Rethinking the Freemedia problem

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

Just free thinking here.  Stop me if I'm an idiot.  :)

We've clearly got LOTS of demand.  What we need is more participants.  
BUT... we don't want to burden participants like we've burdened poor 
Thomas.  :)

Maybe we need more structure and tools to scale participation -- and a way 
to "guarantee" response times.  So let me bounce this structure off you:

1. THE RECRUITER PAGE.

Maybe we make a real easy webpage that says something like this:

Join Up!  Lots of messaging here about how you're sharing the fun!

Tell us:
  * Name and email;
  * Where you live;
  * Whether you prefer to send CDs, DVDs, or both;
  * Where you're willing to send CDs/DVDs;
  * How many per week you're willing to send.

2. THE INPUT QUEUE.

Same as what we have now, except the request goes into a simple database 
that tracks address, date of request, and who's handling it, if anyone.

3. THE REQUEST ENGINE.

Basically, it goes through and matches volunteers to requests -- at a rate 
that precisely matches the volunteer's desire to help.  If someone can 
send one DVD / set of CDs a week, that's exactly what we ask them to send.

4. THE BACKLOG.

We show the backlog on a webpage, and given the number of requests we 
have, we estimate a delivery time for every single CD/DVD request we have 
in the queue.

5. THE RATING.  :)

Once someone promises to send CDs/DVDs to someone, we need a way to find 
out if it happened.  Actually, what we *really* need is a way to find out 
if it *didn't* happen.  Maybe an "Oops!" counter.  If someone accumulates 
a few Oopses, they'll get a gentle reminder that they made a promise.  If 
they accumulate a bunch of Oopses, they're dropped from the rotation.

=====

So.  Thoughts?

There's some work here, but for a reasonably competent web programmer... 
it's really not tough.  Just requires someone with hands and time.  :)

Might also be nice to donate such an application to the community at 
large...

--g

-------------------------------------------------------------
Greg DeKoenigsberg || Fedora Project || fedoraproject.org
Be an Ambassador || http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
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[Max Spevack]

Greg,

I think this a great idea, and a perfect project for some folks who are 
interested in contributing engineering talent to Fedora in an area that 
it's sorely needed.

>  3. THE REQUEST ENGINE.
>
>  Basically, it goes through and matches volunteers to requests -- at a rate
>  that precisely matches the volunteer's desire to help.  If someone can
>  send one DVD / set of CDs a week, that's exactly what we ask them to send.
>
>  4. THE BACKLOG.
>
>  We show the backlog on a webpage, and given the number of requests we
>  have, we estimate a delivery time for every single CD/DVD request we have
>  in the queue. 
The selection algorithm actually allows us to make some very interesting 
choices.  You want to optimize the throughput based on the number of 
people available to burn media, but we could also choose whose requests 
are processed not only based on order in which they were requested, but 
based on minimizing geographical distance between the requestor and the 
providor, or frequency of request, etc.

Should someone who's requesting media all of the time should be thottled 
compared to someone who's never requested anything and is now making an 
initial request?  I think so.

There's tons of room in this design space for clever thinking.

>  Might also be nice to donate such an application to the community at
>  large... 
For sure.

-- 
Max Spevack <mspevack{at}redhat.com>                 gpg key: mspevack.asc
http://people.redhat.com/mspevack/                  fingerprint: 5A17 CF21

[Jef Spaleta]

On 3/24/06, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Just free thinking here.  Stop me if I'm an idiot.  :) 
Any solution for media distribution should also address the issue of
distributing updates equitably on media as well as the release isos. 
Take a real hard look at how large the update churn is for a fedora
release per month of the fedora core 4 release cycle. Take a real hard
look at how large the sum total of the size of cummulative updates are
right now for a fresh install of fc4 (default and everything).  Take a
real good look at the number of security updates that have accumulated
over the lifetime of the fc4 release. Now tell me.. with a straight
face... thats its a good idea to be distributing install media without
also taking the responsibility to provide "reasonable" acess to update
media to people who don't have the bandwidth to pull it down for
themselves and aren't going to be able to reasonable apply all the
updates due to bandwidth shortage. Is this an appropriate course of
action without also providing a freemedia mechanisms for updates?

