Welcome and discussion starter

Kevin Fenzi kevin at scrye.com
Wed Feb 13 16:36:52 UTC 2013


On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:58:32 -0700
Pete Travis <me at petetravis.com> wrote:

> I've been thinking of implementation, in general terms. A lot of the
> details would fall out if a few preliminary goals are established,
> and the replies so far have come from a necessarily technical
> perspective. Allow me to offer another, on presentation:
> 
> Who is the target audience for formulas? We can roughly group the
> user base into two areas: end users and experienced users. I would
> group the average desktop linux enthusiast in the former, and include
> the majority of Fedora contributors, system administrators, and
> wizened enthusiasts in the latter.
> 
> Targeting the end user would require a lot more effort in
> presentation, but would provide a bigger payoff in terms of marketing
> value and user draw. Targeting the latter would allow a much easier
> implementation - really, we would just have to agree on a common
> style and guidelines for shipping playbooks and put them in a git
> repo to be cloned. 

Sure. I think it may be that it's easier to target the one group short
term, but keep the other group in mind for longer term implementation. 

> Without solid presentation, we will expending effort to the exclusion
> of less experienced users. I propose that from the beginning,
> Formulas should be implemented with the intent of making their use as
> easy as clicking the link to download a spin. I think that we can
> agree that drawing more users to Fedora is generally a Good Thing,
> and that Formulas could help keep the contributor funnel full.

Sure, but there might be some (hopefully informed) questions asked of
the user. Ideally there would be a 'defaults' mode where it just took
defaults, but I think interactivity is a good selling point as well. 

> So, a Formula should contain:
> 	- an ansible playbook
> 	- any required ansible templates

(These could well be required by all formulas...)

> 	- descriptive content in html using a defined template, or in
> a format translatable to html
> 	- a fun banner image
> 	- indexable metadata
>
> The presentation layer should provide:
> 	- a browseable, searchable interface built from Formula
> metadata
> 	- a rating system, to promote involvement
> 	- a moderated comment system, to promote involvement 
> 		(although comments can detract from perceived
> professionalism)
> 	- a script to crawl through the git source and create and
> index the content
> 	- individual Formula pages displaying the above mentioned
> descriptive content, with direct links to the playbook file itself
> 	- a GUI URI handler to guide the user through the interactive
> portions of the formula, and to promote a sense of accomplishment

Yes to all this. 

Also, I would really like a command line version of the tool that
exists on the end user machine. (in addition to the gui one). 

Much of the presentation layer could fit into a larger "software
center" type thing as well. There's been talk of such a project, and
if there's any movement on it we could perhaps leverage that for
formulas as well. 

kevin
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