User:IOOI/GNUstepSoftwareIndex/Concept

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Abstract

GNUstepSoftwareIndex is a News Feed with Archive (i.e. App-Store) for GNUstep related Software.

Licence

I propose to use the BSD licence since this GNUstepWeb application is also meant to be a starting point for other GNUstepWeb applications, even unfree one. One of the goals (beside function as a software index) is to kick start the use of GNUstepWeb. So we should impose as less as possible restrictions to users who want to use this application as a starting point. IOOI 00:54, 19 February 2010 (CET)

Proposed Features

• "home page" with latest news (or if you prefer other words: announcements, publications, entries, versions)

@User:Hns: should those "latest news" be automatically generated/derived from the entered data or do you have some editorial system in mind? I would opt for the automatically generated stuff. IOOI 00:12, 19 February 2010 (CET)

• searchable archive of all publications (this represents the App-Store aspect of SWI)
• items can be tagged/labeled by categories as "Developer Tool", "Application", "Framework" etc.
• links to older (and newer) versions of the same application are available
• each News entry contains a lot of information e.g.
  • App-Name
  • version number
  • author
  • licence
  • short description
  • long description (html)
  • links to source code, home page, binaries etc.
    • tries to check if link works (by sending a http HEAD request)
  • screenshots can be uploaded
  • comments can be added by users
  • ...
  • not yet but should be added:
    • dependencies
    • build instructions (for automatic install)
    • (hidden) e-mail address of author to allow bidirectional communication (e.g. if link is no longer working)
• a RSS feed of the latest news is available
• the feed can be fetched as a Property List so that it can be analysed by an Installer tool to find new versions of installed software and to find dependencies
• user registration
• collaborative approach: anyone can post change-requests to existing or new entries; moderators can approve/reject them (to protect against spamming)
• subscription and e-mail notification to individual updates
• statistics