Post-Project Thoughts

I guess the greatest challenge we faced was to gather a community of contributors. We initailly thought contributors and viewers would naturally come if we just spread the word out onto the forums, but from this experience, we learned that it isn't as simple as that.

What we could have done instead was to focus on a specific niche, like the GIMP community, and let them develop a comprehensive GIMP guide for Photoshop users, then eventually brach out to other software equivalents.

I think our advertising options were limited also because it isn't semester time, when we could have actaully approach IT clubs to contribute. Since it is the inter-semester break season, we had no one to physically approach because these clubs weren't in meeting.

But our advertising efforts were not in vain. Just this morning, I received 2 replies from facebooks contacts agreeing to contribute to the wiki. I dare not keep my hopes up because I have already seen several empty promises when it comes to contributions. Still, I believe this wikia has plenty of potential to grow into a useful "software dictionary".

Mailing List Circulation Not Approved

We joined the Free Software Foundation mailing list in hopes of circulating news of our wiki page to the open source community (and FSF is the biggest of such communities we know). However, it has been days and the newsletter still isn't circulated.

From: Darrell Leong <deepdarkabyss@gmail.com>
Date: June 17, 2011 10:04:37 PM GMT+08:00
To: info-press@fsf.org
Subject: HopOver Wiki (please forward to mailing list)

Calling all Free Open Source Software Supporters!
My team is starting a wiki page to help facilitate software users switch over from proprietary software to open source software. Introducing:
The HopOver Wiki!
The goal of the site is to be a dictionary for users to translate their skills to operate proprietary software to skills for using open source software. The wiki not only introduce free open source software equivalents, but even tool and featural equivalents between each proprietary-open source equivalent pair!
Please visit our site: http://hopover.wikia.com/wiki/HopOver_Wiki
Feel free so read/ contribute!
Support the cause!
Cheers,
The HopOver Team

Will send another email to the admin to see if I can find out why wasn't it approved for circulation. Building a community of contributors sure isn't easy. =(

First Contributor!

We have approached many forums to advertise our site but the general feedback we got was potential contributors get turned off when they see how small the content it. Afterall, who would want to contribute to what looks like a dead wiki? It really is a poverty cycle when it comes to content.

Hence, we have changed our strategy to the "brute force" method by contacting our friends and forum administrators, anyone who knows software, to contribute to the site. Many of them liked the idea and said they might contribute, but ... you know...

However, one person conquered his sloth and created a page! *pops champagne* It was a good page until I realised that most of the content are taken from Open Office wiki (don't worry, it is licensed CC-BY). Nonetheless, this is still a step for us and hopefully, a few more contributions and we can break out of this poverty cycle.

Attracting Contributors - Plan D

Plan D is to create a Facebook page for the wikia. By sharing the page, we are advertising the wikia to all of our Facebook contacts.

Attracting Contributors - Plan C

Plan C is to apply for Wikia Spotlight. However pre-requisite to apply for this requires over 200 pages for wikia to but the site under spotlight.

Attracting Contributors - Plan B

Plan B is to create  "lens" for the site. Squidoo is a site which catalogs other sites. Members (Squids) go around looking out for interesting ideas. If we can get enough Squid likes, we can eventually go higher up the site ranks to achieve more publicity.

Attracting Contributors - Plan A

Plan A is to go to several software related forums to encourage the software community to be part of the wiki.

1) GIMPtalk











2) GIMPforums












We targetted GIMP forums because we already have a decent page on Photoshop to GIMP. If there are people refering to that page, site traffic will increase and hopefully the contributors will come.

The Example Page

So we need to create a page for other contributers to refer to for the template. We discussed yesterday on doing a page on Word/Libre Text Document but we need to take another thing into consideration.

One criteria for us to show that this project is a success is to get someone, who has been using a proprietary and not used its FOSS equivalent before, to create something using the FOSS with the help of the tanslations on our wiki. We should not only get his feedback, but also present what he produced with the help of our wite.

In this case, it will be better to expand our page on GIMP/Photoshop so we can show a graphic product rather than a plain old text document.

Feedback?

Webchat Discussion: 03/06/11

WEBCHAT

Darrell Leong says

the project is not about developing the site

it is about getting the community to develop it

that is the point of a wiki

hey can you invite germain into the chat?

yhnger@hotmail.com says

oh wow finally

hUeY says

so are we sticking to the original topic or the newly proposed?

