[gentoo-user] Re: GSOC discussion

[James]

Mateusz Kowalczyk <fuuzetsu <at> fuuzetsu.co.uk> writes:

> On 07/01/14 14:35, Vladimir Romanov wrote:
> > Wow. Can i try to do this task (aside of GSOC, simply because it's
> > interesting)?

Well, it's just a "raw idea" that needs quite a bit of further thought.

Basically, you need a mentor and a project to work under GSOC-2014.
You might as well get paid for this effort, if that appeals to you.
If not, and you have time, you can develop something like this on your own.
Set simple goals and use a small testbed. Once you roll something out
a few times, invite others to test drive it.  It probally lead
to google taking an interest in your work, if you spin some good
ideas into a usable codebase. It might also be appealing to reseach
what programming languages/databases would be good to use.

You could even further focus the effort not just gentoo-centric but
something like gentoo-centric-security....

Surely you can "take ownership" of the idea, recraft it, or 
modify (fork) and applicable (?) existing code base as you like.
Who knows, search is a hot topic. You just might land a gig
at your own "startup" should the winds of favor drift your way.....



> Personally I think this project is a bit too convoluted, requires a
> lot of community effort and becomes fairly useless should people
> decide to stop contributing to it for some reason. I think the effort
> would be better spent updating the Wiki with the findings on the
> mailing lists. Google is Good Enough™ with finding the information you
> need. It does tend to take some time but I don't think it's so much
> that it justifies the amount of effort that'd have to go into the
> project.

I disagree with you. Nobody has to be forced to use it. The heart of the
idea is that some (more experience users) form better (google) search
syntax than others, particularly when looking deeply into searching 
for relevant material.   Often one does not need a fully, concise, current
web page on exactly what they are seeking. It is only after hours and hours
of refined searches that folks sometimes find key pieces of information
via search engines.  Besides, google is full of "noise" even with keenly,
well formed searches, as we all know. Furthermore, the time has come
form users to be "more in control" of their own searches, as google
seeks to satisfy too many masters, imho.

It is merely and idea to leverage the expertise of some folk in deep
searches, who wish to share  their their search (kunfu) with others,
via this project idea. Those experts would merely have to use the "frontend"
to search for things, allowing the frontend to do it's
work transparently. If you are search for someting sensitive, then just
do not use the frontend. 

I do agree with you about the need to work on the gentoo-wiki, as I myself
have a few project in that vain, in early stages.....


But a frontend-tool/app to make our collective gentoo searches, more
energized, is an interesting, entrepreneurial idea, methinks.... ymmv.