Now that I've gotten your attention. I'm now going to blow your mind.
Now consider...freemedia for Extras... which doesn't have established
release points. I also think its a bit unequitable to be talking about
a freemedia model built on community manpower which doesn't include
the community contributed segment of the packages.

-jef"can you tell that my impending move to the wilderness has
impacted my thinking as to the importance of update media"spaleta

[Tejas Dinkar]

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:15 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>  Might also be nice to donate such an application to the community at
>
>  large... 
Hmmmm, This app would best be written in python (obviously).

I'd love to help write it, as I'm sure many of the python enthusiasts of
#fedora-python would.

I think you should have a CVS server up somewhere so that we could all
work on it.

Tejas

[Rahul Sundaram]

On Sat, 2006-03-25 at 15:08 +0530, Tejas Dinkar wrote:
>  On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:15 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>  > Might also be nice to donate such an application to the community at 
>  > large...
>  
>  Hmmmm, This app would best be written in python (obviously).
>  
>  I'd love to help write it, as I'm sure many of the python enthusiasts of
>  #fedora-python would.
>  
>  I think you should have a CVS server up somewhere so that we could all
>  work on it. 
Fedora Extras cvs is open to all. If you need to host code, use sf.net
or something like that

Rahul

[Rahul Sundaram]

On Sat, 2006-03-25 at 15:08 +0530, Tejas Dinkar wrote:
>  On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:15 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>  > Might also be nice to donate such an application to the community at 
>  > large...
>  
>  Hmmmm, This app would best be written in python (obviously).
>  
>  I'd love to help write it, as I'm sure many of the python enthusiasts of
>  #fedora-python would.
>  
>  I think you should have a CVS server up somewhere so that we could all
>  work on it. 
Again I cant see why you can't use sf.net or savannah for CVS space. We
need significantly more resources to build our own project management
website (not sure what value that would provide over sf.net)  and there
are better priorities now.

Rahul

[Tejas Dinkar]

On 4/1/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Again I cant see why you can't use sf.net or savannah for CVS space. We
>  need significantly more resources to build our own project management
>  website (not sure what value that would provide over sf.net)  and there
>  are better priorities now.
>
>  Rahul 

OK, cool...

berlios.de though....

Will get on it as soon as possible.

Just thought it would be easier to test it live though.

:)

[Rahul Sundaram]

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:15 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>  Just free thinking here.  Stop me if I'm an idiot.  :)
>  
>  We've clearly got LOTS of demand.  What we need is more participants.  
>  BUT... we don't want to burden participants like we've burdened poor 
>  Thomas.  :)
>  
>  Maybe we need more structure and tools to scale participation -- and a way 
>  to "guarantee" response times.  So let me bounce this structure off you:

Every real problem can be solved by building a business model around
it ;-). While the Freemedia and share media solutions are great to reach
the technology enthusiasts which Fedora is pretty suitable for, there is
probably better value is letting small scale OEM's do their job too.
That would mean identifying their needs better and perhaps modifying the
software to support branding effectively as well as trademark guidelines
for it and having a single contact point to tackle their problems. 

Rahul

[Jef Spaleta]

On 4/1/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  is probably better value is letting small scale OEM's do their
> job too.
>  That would mean identifying their needs better and perhaps modifying the
>  software to support branding effectively as well as trademark guidelines
>  for it and having a single contact point to tackle their problems. 
yes there is definitely room for OEM's in lager ecosystem of
distribution.  Unfortunately I'm not sure that a significant number of
small OEM's that offer fedora are plugged in with on-going
discussions. Perhaps there is is a mission for fedora's virtual
embassy to do an outreach programs to OEMs with some specific goals
for identifying potential distribution and related infrastructure and
policy enhancements aimed at making life easier for the OEM.

-jef"the ambassadors need to develop a windows users refugee
relocation program"spaleta