Darrell Leong says

Natalie you asked how far should we actually go when we translate GIMP to photoshop right?

we dont have to do everything ourselves

true, there are millions of program equivalents to translate but thats not for us to do

the wiki is meant for the community to develope on

hUeY says

yes i do get what you mean, but how many FOSS are you looking at for this project?

Darrell Leong says

How bout we each do a page?

there are plenty of options eg PowerPoint to Impress,

hUeY says

can i ask why the sudden the change in topic?

Darrell Leong says

heres an example

http://hopover.wikia.com/wiki/Photoshop_to_GIMP

hmmm...

we can still stcik to the original plan

yhnger@hotmail.com says

i'm actually okay with the new idea

Darrell Leong says

afterall our original idea is to redo a instruction manual for Sys Workflow

yhnger@hotmail.com says

it's very feasible

Darrell Leong says

we can find it a FOSS equivalent and post them on the wki

it is still an instrucgtion manual

but the difference is that HopOver is pro FOSS, so although it explains Sys-Workflow, it discourages it

hUeY says

yes all right great

talk to mr harrish abt it during break?

yhnger@hotmail.com says

okay we'll do

but let's select 3 to do first

like darrell said, photoshop to gimp

word to openoffice or whichever

then also

i think we should further narrow it down to specifically what we want to focus on within that software

because now it's so general

word has SO MANY functions

are we going to explain all?

it'll be a little insane

Darrell Leong says

harish said we can give the page several categories

basic, itermediate, advance

yhnger@hotmail.com says

ah

okay

then we'll also need to define

what is basic

intermediate and advanced

hUeY says

isn't it subjective as to what's basic, intermediate?

yhnger@hotmail.com says

yes i agree with natalie

Darrell Leong says

hmm..

yhnger@hotmail.com says

for example i consider using shortcuts like ctrl+s basic

but i know of pple who have no idea what shortcuts are

Darrell Leong says

its subjective

yhnger@hotmail.com says

so we need to specify

Darrell Leong says

maybe we can draw the borders

if the community doesnt like that, they are free to change it

yhnger@hotmail.com says

yep that is why defining it is important

hUeY says

the thing with wiki, it's suppose to be a plethora of info, if we are going to define it, doesn't it defeat the purpose?

yhnger@hotmail.com says

natalie are u editing the blog right now?

cos i cant seem to access it

but that's actually to our benefit

hUeY says

nope not ediiting

yhnger@hotmail.com says

because the idea of a wiki is to let the community add their own information

not just ours

we do not have to monitor and control it

we are simply some sort of starting a "movement"

to put it in an airy fairy manner

hUeY says

all right that being said, how abt not categorizing it to baisc, intermediate...blah

Darrell Leong says

same goes with the page... you dont have to explain everything you don't know... just present the info you have and the community will add to it

hUeY says

but rather a few functions

for each FOSS

Darrell Leong says

hmmm

i have an idea

how bout we list down the features from the most common to the least, basic to advance

no borders... just a list

yhnger@hotmail.com says

how about we narrow it down to one FOSS

hUeY says

haha

yhnger@hotmail.com says

from there we actually pick out the functions we want to zoom inon

think about it

for the paid software alone

i am not confident of knowing its in and outs

now we're going to have to write a manual to transit

it's gonna be daunting

unless we make it seem like a

guide for dummies

where WE are the dummies

and even explain the mistakes we made

or the frustrations we face

rather than a professional info kind of thing

Darrell Leong says

so we focus on one equivalent pair?

yhnger@hotmail.com says

but wikia is quite serious if i'm not wrong

i vote for one equivalent

Darrell Leong says

we should put the data on the wikia, ewverything else (eg mistakes progress obstacles etc) on the Impress slides

hUeY says

Objectives for HopOver

To make concrete the objectives we have to fulfill for HopOver:

1) For the User - Allow a user to try using any FOSS with HopOver as a guide. Gain feedback on whether it is user-friendly and fulfill it's objective of allowing easy transition from paid software to FOSS.

2) For the Community - Gain visibility and traction to HopOver with the community actively contributing to the wikia.

New Plan is Feasible but...

