[iRail] Community updates 11/2010

Wed Nov 24 09:36:40 UTC 2010

@pieter good writeup indeed
@tim excellent idea; you would be adding that here I assume?:
http://project.irail.be/cgi-bin/trac.fcgi/wiki/WrapperCode

On 24 November 2010 10:28, Tim Besard <tim.besard at gmail.com> wrote:

> In response to my own message: a sample feature matrix.
>
> Tim
>
>
> 2010/11/24 Tim Besard <tim.besard at gmail.com>:
> > Not many beer lovers, it seems ;) Good write-up though!
> >
> > Concerning the wrappers (and clients which ship an API library, like
> > libirail in Qt): it might be interesting to create a feature matrix,
> > so it's easy for devs and users to spot what is missing and how usable
> > the wrapper/library already is.
> >
> > Tim
> >
> >
> > 2010/11/24 Pieter Colpaert <pieter.colpaert at gmail.com>:
> >> Hi iRail-people!
> >>
> >> It's time for some community updates. Sit back and take a few minutes to
> >> read this. Community updates are only needed when a big team of people
> >> is working together on something huge. Yes... That's what we have
> >> become. But, I don't want to bore you with numbers, here come updates:
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------
> >>
> >> INDEX:
> >>
> >> A | FOR HUMANS
> >>
> >> 1. NPO (vzw/asbl)
> >> 2. Schedule
> >> 3. NMBS won't bother us anymore
> >> 4. Help testing our applications
> >>
> >> B | FOR DEVELOPERS
> >>
> >> 00. iRail API
> >> 01. Github
> >> 10. BeTrains
> >> 11. Wrappers
> >>
> >> (If you'd rather read the Community updates online:
> >> http://project.irail.be/cgi-bin/trac.fcgi/wiki/CU1110 )
> >>
> >> -------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >> A | FOR HUMANS
> >>
> >> 1. NPO (vzw/asbl)
> >>
> >> We are still starting a non-profit organization. Before we can start we
> >> need a to decide a lot of things. Here is what we have come up with, in
> >> a little interview
> >>
> >> ° What is the NPO for?
> >>
> >> The goal of the NPO is to support iRail so it can provide open transport
> >> data free from money or copyright issues. People who write clients upon
> >> the iRail API will be able to join the NPO for free. By doing that they
> >> become iRail themselves and thus have not to worry about any conflict
> >> with other corporations.
> >>
> >> ° Who will be leading the NPO?
> >>
> >> Yeri T, Christophe V and Pieter C
> >>
> >> ° The name?
> >>
> >> iRail.
> >>
> >> ° Is there any task still open?
> >>
> >> YES! Glad you ask! We need someone to take care of the finances. Any
> >> volunteer who'd like to do that?
> >>
> >> ° Will members have to pay?
> >>
> >> We will have 2 kind of members: Members who want to support or cause and
> >> pay a yearly fee (we agreed on 10€/month → 120€/year) and Members who
> >> contribute code. The latter don't pay a fee at all.
> >>
> >> ° Money honey?
> >>
> >> Spending: Not at this moment. We are a NPO and we do not intend to make
> >> money with the iRail API. Our goal is solely to make people use the data
> >> without anything standing in the way. We create a «free market» around
> >> this data. If you want to make a business around the iRail API, be our
> >> guest!
> >>
> >> Receiving: We do at this moment. We are a NPO and we intend to receive
> >> from people who care that this project stays alive and kicking. For
> >> instance, it's very important if your business runs on our API that our
> >> API stays alive. So keep us well fed with a voluntary percentage of your
> >> gain. We use the money to organize developer meetings, to fund ourselves
> >> (yes, this is becoming an expensive hobby...), to buy servers, to buy
> >> github services and last but not least, promotion!
> >>
> >>
> >> 2. Schedule
> >>
> >> I would like to share our schedule before we go into a small
> >> winter-sleep. (50% of our team are students and students got
> >> examinations)
> >>
> >> (note: this is a draft. It probably won't happen as drafted)
> >>
> >> Week of 22/11:
> >>
> >> * We're rewriting the mobile webclient (iRail.be). It will be using
> >> jsonp and will be detached from the API's code. It will be housed in a
> >> different git repository as well. Mathias Baert is doing an excellent
> >> job on the javascript right now. Mathias Beynens is going to do the html
> >> + css afterwards. (I have high expectations)
> >>
> >> * We will be pushing APIv1.0 (now on dev.api) to the api.iRail.be
> >> server.
> >>
> >> Week of 29/11:
> >>
> >> * Setting op blog.iRail.be and getting the word out - our community
> >> updates and recent news will appear in one central place.
> >>
> >> * As last week we got ourselves a great JSONP-wrapper, we will now focus
> >> on an application suggested by Christophe Petit-Jean. We will make a
> >> widget which will be shown on a TV screen to be put in offices. If
> >> afterwards we help Christophe setting this up he might do a generous
> >> donation to the NPO.
> >>
> >> * iGoogle widget release
> >>
> >> First half of December:
> >>
> >> * Testing phase of BeTrains for maemo, BeTrains alpha for bada and
