Overview

The help would be accessed using an IM client(gaim or one designed especially for this purpouse) that supports the xmpp (jabber) protocol. On the server end, a bot would be handling the messages. The bot would ask some simple questions and based on the users responses provide answers to the most common problems. If the bot isn't capable of helping the user, the question could get forwarded to real people.

User end

The user would use either the IM client provided in Ubuntu, or a simplified version. To the user this would feel very close to chatting.

The bot

The bot would be written in python using the xmpppy library. Upon startup it would read a VoiceXML file containing a scheme for the conversations. The bot would traverse the conversation based on the answers given by the user. It would store the user's name and the current node in a dictionary. The bot's understanding of the natural language would at least at first be limited to regexp searches for keywords. At the very start it would look for keywords like printing, bluetooth, kernel, wlan, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, e-mail, video. When one of these keywords is found it would start going through that thread. The Natural Language capabilities would naturally slowly be improved, as we discover how a regular conversation would go.

Why VoiceXML

Some language to describe the conversations is needed. Chatting is the closest textbased thing to voice communication. VoiceXML was designed for describing human-computer conversations.

Contacting real people

If a bot is unsuccessful in finding an answer for the user in its scripts, the bot could redirect the user in to a Multi-User-Chatroom. Here the user could talk to real people, probably a groop of other ubuntu users. Since xmpp supports gateways the experts could be on irc, while the person asking the question would see it as a "regular" chatroom.

Advanced stuff

• Could be used as a bugbuddy.
• If a custom client is created, a screenshot utilty could be integrated. Transfering the file automagically to the bot using xmpp would make the progress of explaining the problem/bug to another person easier.
• Since the dialog-script for the bot is in VoiceXML, the scripts could be reused (probably with some modifications) in a VoIP version later on.
• The bot could post questions in to the ubuntu forums, and then forward the replys to the user's im client.
• Help by professionals in real time could be a service canonical could charge for.

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