On Saturday morning we heard a presentation of the OFN Delivery Circle and the Data Food Consortium so we could all understand what’s going on behind the software. Here’s a summary of what was covered - please add or edit as needed!
OFN Delivery circle
- Responsibility to ensure software is maintained and enhanced
- 4 full-time equivalent work – more people involved but none full time on this.
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- 5 Developers
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- Testing team (primarily Filipe)
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- manual test of weekly release
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- keeping up with automated test suite – quite particular to OFN
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- Product and Design
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- Experience design – focus on user flow
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- Interface design – focused on style – not the priority right now.
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- Server deployment offered as a service to some instances. High level of automation.
- Pipeline
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- Wishlist all on github now
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- New features – e.g. invoices and reports at the top of the list now
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- Papercuts are quick wins that can be done while the bigger features are being developed
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- Bugs – prioritization system
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- S1/S2 – important functions, no workarounds – go to the top of the priority list
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- S3 – not an emergency, but would be really good to fix it
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- Quality control - all work gets reviewed by two developers
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- Good way for new devs to learn the platform
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- Production cycles last a few months
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- Distinction between core and basic instances emerging. Core instances contribute more, and maybe gain more control over what papercuts and S3s are prioritized - to be specified
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- Need to talk about system for gathering feedback on papercuts, feature requests, collaborating to fund development of specific features
- Very integrated system at the moment. One aspiration is to break it down into separate elements, and think about separate elements as separate products.
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- E.g. Could build OFN element for store management
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- API could be a product in itself. API not officially supported yet, but will soon be – first for reports. Will enhance interoperability with logistics platforms, accounting software, etc.
This discussion has been a helpful complement to the Software Improvement Process section of the OFN Handbook. If there are things to be added / clarified perhaps we can compile suggestions here
Data Food Consortium
- Originally incubated by OFN, but now independent, trying to be impartial between software platforms
- Bigger picture on interoperability:
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- Competition between different platforms and food enterprises – inefficient, problematic from a sustainability perspective.
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- We could be supporting more collaboration between different platforms and food enterprises, create an ecosystem rather than a monolith
- Different data formats are a big block to interoperability
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- Each tool can have its own format, but should provide a translation into the common language
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- Not open data, just common, standard format
- Municipalities, local governments, etc. are focused on territories, tending to choose to support a particular platform – creating monopolies with associated problematic implications
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- DFC is about creating standardization to allow more freedom in choosing platforms/configurations of different platforms
- Implications for OFN:
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- Could allow for selling across different instances
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- Could allow for integrating delivery networks to enhance efficiency
- We have funding, but the problem is finding the people to work on this
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- Food Assembly was involved but had to drop out due to financial difficulties
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- CSA networks involved or interested
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- Accounting platforms interested