More discussion: GUI, blogs, and pizza

[Brett Alton]

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Luke <lukehasnoname at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a few thoughts with respect to what we spoke about at the meeting.

{snip}

> Some have suggested taking eBox and making a fully customized Ubuntu
> version. I'm not into actual development now, so I don't know what kind of
> effort this would be. Judging by the screenshots of eBox, this could be a
> way to go.
>
> Also, another topic on the mailing list suggests writing a terminal program
> that would be an all-in-one management are for server services, I believe
> it's tentatively called "u-s-admin". The idea is write that for CLI users,
> then develop a GUI frontend for it. Something else to think about.
>
> Timeframe: 9.04 seems reasonable. This is almost a year to get a reasonable
> beta product out, whether we're making our own or modifying webmin/eBox.
> Intrepid is too close, as people are working on the first "point" for Hardy
> as well, and there are only 5 months til release.
>
> One question I have: Is a web interface really the way to go? Will
> enterprise users go for having to have a web server to run admin services?
> In my personal view, it would be more reasonable to develop a program for
> Ubuntu that could have a GUI front made for it. An actual program is more
> pro than a web interface.

(snip)

I wasn't going to announce this anytime soon, but I'm (sort of) the
project leader for Ubuntu Home Server (now called Satega).

We're just writing out our drafting plans now and getting ready to
code in SVN in the next couple weeks.

We have very similar goals in mind (easy front-end administration for
all things server), although, we also wanted to compete with WIndows
Home Server.

I would like to say that at the school board I work at, IBM has moved
their image-processing tools from being GUI based to web based due to
lower overhead, so if you want a GUI, I suggest web, especially as it
enables the server box to stay X free.

Anyway, some files and posts on the matter regarding Satega:

logo: http://satega.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=37
mindmap (old): http://brettalton.com/satega/freemind/20080123.png
(rename .png to .mm to use with Freemind)
mindmap (new): http://brettalton.com/satega/freemind/20080529.png
(rename .png to .mm to use with Freemind)
feature list (derived from mindmap)
http://www.satega.org/wiki/index.php?title=Feature_List
Frontend/backend communication: http://satega.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=68
theme (before we had the logo):
http://brettalton.com/uhs/20080518-alpha5/ [forum post:
http://satega.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=27]
discussion for our first prototype:
http://satega.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=76

I'm sure there are all sorts of other great posts, so please look around.

Anyway, we have six guys working on this project, so I think we
shouldn't waste time and join efforts.

I own satega.org while another member is hosting it and a couple
others are mantaining Druapl, MediaWiki and phpBB3.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts!

PS: I do really like that underlying CLI aspect! Scripting is always fun =)

-- 
Brett Alton
brett.jr.alton at gmail.com

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