WISP in a Box Development

From WirelessAfrica
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Developer Guide

WISP in a Box development is organized as an Open-Source or Libré software project.

In order to understand what this means and be able to work together in this way we need to agree on the definitions of the following five words:

  • Upstream - We use the term Upstream to refer to projects which our project makes use of. For example net-snmp and afrimesh are both upstream projects of the WispBox.
  • Downstream - Downstream are projects who use our code. For example, if someone were to create a linux distribution which focused on adding VOIP services to a WISP and which used WispBox as a dependency then that project would be considered to be downstream from our project.
The Libré Software Development Cycle
  • Users - We live and breathe for these special individuals as, without them, none of us would have paying jobs. Their interaction with the project is usually in the form of downloading and using our software, reporting bugs on the mailing list or bug tracker and asking for more features.
  • Contributors - Contributors are usually also users but they have both the ability and the desire to contribute code patches, documentation and generally contribute their expertise to project development discussions. Often, future developers on a project are drawn from the pool of contributers. Contributors are a necessary condition to the long-term sustainability of Libré projects. For this reason all new developers are first required to spend some time as a contributor to the project before they are "handed the keys to the house" and gain full access to the project infrastructure.
  • Developers - Developers perform the bulk of the development work and have full access to the project source repositories, servers and other infrastructure.


Project Infrastructure

IRC Apple
Bread Pie
Butter Ice cream