[Server-devel] [XSCE] Re: A Path to Pathagar.

[David Farning]

This is where things get fun and interesting!

We have tried to set Pathagar, Internet-in-a-Box, and other services up for
community success on XSCE:
1. Loosely coupled -- The plugin structure means that Pathagar and IIAB
need to know very little about XSCE and nothing about each other.
2. COTS -- Commercial off-the-shelf. Both projects are primarily developed
outside of the XSCE project by independent groups. This reduces the
development and maintenance on XSCE community members.
3. Complementary -- In this phase it appears that IIAB excels at 'the
scrape.' IIAB collects large amounts of data from the wild internet and
makes it available offline. The Pathagar projects looks like it will focus
on tightly curated collections for specific deployments.
4. Competitive -- Even though they start by working on opposite ends of
problem space, they overlap.

Hopefully, by building on these principles we can nurture/encourage both
project to thrive on their own and as components of XSCE.
 I'm curious how Pathagar may be applicable to our Internet-in-a-Box (
http://internet-in-a-box.org).

Can it scale to the 40,000 epub books in Project Gutenberg?

thanks,
Braddock Gaskill

On 06/04/2013 01:46 PM, David Farning wrote:

One of the additions to XSCE 0.3 is the ability to add services to XSCE
without having an intimate knowledge of the entire server. Our first real
test of this is the inclusion of Pathagar as a bookserver.

 For the last three releases the XSCE project has focused on the basics:
1. Network connectivity within the classroom.
2. Internet access were available.
 3. Modular structure.

 This has been the boring framework stuff which will enable the fun user
facing stuff like Pathagar to work.

 Pathagar is a simple bookserver. In this case, simple means rugged and
maintainable. Pathagar has three purposes; browse, search and download
digital books from a server.

 In the basic use case a librarian or curator places digital books in a
directory on the server. Students can then browse, search and download from
their web browser or bookreader software.

 Technically, most of the pieces are in place:
1. I believe the XSCE needs a bit more work handle external storage. (Not
barfing if the USB connection is bumped.)
 2. Pathagar is fully functional.

 The remaining steps will be to:
1. Validate Fedora packaging.
2. Create the glue code to add Pathagar to XSCE is a plugin.
3. Validate loosely coordinated release.
4. Test, test, test.

 Technically this seems pretty straight forward.  The more open ended
issues is curating content. A book server with no books is as useful as
school server which doesn't serve.

 --
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com


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