[Server-devel] RACHEL, another developing world server project, would like to have a discussion with XS

[Dennis Nguyen]

Hi Martin, thanks for the warm welcome!

We would definitely welcome re-use of the content, but since I'm relatively
new to this particular project I don't have an expert sense of the
particular permissions we have with the content providers as is. I will look
into it.

Indexing: none! All of the content is currently listed on the index page
with bare HTML. In our defense, this is a relatively new and shorthanded
project, and our very first priority is gathering content while the indexing
is supposed to follow later. I agree that indexing is sorely needed if we
want to bring this to scale.

The wikislice we're using for the moment is the 2008/9 Wikipedia Selection
for schools, which is handpicked front-to-back to fit the UK national
curriculum. The website with details for that is at
http://schools-wikipedia.org/

Currently for languages and localization, we're definitely improvising based
on locales we've visited and are planning to visit, and we attempt to gauge
what we can get away with as we go. We have English and Spanish content so
far.

This project has a voracious appetite for content, and as such we'd rather
stuff the project with content first regardless of compatibility with open
projects like Gnash. As is, the donated user equipment we've encountered so
far runs Flash on donated Windows, so at the moment mandating standards on
our (generous) content providers doesn't seem like the best proposition at
this time.

Nightly updates are on the drawing board as a feature and have been for
months. Again we've got limited manpower on this project, so once we find a
solution and a dedicated volunteer we can take a crack at it.

You can probably tell from this that this project is in a very early stage
as far as maturity of the platform is concerned. I'm working to engage you
folks at an early stage in case you have something grand to teach us :-)
Please let me know if you have any other questions! Again, our approach here
is content-first, which does have its weaknesses but it has been working
surprisingly well so far.

Dennis Nguyen


On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff at gmail.com
> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Dennis Nguyen
> <denniskdnguyen at alumni.duke.edu> wrote:
> > I work with a volunteer project launched about a year ago that is
> > working on developing a server package for education in the developing
>
> Very interesting. Welcome to the list and hope you get a chance to meet
> Sameer!
>
> Some questions - after an incomplete read of the RACHEL  website:
>
>  - The content guidelines hint that the content must be able to be
> served from a 'dumb' server (you are proposing wikis and similar are
> included in a deployment but separate from content). This is good, and
> means OLPC XS can re-use your content...
>
>  - How do you build indexes and/or search across the content?
>
>  - It mentions 'Wikipedia'.
>   = Do you include all languages? The local language? Local lang +
> Simple English? Some other variation?
>   = Is anyone "curating" the wikipedia snapshots? OLPC has found that
> after taking a 'wikislice' you _really_ want to spot-check all the
> content, as you are bound to have some vandalism and inappropriate
> content there (very small percentage, but when you capture a
> large-enough slice...)
>   = Which wikislice tool are you using?
>
>  - Languages? Localisation?
>
>  - Any consideration to encourage Gnash-compatible Flash?
>
>  - Do you package your content in any way? If the school server has a
> limited connection to the internet, can it download an update to the
> content that is just delta?
>
> Hope I haven't scared you with the storm of questions.
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
> m
> --
>  martin.langhoff at gmail.com
>  martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
>  - ask interesting questions
>  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
>  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
>
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