some input if you would be so kind to do so. :)
Also I am looking at redoing some things with the website and documentation, and was looking at rewording the mission statement to "focus" it better.
Please read carefully and try to keep answers as direct to the point as you can because these topics could have conversations that could go on forever. Thank you all. :)
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Mission Statement
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Original - mission statement:
We at Coin Box POS desire to create an elegant yet advance (or powerful) business tool. We want to accomplish this by simplicity, and flexibility. By simplicity creating an easy user environment that “just makes sense”; and by flexibility creating software that is helpful for many business types, but also customizable.
We at Coin Box POS desire to create an elegant yet advance (or powerful) business tool. We want to accomplish this by simplicity, and flexibility. By simplicity creating an easy user environment that “just makes sense”; and by flexibility creating software that is helpful for many business types, but also customizable.
We at Coin Box POS desire to as a community, develop the leading International point of sale software, that will run on most major platforms and built using Python modules and Qt.
We want to accomplish this by simplicity,and flexibility. By simplicity creating an easy user environment that “just makes sense”; and by flexibility creating software that is helpful for many business types, but also customizable.
This is Free Open Source Software (FOSS) under the MIT license.
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Code review
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I had been re looking over how things have been and how we have started and was thinking about how we should have code review in some fashion. I know that there was mention of it a while back but at the time it was not the focus but upon re assessment of things I believe we should make it a priority to establish it before we get to far.
As mentioned by Jonathan there is Gerrit that is used by LibreOffice, which appears to be a good set up.
Gerrit - https://code.google.com/p/gerrit/
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Bug tracking
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This was also something I was wanting to look into, even though we may not needed it right away, we will need it as things progress. So if we start using one it will not hurt. :)
Github's Issues - https://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker
Roundup - http://roundup.sourceforge.net
Trac - http://trac.edgewall.org
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Documentation
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Just finding it to be confusing as I am rereading it and wanting to clean it up. Also wanting to put as much onto the website as I can and keep the more "technical" documentation in the google documents.
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Code Standardization
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Was looking at our build, and it slowly turned into to much work to get it working for first timers.
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Syncing/Backup
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What to use for syncing back up databases to a cloud or other...
rsync - http://rsync.samba.org
What is rsync?
Why is rsync faster than scp?
http://superuser.com/questions/193952/why-is-rsync-avz-faster-than-scp-rscp -
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Qt5 and PyQt
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One thing that is in the works with the Qt project is that they are working on making Qt5 cross platform to most major OS's. And PySide(Coin Box POS UI) is not showing interest in support for Qt5. PyQt appears to be making efforts to support Qt5 and that ability to be used to cross platform.
Should we look into porting Coin Box POS to Qt5 and PyQT?
Thank you all,
-Ben
eagles051387
Dec 24, 2013, 10:54:19 AM12/24/13
to coinb...@googlegroups.com
As the project is growing there are a number of issues that I think need to be tackled.
As per Benjamin's last email here are some of my suggestions
1) Mission statement
This is important to give potential users an idea of what the project is and its goals. Im not sure how we will do this, but maybe allow those that want to contribute to write a mission statement and then combine the various aspects into a final version that suites the project's goals
2) Gerrit code review
This will be very good to ensure any patches and code contributions get reviewed by those familiar with the code plus it makes it easier for those to contribute to the project.
3) bug tracker
There are quite a few bug trackers we can use and they need to be looked at closely.
launchpad is handy as it has both version control in the form of bazaar plus PPA archives. Also this is hosted by canonical and won't need to be setup.
There is also bugzilla as well as red mine.
I would recommend red mine as it has really good integration with version control plus much more.
4) website
I think at some point we will need to get our own website going and eventually break ourselves away from google groups.
5) wiki
Good for documentation as it is common practice for a lot of sites to use it for such a thing.
6) hosting
Has anyone thought about where all this would be hosted?
7) funding
I know a way that we can raise funds for the project if they are needed
Merry Xmas and looking forward to hearing back on the above points
As per Benjamin's last email here are some of my suggestions
1) Mission statement
This is important to give potential users an idea of what the project is and its goals. Im not sure how we will do this, but maybe allow those that want to contribute to write a mission statement and then combine the various aspects into a final version that suites the project's goals
2) Gerrit code review
This will be very good to ensure any patches and code contributions get reviewed by those familiar with the code plus it makes it easier for those to contribute to the project.
3) bug tracker
There are quite a few bug trackers we can use and they need to be looked at closely.
launchpad is handy as it has both version control in the form of bazaar plus PPA archives. Also this is hosted by canonical and won't need to be setup.
There is also bugzilla as well as red mine.
I would recommend red mine as it has really good integration with version control plus much more.
4) website
I think at some point we will need to get our own website going and eventually break ourselves away from google groups.
5) wiki
Good for documentation as it is common practice for a lot of sites to use it for such a thing.
6) hosting
Has anyone thought about where all this would be hosted?