The new plan is very feasible though we must clearly define the information that WE can provide. We must not forget that for paid software alone, we are not able to fully grasp all its functions. Translating it for people to transit to FOSS will be a daunting task for us if we simply just generalize what we are doing.

Possible New Plan For Project

This is with regard to the previous blog post. Let's try to bring FOSS instruction to a new level.

I have created a wiki: HopOver
http://hopover.wikia.com/

The idea is simple. To help software users "HopOver" into the open source world. This idea is to not only tell people about open free software equivalents, but also guide them with feature equivalents within each software.

Example: How to do the same thing on GIMP as the "lasso" tool in photoshop. If there is no direct feature equivalent, an alternative method can be introduced.

It will not be thick GIMP for Dummies with all the instruction on complex design maneuvres, but it will introduce the basic common equivalent tool, enough for new users of the software to take baby steps. Photoshop/GIMP is just an example of such pages and there are others like PowerPoint/Impress. Libre/Microsoft Office would be an easy start before we tackle more complex software equivalents.

I just created the homepage, and I'll touch it up and contribute some About pages tomorrow.

Note: Sorry, I haven't discussed this idea with you guys (rest of the team) yet because I just came up with it just now in the middle of the night (didn't want to wake you both) and I thought I'd log it down here before I forget in the morning. This is not our finalised project plan yet, so do not be alarmed if you see this post. I still need to hear what you both think.

Just A Thought...

As we all know, there are plenty of open source equivalents to expensive softwares out there but why are people still paying so much to proprietry softwares? I feel that one main reason is familiarity.

Majority of computer users would still rather pay to have the familiar interface of the programs they have been using for a long time.

This project is about improving instruction for open source software. Perhaps we should modify manuals to aide people in transiting from proprietries to FOSS. But how?


Consider the equivalents Adobe Photoshop and GIMP. Photoshop isn't cheap but it still widely used. Maybe just knowing that a free software is equivalent is not enough for people to move and readapt into the FOSS camp. Maybe we should go one step deeper by not only introducing software equivalents, but also introducing tool equivalents within the free software. One nice organised table of tool equivalent for each pair of software equivalent would really get users over the net when they switch over to free programs.


Just a thought.

About NTU Ventures

NTU Ventures is a commercial arm of NTU. It not only financially invests in start-up businesses but also provide several services to entrepreneurs such as:

• Consulting
• Incubation support
• Industry partnership
• In-campus infrastructure

Like how the progress of this project is monitored by Mr Pillay via this blog, NTU Ventures uses Sys-Workflow for its panelists to monitor and approve start-up projects.

Finalized Idea: Sys-Workflow

We will be using Scribus or any other possible LibreOffice tools to design and write an instruction manual for the administrator of a recently developed private system for NTU Ventures.  The system was designed and published using WordPress, an Open Source blog tool. It can be found under the url http://www.sys-workflow.com though access to the system requires a username and password.

List of Free Open Source Tools We Could Use

Here are a few open source tools introduced during meeting 3:

1. Libre Office: Impress for final presentation
2. DIA: Diagramming software
3. Scribus: Graphics design
4. GIMP: Image editing tool

The Idea

The team discussed on what we should do for the open source project and we came up with the following options:

1) Modified instruction manual for open source animation software for children to understand
   
    Examples of 2D animation software we considered:
    - KTooN: Software for creating simple animations in 5 steps
    - Tux Paint: Animation software designed for young children
   
    Examples of 3D animation software we considered:
    - Blender
    - Art of Illusion

However, 3D design is a skill which require a lot of time to learn. It will require a much longer instruction manual as compared to 2D design software and children are less likely to have the patience to get through with it.

Tux Paint is an ideal software for children as it is designed for that purpose. It's tutorial is in the readme file which consists of a long page of text with few diagrams. Children are unlikely to have the patience read the whole tutorial, much less even open the readme file. What we can do is to recreate the tutorial with a more graphical approach (eg. using comic strip format or a video tutorial), that the developer can add to his program such that the tutorial will appearon the user interface at first launch after installation.

2) Create a Wiki for lower primary students
     - Includes thoroughly simplified pages for subjects (Math/Science/ etc.)
Most wiki pages contain an over-explanation that are too complicated for children to understand.