Status20070315

Status

Team and project organization

We are already a well sized team of 14+2 members, with varied skills (developers, packagers, web admins and most of all graphic designers).

We have the necessary structures for:

  • developers: launchpad team and specifications, along with the Ubuntu wiki and the present mailing list,
  • users: http://ubuntumediacenter.org, include a basic presentation and some resources / references (english, french).

We should also soon gain mainstream by being accepted as an official Ubuntu project. You might have seen the thread including Mark (sabdfl), Benj. Mako Hill (mako) and Matt Zimmerman (mdz). But we'll see that point after the Feisty release.

Note that this will allow us to have more resources, such as official mailing lists (umc-{users,devel}@lists.ubuntu.com), more people for the team...

Kudos goes to Benjamin Guillet, Cédric Dufouil and SamheG for the web side (story ;). and the list.

Projects, Specifications and implementation

Note: For those who are not used to launchpad (lp), the team specifications are linked to the "Features" on the team lp page. Then, you can access the spec content (wiki) by clicking on "Read More" from the spec lp page. If you want to comment on a spec, either mail here, or add a comment at the end of the wiki page.

Please, read these specs carefully: though note complete, these already contain the basement of the project, and many more details.

There are 2 main specs:

Both are on the tracks, but still need comments and completion.

Next come the other specs, included in the above (mini) or needed by them (remotes). Most of these are directly referenced in the team wiki page.

  • Media Center State of the art

This document is a list of all the media center software, with their features, pros and cons. This will help us in many ways and is an open task.

  • Remote Controls Support

It deals with various improvements to get a better remote controls support. Implementation has already started and is well progressing (kudos to Loic Dardant)

  • UMC Codecs Support (mini spec)

This is a list of the commonly used Audio / Video codecs available in various Media Centers, along with an indication of support in UMC and its kind (free, proprietary, commercial). This is an open, and really important task.

  • UI sketching

This one presents how the User Interface is architectured, ie what is the menu layout, content and navigation mode / effects. There are some interesting ideas, but more are welcome.

  • Artwork

There is some work underway on this point, but slowly since we have only 1 active graphic designer (kudos to Jonathan Delrot). We currently have some logo and icon ideas. But we need to complete /optimize the current Oxygen color palette for the green, and to define some general guidance. This spec desperately needs love. And Jonathan also needs help for the palette definition. This can be considered as open, and is also an important task.

Side projects

Outside communication

The website need to be completed and filled with some news to show the project progression. Activity helps a lot in getting more contributors.

Volunteers?

Common directory naming

Sebastien presented the idea of a common directory naming, for storing Music, Movies or Pictures. This would be useful for both the Software and the Distribution.

He has started a specification on FreeDesktop.org to track this: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards_2fcommon_2duser_2ddirectories_2dnaming_2dspec

Well done Seb Wink ;)

Roadmap

The roadmap is simple: for the moment we need:

  • to complete the color palette,
  • to choose a logo
  • to complete quickly the following specs: State of the Art and Codecs
  • to discuss (with lot more time) on the following specs: UI Sketching, Artwork

In the meantime, we will continue in background the Remotes Support, Software and Distribution specs, along with the various external work underway.

A last note on open tasks: if you are interested in taking over one of these, contact me back for more details.

The success of this project relies upon your shoulder, guys Wink ;)

UbuntuMediaCenterTeam/Status20070315 (last edited 2008-08-06 17:01:36 by localhost)