The Google Summer of Code Doc Summit and OSM

For 5 days in October the Google Summer of Code Doc Summit, organized together with FLOSS Manuals, will bring together four documentation teams from open source projects, guest speakers, and free documentation ‘free agents’ to discuss everything and anything concerning the free documentation of free software. The event will feature a two day unconference and a three day Book Sprint. During the Book Sprint each project will produce a Book ready for distribution in print and electronic book formats.
The event is an ambitious project. Not only are unconferences about free software documentation scarce, never before has a Book Sprint been attempted with four projects working simultaneously on their own book. It’s going to be an extremely interesting and challenging event.
Free software documentation has often been a very low priority for free software projects. Often the documentation suffers from common flaws including:
  • no documentation existing at all
  • assumptions about the user’s knowledge are set too high
  • poor navigation
  • unexplained jargon
  • there is no visual component
  • the documentation is proprietary or ‘closed’
  • the format is unreadable
  • no translation workflow
  • operational steps are missing, unexplained, written ‘from memory’ or state how the software ‘should’ operate
  • the documentation is out of date, not easily re-usable or not easily modifiable.
The Google Summer of Code Doc Summit will attempt to discuss and address these problematic issues and look towards positive models for documentation production. We hope to shine light on the importance of the free software documentation ‘sector’ in the ecology of Free software. Free (libre) documentation is not simply an aid for learning how to use free software, it is a road into education and adoption in industry, a tool for demonstrating to clients how free software will meet their needs and expectations, and an important promotional tool for the advancement of free software. A healthy free documentation sector is both socially and economically empowering. We believe Free Documentation of Free Software efforts and ideals should be valued on the same level as free software itself and that is exactly what we plan to do at this Summit.
The Google Summer of Code Doc Summit is more than a think tank and an opportunity to discuss real world issues. Four projects, OpenMRS, KDE, Sahana, and OpenStreetMap, will have a chance to directly strengthen their documentation efforts. We look forward to working together with each of the selected teams and individuals to help them produce their own book by the end of the five day summit.
It’s going to be a great event.

Introducing Apache Wave

One of the best outcomes from November’s Wave Protocol Summit was a proposal for Wave to enter the Apache Software Foundation’s incubator program. Apache has a fantastic reputation for fostering healthy open source communities that create great software. Last week, that proposal was accepted, and we’re spinning up the project infrastructure so that the community can continue to grow in the Apache way.

During the summit, it became quite clear that there is a healthy community of startups, independent developers, and industry partners enthusiastic to continue development of the Wave Federation protocols and Wave in a Box product. We’ve posted videos of the technical talks and demos presented throughout the summit so that those who couldn’t make it to San Francisco needn’t miss out.

The final days of the summit were dedicated to technical design and coding. Progress since then includes significant improvements to the wave panel, visual enhancements to the login pages, gadgets hooked up and working, improved development set-up and documentation, and a draft HTTP transport for wave federation.

In recognition of this work, we’re proud to announce that the open source project leadership is expanding to include a number of new committers from outside Google: Tad Glines, Michael McFadden (Solute), James Purser, Ian Roughley (Novell), Anthony Watkins (SESI), and Torben Weis (University Duisburg-Essen). They are joining graduated Google interns Joseph Gentle and Lennard de Rijk as trusted contributors who have demonstrated high quality code and valuable design insight.

The creation of Apache Wave will serve to accelerate the growth of the existing community with strong open source processes. If you’d like to get involved, please join the Apache Wave mailing list (send an email to wave-dev-subscribe@incubator.apache.org). We’re looking forward to working with you.

Hewlett-Packard & Palm Pre 2

Hewlett-Packard Company announced that it began sales of smartphones Palm Pre 2 in the U.S.. The version of the device without linking to a mobile operator and without a contract will cost 449 dollars.Moreover, programmers involved in developing the operating system WebOS, based on which operating smartphone, and those who received coupons for a discount worth $ 200, can use them in the purchase of apparatus.

The company said that the U.S. smartphone can be purchased online or through Palm.com, or through traditional distribution channels for the HP SMB. Furthermore, in parallel with the release of the apparatus in the U.S. and will start its sales in France. In the coming days Pre 2 will be commissioned and territory of Canada.Sales Pre2 will take place in traditional Western consumers scheme – a contract to service provider.

We note that Pre 2 is the first product of Palm, which was released after released after the company was acquired by the computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard.After purchasing HP announced that it plans to use the system WebOS, not just smartphones, but also for other devices, in particular related to Internet printers, tablets and others.

Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager of HP Palm Global Business Unit, says that in the first version of the WebOS and smartphone Pre, which occurred before 16 months, there are many new opportunities with the organization of additional programs, maintenance of Flash Player 10.1, supporting new multimedia data formats, etc.Important to note the emergence of many so-called. “Little helpers” – programs and system tricks – unnoticed at first glance, but it makes system operation comfortable and enjoyable.

These little helpers can be allocated:new instrument Just Type, which allows you to write text for an application without running the application itself, the new grouping system which allows applications to be grouped by sense and logic in predefined groups; elaboration mechanism for multi-tasking;Tool Exhibition, which allows users to specify which applications loaded most system and many other new developments.

In addition, the new smartphone Pre received new CPU whose frequency is increased to 1 GHz (in the former it was 600 MHz).The camera remains in the new smartphone 5-megapixel, but it increased display quality, which makes colors more vivid, and applications – in detail.

A few days before the release of Pre 2 John Rubinstein said in a statement on Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that the new device will be a “more than a Web 2.0 “is to it much closer to social, postal and communication services operating on the Internet.