Proposal: Desktop Search Hackfest.
Calling to: Xesam, Beagle, Tracker projects and whoever else is involved.
When: September 19 + the days the developers decide before & after.
Where: Berlin.
Why: The Board made a call to organize hackfest around events and the Maemo Summit has answered.
Budget: Funded by Nokia within reasonable terms.
But why?
Ok, let me explain. We have some budget to sponsor participants to the Maemo Summit . We want to find a balance between Maemo community contributors, related upstream developers and core developers of the Maemo SW team at Nokia. We think organizing a GNOME hackfest is a win-win.
Desktop search is an interesting area. Federico explained in GUADEC the problems of Oralia finding her stuff and there are many more things unsolved. It is becoming a critical area, considering that users are getting more volumes of data, more types of files and they have them spread through several devices and the Internet.
We also find interesting to support areas that are not seen as “mobile only”. There are many, and in fact mobile companies like Nokia are supporting the development of features and components that many people don’t even see as mobile related since they find them in their PCs and laptops. Desktop search affects everybody, even if it’s perhaps more demanding in mobile devices (less processing power, different form factors, probably different input methods, surely less patience from the user on-the-go —> higher chances to FAIL).
In the GNOME family this is a delicate topic: ask the Beagle, Tracker or Xesam hackers why. Yet there must be a possibility to find a common mission and specific objectives for a Hackfest. The first Desktop Search Hackfest ever? Each project can find also the time to meet and get some progress in their own areas. It is up to the developers to define the goals of the hackfest.
Maemo has some developers working on Tracker and they like the idea. It has been discussed briefly in the gnome-movile-devel list and at least Behdad and Vincent agree (in fact this was their idea, I was proposing a Tracker hackfest but the Desktop Search idea is cooler). We are looking for more opinions and support for a consensus.
The time runs fast and September is around the corner. Feedback welcome NOW!
PS: This proposal was sent yesterday to GNOME’s foundation-list. Reposting here since many related developers are not subscribed. See also the first replies in the thread. Tracker and Xesam seem to be on board and hopefully Beagle can be represented too!
PS2: Btw, since the people are spread in different projects, mailing lists, etc, it would be a good idea to set up a wiki page or similar for coordination. There is no lack of wikis around but in case of doubt just create this wiki page: http://wiki.maemo.org/Desktop_Search_Hackfest
Filed under: GNOME, maemo | 9 Comments
Tags: Beagle, hackfest, maemo summit, Metadata, Search, Tracker, Xesam
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I think we also want to involve some of the people from Strigi and other desktop search engines.
They contribute a lot to the Xesam specification which is definitely the ONE thing that needs most attention during this hackfest in my opinion.
I’ll try to ping people and get them to contact you about this, Quim. You of course make the final decision of who does and who doesn’t get sponsorship (if there’s a selection involved here, I can imagine it wont be hundreds of people requesting sponsorship).
Strigi and Nepomuk developers would love to come!
The time and the place do not quite work out for me. Its hard to escape if you are a immigrant graduate student in USA
. I am hoping Arun or Lukas can make it.
Good luck on the hackfest. I will keep checking blogs for up to date info, keep us posted.
Very interesting idea, Quim. Looking forward to see what will come out of this.
I’m not contributing actively anywhere yet, but I would be interested in attending and Berlin should be within my price range. I can’t say for certain though as I’m moving soon and starting at the university in September – only when all that is settled can I say for certain.
As you said, we’re getting more and bigger volumes. Some say this means we need desktop search even more. I figure if you just put stuff where it goes instead of all in ~, you’re fine, but whatever. Others say these large volumes make desktop search unbearable. The time wasted by how much these apps slow the computer down doesn’t make up for the supposed speed gained in finding something.
Look at the problems this person has with them:
http://calypso.tux.org/pipermail/novalug/2008-July/012806.html
She has so much data that if she uses Beagle, the index is 15GB! If she uses Tracker, it takes 2 full minutes *just to open the Save As dialog*.
What good is it if the people with enough data to need these tools have their computers rendered unusable by the tools?
Sure, invite the Strigi and Nepomuk guys and whoever else you think that needs to be there.
I don’t decide WHO comes, you do. I can agree with you on a budget and this will define how many people from which origins can come, but that’s it.
Urho Konttori proposed in the Xesam and Tracker list to start a wiki page at http://www.xesam.org/main/summit/September2008 . Start wherever you want, but start something and I will follow to decide on the practicalities. At the moment you are still spread in several mailing lists and it is very difficult to follow.
@Mackenzie: many things working now seamlessly and flawlessly in the free desktop were a real pain (or plain impossible) just few years ago. Remember? Humans have always (tried to assist searches with technology as soon as they had some Mbs of information. The problem is that many users have stored and at reach more information that an average public library would had a century ago.
@Mackenzie: OT for this blog entry, but the 15GB index was a known issue which has been addressed in the later versions. The index wasnt 15GB, the error log files were. Just FYI.