Ward Tools Now Open Source

The owner of the excellent app Ward Tools has just announced that it is now open source. Now I do not understand exactly what that means, but I think it means that anyone with the right tech credentials can tinker with it to make it even better. And that is good news for those of us who use it.

Nice. Open source just means that anyone can see the source code.

faazshift wrote:Nice. Open source just means that anyone can see the source code.

Open Source means much more than just letting everyone view the code. It's a process whereby the source code is made available to others to contribute their ideas and technological savey into the improvement of the project.

Now we need to get the Church onto Linux (I suggest Suse, as Novell is only an hour's drive from the Vertical Vatican). This would save quite a bit of money, not only in the move to a FREE operating systems, but also being able to use legacy computer equipment instead of being forced into a constant upgrade cycle.

Migrating to Linux would mean a free OS, free Office application (OpenOffice), greater security built in, and a user interface which is pretty much the same as Windows (KDE).

The next version of Suse (11.3) will be released in three weeks. Maybe someone ought to set up a test bed to try it -- though we'll need a custom version of the Windows emulator program, unless we want to explain why every Ward Clerk's computer desktop has an icon marked "WINE" . . !

Onti wrote:Migrating to Linux would mean a free OS, free Office application (OpenOffice), greater security built in, and a user interface which is pretty much the same as Windows (KDE).

Before we get into yet another discussion of the challenges of ward and stake administrative computers using an OS other than Windows (which isn't particularly germane to this thread anyway), simply read this post and we can be done. Thank you.

Techgy wrote:Open Source means much more than just letting everyone view the code. It's a process whereby the source code is made available to others to contribute their ideas and technological savey into the improvement of the project.

I'm hoping to get every aspect of this project run in the open. There are already some great people helping out with support on the google group here:

http://groups.google.com/group/wardtools

I'm working to get the entire project (web site and all) moved over to the google project located here:

http://code.google.com/p/wardtools/

This will allow people to enter issues directly, track them, help out with documentation, and be as involved with the project as they would like. So as Techgy said, it's much more than just letting people view the code.

Alan_Brown wrote:Before we get into yet another discussion of the challenges of ward and stake administrative computers using an OS other than Windows (which isn't particularly germane to this thread anyway), simply read this post and we can be done. Thank you.

I guess I'm in the wrong place, I thought I was where people discussed ways to improve the technology bed upon which the Church operates, not one in which the thinking had already been done for us.

Apparently I don't belong here, so please spike my membership. No harm, no foul.

Back to Ward Tools ...

After some offline correspondence with calvinrg, its founding developer, and spending a lot of time in the application's support group, I think Ward Tools has an exciting future in its new open-source venue.

boomerbubba wrote:Back to Ward Tools ...

After some offline correspondence with calvinrg, its founding developer, and spending a lot of time in the application's support group, I think Ward Tools has an exciting future in its new open-source venue.

A Windows version of Ward Tools would be great too. We are using Net-books PC's at church now with Windows Home XP. It would be nice if Ward Tools was available for the PC environment too.

elderlarryhawkes wrote:A Windows version of Ward Tools would be great too. We are using Net-books PC's at church now with Windows Home XP. It would be nice if Ward Tools was available for the PC environment too.

I agree. That is one reason I am promoting LDSqlas a common back end for the next generation of Ward Tools and any other third-party apps. The SQLite engine is portable across Windows, Mac and Linux computers, plus smartphones including iPhone, Android, Palm Pre and the newest Blackberry models.

Someone needs to write a front end app for each platform, but that is easier because much of the logic is built into the LDSql back end. Such apps might be implementations of "Ward Tools" or they might be something else altogether. Even without programming, power users can import the LDSql output into spreadsheets and general-purpose database tools.

Of course, unrelated and well done programs such as MLS Companion already exist.

It's all the Lord's work.