7) funding
I know a way that we can raise funds for the project if they are needed
Merry Xmas and looking forward to hearing back on the above points
Jad Kik
Dec 26, 2013, 1:59:05 PM12/26/13
to coinb...@googlegroups.com
On Saturday, December 21, 2013 10:58:22 PM UTC+2, bburt85 wrote:
Hello everyone,It has been a while sense I have emailed anything to serious to the group...well even emailed the group at all. Sorry. :/Anyways, I have been rereading "Producing Open Source Software" by Karl Fogel and was noticing somethings that I missed or forgot to cover as this project was getting put together so I was wanting to get some input if you would be so kind to do so. :)Also I am looking at redoing some things with the website and documentation, and was looking at rewording the mission statement to "focus" it better.Please read carefully and try to keep answers as direct to the point as you can because these topics could have conversations that could go on forever. Thank you all. :)-----Mission Statement-----Original - mission statement:
We at Coin Box POS desire to create an elegant yet advance (or powerful) business tool. We want to accomplish this by simplicity, and flexibility. By simplicity creating an easy user environment that “just makes sense”; and by flexibility creating software that is helpful for many business types, but also customizable.
Revision - mission statement:
We at Coin Box POS desire to as a community, develop the leading International point of sale software, that will run on most major platforms and built using Python modules and Qt.
We want to accomplish this by simplicity,and flexibility. By simplicity creating an easy user environment that “just makes sense”; and by flexibility creating software that is helpful for many business types, but also customizable.
This is Free Open Source Software (FOSS) under the MIT license.
It has to be as clear as possible and straight to the point. The revised version is not bad, if anyone thinks we need to add anything to it we'll open a thread for that.
-----Code review-----I had been re looking over how things have been and how we have started and was thinking about how we should have code review in some fashion. I know that there was mention of it a while back but at the time it was not the focus but upon re assessment of things I believe we should make it a priority to establish it before we get to far.As mentioned by Jonathan there is Gerrit that is used by LibreOffice, which appears to be a good set up.Gerrit - https://code.google.com/p/gerrit/
Gerrit sounds really good, I can set it up on my personal server or the one we are using for the website, we'll have to look into that.
However, I'm wondering if we will really need that, we can do something similar with github and its pull request review system. As soon as we have a couple dozen commiters we'll look into it more ;)
-----Bug tracking
-----This was also something I was wanting to look into, even though we may not needed it right away, we will need it as things progress. So if we start using one it will not hurt. :)Github's Issues - https://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-trackerRoundup - http://roundup.sourceforge.netTrac - http://trac.edgewall.org
Again I think github's "Issues" will do the job pretty well. Valve's Steam OS is using github's issues and their code is not even on github, so that should tell you something about its usability.
-----Documentation-----Just finding it to be confusing as I am rereading it and wanting to clean it up. Also wanting to put as much onto the website as I can and keep the more "technical" documentation in the google documents.
The documentation is a big mess right now, we'll have to re-do it all over again. Since I'm done at 95% with the installation issues, I'll probably start with the installation guide this weekend or next week.
-----Code Standardization-----Was looking at our build, and it slowly turned into to much work to get it working for first timers.
That was my fault :) Hopefully, it should be clearer and easier with the changes I'm making.
-----Syncing/Backup-----What to use for syncing back up databases to a cloud or other...rsync - http://rsync.samba.orgWhat is rsync?Why is rsync faster than scp?http://superuser.com/questions/193952/why-is-rsync-avz-faster-than-scp-r
scp -
I think that's beyond the scope of the application. There are a thousand ways to do this and it's not up to coinbox to do this. Probably database backups, but using rsync/scp is not a good idea anyway because it's Linux only. (not that there's anything wrong with that, but we don't want to force anything on anyone)
-----Qt5 and PyQt-----One thing that is in the works with the Qt project is that they are working on making Qt5 cross platform to most major OS's. And PySide(Coin Box POS UI) is not showing interest in support for Qt5. PyQt appears to be making efforts to support Qt5 and that ability to be used to cross platform.Should we look into porting Coin Box POS to Qt5 and PyQT?
It might be too early to start doing this. I think Qt5 doesn't come installed on lots of Linux systems anyway AFAIK.
Also, the change from PySide/Qt4 to PyQt4/Qt4 is not much work, but from PySide/Qt4 to PyQt5/Qt5 is a lot of work, without much benefit right now. Probably in the long term.
Thank you all,-Ben
Jad Kik
Dec 26, 2013, 2:07:23 PM12/26/13
to coinb...@googlegroups.com
On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 5:54:19 PM UTC+2, eagles051387 wrote:
As the project is growing there are a number of issues that I think need to be tackled.
As per Benjamin's last email here are some of my suggestions
1) Mission statement
This is important to give potential users an idea of what the project is and its goals. Im not sure how we will do this, but maybe allow those that want to contribute to write a mission statement and then combine the various aspects into a final version that suites the project's goals
You are right in saying it's important.
2) Gerrit code review
This will be very good to ensure any patches and code contributions get reviewed by those familiar with the code plus it makes it easier for those to contribute to the project.
We can use Github's pull requests as I just mentioned in my reply to Ben.
