Seltzer Reboot

[Edward L Platt]

Hi All,

In case you don't know, I'm planning to do a serious overhaul of Seltzer this summer. I'm planning to run a crowd-funding campaign so I can pay myself and possibly other developers to put focused work into the project.

The first step is to find larger donors like hackerspaces to provide matching funds. In order to do that, I've prepared a brief description of the project and its goals. I'd like your feedback on whether anything is missing, unclear, or needs to be revised. Take a look below, and let me know what you think.

-Ed

What does Seltzer do?

- Manage contact information for membership-based organizations.

- Tracks dues and donations.

- Tracks member certifications and privileges.

- Helps members with similar interest find and mentor each other.

- Securely stores records of misconduct to help create safer spaces.

- Visualizes the organization and its growth.

What makes Seltzer different?

- Ease of use, intuitive interface.

- Active community of users and developers.

- Track record of maintenance and support.

- Decentralized.

- Common core, specialized extensions.

Why are we rebooting Seltzer?

- Improved user experience.

- Improved security.

- Improved interoperability.

- Support for new standards like JSON-LD and JSON API.

--

Edward L. Platt

http://elplatt.com

http://civic.mit.edu/users/elplatt

http://i3detroit.com

@elplatt

This electronic mail message was sent from my desktop personal computer.  Please forgive any long-winded, overly-prosaic ramblings.

[Matt Oehrlein]

Is it still going to be in PHP? :(((((

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[Edward L Platt]

Not in php, but I'm not sure which language yet.

[Matt Oehrlein]

Lets do some kind of JS framework! Meteor or Express?

[Matthew Gardeski]

I was really hoping for something that folks at i3 can support like say Python.  or perhaps Python.  or maybe Python.

[Eric Merrill]

Ah, yet another reminder that I'm a bastard of the development world because I'm a full time php developer.

[Edward L Platt]

I'm thinking backbone.js for front end with a rest api between that and the back end.

[Chris Murray]

Dammit, I was hoping it'd remain in PHP... I'm not familiar with <flavour of the month>.js, nor python :( I keep meaning to try & learn python but never have enough time... :P

What will happen to the original php repo/app?



Al the best,

Chris 8-)

[Edward L Platt]

I'm planning to keep maintaining the original php and answering questions developers have for a while still. So if it works for you, no reason not to keep using it.

It would be really interesting to develop a REST plugin for the original Seltzer that would make it compatible with the front end from the new one. One of the main goals of the reboot is to make that type of integration easy.

-Ed

[Chris Murray]

Excellent!

It (mostly) still works, but there's a lot I still think can be done with it (see pull requests :P )

Yeah, I think someone is already working on that :)



Chris 8-)

[Joshua Pritt]

Yes.  My REST interface for our RFID door lock is really just a PHP script that queries the Seltzer DB directly and comes back with true or false if that member's payments are up to date so it unlocks the door magnet lock.  So an actual REST plugin might be better.  But one of the main purposes people want the REST for is for IoT type stuff where we can use an internet connected arduino or raspberry pi to control access to the space (Front door lock), access to tools (AC power relay disabled unless member key swipe is validated against Seltzer DB), and any other places in the space where access should be limited to certain people.

So we should keep that in mind when designing the REST interface/modules.