> >> BeTrains for WP7.
> >>
> >> Second half of December
> >>
> >> * Release of BeTrains for WP7
> >> * Release of BeTrains for maemo
> >> * Release of BeTrains for bada
> >>
> >> * Meeting: what will we do in February?
> >> probably:
> >>  - FOSDEM!
> >>  - support for buses! (depends on Van Quickenborne)
> >>  - iPhone app
> >>  - Qr-code campaign (more later)
> >>  - Social features on webclient: Share this app
> >>  - Take a share in iRail: the more people you refer to BeTrains/iRail
> >> the more % share you get in the iRail buzz-iness.
> >>  - Delay-tracker: track delays and make a guess for the future.
> >>  - Train-load warning: It's not pleasant to take the train to Ghent on a
> >> Sunday evening. Nor when people return from Werchter.
> >>  - And much more!
> >>
> >> 3. NMBS won't bother us anymore
> >>
> >> but... They won't help us either. Peter Dedecker (www.peterdedecker.eu)
> >> asked a question about iRail in the parliament to Inge Vervotte. It was
> >> slightly positive: they won't use lawyers to bother us anymore. Our
> >> comments about this are expressed over here:
> >>
> >> http://bonsansnom.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/vervotte-beantwoordt-irail/
> >> (Dutch)
> >>
> >> The most important comment: Vervotte mentions that we should agree on
> >> some points with the NMBS before using the data. Our point is (still)
> >> that the NMBS does not own the data so they can't force us to accept
> >> certain conditions. We are however eager to talk to them about
> >> conditions at least if we knew what they were. We have never heard about
> >> one condition.
> >>
> >> 4. Help testing our applications!
> >>
> >> Do you have a smartphone? I bet we have a native client! For android and
> >> maemo you can get testing executables.
> >>
> >> Maemo: https://github.com/iRail/BeTrains.Qt/downloads
> >> Android: http://code.google.com/p/betrains/
> >>
> >> for other platforms you can compile from source and test it if you feel
> >> adventurous:
> >>
> >> iphone: http://code.google.com/p/betrainsiphone/
> >> Symbian: https://github.com/iRail/BeTrains.Qt/
> >> Windows phone 7:
> >> https://github.com/dieterdp/BeTrains-for-Windows-Phone-7
> >> bada: https://github.com/iRail/BeTrains.Bada
> >> iGoogle-widget: https://github.com/iRail/iRailForGoogle
> >> General widget: https://github.com/iRail/Web
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> B | FOR DEVELOPERS
> >>
> >> 00. The iRail API
> >>
> >> For those who haven't noticed, the dev API has gained some functions:
> >>  * liveboards - These are the schedules that you can see when you enter
> >> a station. Now you can also use them in json/xml/jsonp!
> >>  * vehicle - With this function you can get information about 1 specific
> >> vehicle: where is it going, when will it arrive in which station, ...
> >>
> >> Changes/Additions in syntax:
> >>
> >>  * Now you can use id=BE.NMBS.123 for a station, instead of
> >> from/to/station=AALST
> >>  * Time is now fully iso 8601 compliant as seconds are added
> >>  * location="X Y" has changed into locationX="X" locationY="Y"
> >>
> >>
> >> ! These additions are currently only available in the dev.api.irail.be-
> >> They're almost ready for release. Take into account that you cannot use
> >> dev.api.irail.be for a stable release of your application since it
> might
> >> break often. For your stable release use the api.irail.be which will be
> >> updated soon.
> >>
> >>
> >> 01. The Github association
> >>
> >> We have a github association page from now on. Access it through
> >> http://github.com/iRail (doesn't that look nice?)
> >>
> >> This allows us to list all members working on a github repository. We
> >> can manage each user's right to commit on a certain branch. If you need
> >> more rights, just ping Yeri or Pieter.
> >>
> >> 10. BeTrains for X
> >>
> >> * We need help on BeTrains for iPhone. At this moment we cannot
> >> outbetter the iphone app bought by the NMBS. We have to be more stable,
> >> faster, user-friendlier, ... Do you know someone who can code objective
> >> C? Refer him to us!
> >>
> >> * Same for blackberry, except that we don't have any code yet. Do you
> >> want to code for blackberry? Do you know someone? Get in touch!
> >>
> >> 11. Wrappers
> >>
> >> Don't rewrite code that we have written already. We have quite some
> >> wrappers listed on the github project page.
> >>
> >> http://github.com/iRail/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks for reading this entirely. It takes a lot of courage to read such
> >> a great email. Therefor, the first one to mail me (personally) with "I
> >> need a beer" will get free beer on the next meet-up.
> >>
> >> Yours sincerely,
> >>
> >> Pieter
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> iRail mailing list
> >> iRail at list.irail.be
> >> http://lists.rootspirit.com/mailman/listinfo/irail
> >>
> >
>
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>
>
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