3) bug tracker
There are quite a few bug trackers we can use and they need to be looked at closely.
launchpad is handy as it has both version control in the form of bazaar plus PPA archives. Also this is hosted by canonical and won't need to be setup.
There is also bugzilla as well as red mine.
I would recommend red mine as it has really good integration with version control plus much more.
Why would we go with launchpad if we are hosting our code on github? (if we had to move code I'd much prefer bitbucket but that's another story)
And I don't think we need to set up our own bug tracker *yet*. I don't find the need to do it now.
4) website
I think at some point we will need to get our own website going and eventually break ourselves away from google groups.
There's the website at coinboxpos.org
It's wordpress based and frankly I think it needs work. I made several sample ones we could use, one in Python one in PHP, but we're still sticking to wordpress now because of time.
I find google groups to be a good thing though, just for discussion mainly. I don't think it's worth the effort to set up our own mailing list and forum and stuff.
5) wiki
Good for documentation as it is common practice for a lot of sites to use it for such a thing.
We were thinking of using github's... Or maybe integrate one on the website?
6) hosting
Has anyone thought about where all this would be hosted?
Ben has our current website at some place, you'll have to ask him.
But I have a VPS ("cloud") hosted at Digital Ocean for 5$ a month and it's not bad, we could either use the same server or set one up for coinbox.
7) funding
I know a way that we can raise funds for the project if they are needed
It would be nice!
Merry Xmas and looking forward to hearing back on the above points
Merry christmas to you too! And happy new year (early :) )
Benjamin Burt
Dec 29, 2013, 7:02:38 AM12/29/13
to Coin Box POS - Main Mailing list
>> Mission statement - It has to be as clear as possible and straight to the point. The revised version is not bad, if anyone thinks we need to add anything to it we'll open a thread for that.
I will give this a few more days, but if no one else has any thing that would make it clear and easier to understand, in a short phase, then we will go with this revision.
>>Gerrit - However, I'm wondering if we will really need that, we can do something similar with github and its pull request review system. As soon as we have a couple dozen commiters we'll look into it more ;)
+1, that is a good idea, we can hold off on it for now, unless we find there is a very good reason not to, but at this point it may just be more unnecessary work.
>>4) website
I think at some point we will need to get our own website going and eventually break ourselves away from google groups.
There's the website at coinboxpos.org
It's wordpress based and frankly I think it needs work. I made several sample ones we could use, one in Python one in PHP, but we're still sticking to wordpress now because of time.
I find google groups to be a good thing though, just for discussion mainly. I don't think it's worth the effort to set up our own mailing list and forum and stuff.
+1, I do like the set up of google groups for conversation because it acts like a forum and a mailing list. It would not be worth changing it.
The word press website I am planning on reworking as soon as we get a good installation set up. I may mark it as "under construction" for the time being, while the install bugs are getting cleaned up. I will say I like wordpress because then people that do not know how to code (or know very little) can edit it and modify it easily. This leaves it open for when we start getting more "non programmer" contributors, that want to help keep documentation, screen shots, etc. up to date. This way coders can code and users/advance users can help each other.
Good for documentation as it is common practice for a lot of sites to use it for such a thing.
We were thinking of using github's... Or maybe integrate one on the website?
Yes, I would think to integrate it into one of those two places, we do not want people to have to "chase" down information and bounce around from website to website to find what they are looking for.
>>The documentation is a big mess right now, we'll have to re-do it all over again. Since I'm done at 95% with the installation issues, I'll probably start with the installation guide this weekend or next week.
I have also started to think about and look at the information that we have. I am wanting to consolidate it and stream line it better. I would also like to create a better road map, then we currently have.
I did modify the "example store register functions.txt" a few weeks ago to have just the main most important features listed, because I want to use it like a check list for what we have for code now.
>>Code standardization - That was my fault :) Hopefully, it should be clearer and easier with the changes I'm making.
Well, it is not only your fault. We were wanting to see if there was an easier way to do things. ;)
>>Bug tracking
+1, on github issues
>>I know a way that we can raise funds for the project if they are needed
What do you suggest?
>>Syncing
+1, on it not being up to us at this point.
>>It might be too early to start doing this. I think Qt5 doesn't come installed on lots of Linux systems anyway AFAIK.
Also, the change from PySide/Qt4 to PyQt4/Qt4 is not much work, but from PySide/Qt4 to PyQt5/Qt5 is a lot of work, without much benefit right now. Probably in the long term.True, Qt5 is not the standard (yet), but I do know that KDE has been working on its Qt5 version. I still have not see any thing about PySide's efforts to port to Qt5, but I did see someones post that Qt5 is more backward compatible to a point, so this may now be an issue at this point.
>>Ben has our current website at some place, you'll have to ask him.
It is hosted on 1 & 1 hosting, but I have thought about moving it. My biggest concern with where it gets hosted, is stability, because the website is like our "face" on the internet and it is what most people will see first…I would like to have it up an running 99.9% (100% is unreasonable with computers :P ) of the time so I would prefer a hosting that has already shown they are stable.
-Ben
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