Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest

["Quim Gil" <quimgil gmail com>]

Proposal: Desktop Search Hackfest.
Calling to: Xesam, Beagle, Tracker projects and whoever else is involved.
When: September 19 + the days the developers decide before & after.
Where: Berlin.
Why: The Board made a call to organize hackfest around events and the
Maemo Summit has answered.
Budget: Funded by Nokia within reasonable terms.

But why?

Ok, let me explain. We have some budget to sponsor participants to
https://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2008 . We want to find a balance
between Maemo community contributors, related upstream developers and
core developers of the Maemo SW team at Nokia. We think organizing a
GNOME hackfest is a win-win.

Desktop search is an interesting area. Federico explained in GUADEC
the problems of Oralia finding her stuff and there are many more
things unsolved. It is becoming a critical area, considering that
users are getting more volumes of data, more types of files and they
have them spread through several devices and the Internet.

We also find interesting to support areas that are not seen as "mobile
only". There are many, and in fact mobile companies like Nokia are
supporting the development of features and components that many people
don't even see as mobile related since they find them in their PCs and
laptops. Desktop search affects everybody, even if it's perhaps more
demanding in mobile devices (less processing power, different form
factors, probably different input methods, surely less patience from
the user on-the-go ---> higher chances to FAIL).

In the GNOME family this is a delicate topic: ask the Beagle, Tracker
or Xesam hackers why. Yet there must be a possibility to find a common
mission and specific objectives for a Hackfest. The first Desktop
Search Hackfest ever? Each project can find also the time to meet and
get some progress in their own areas. It is up to the developers to
define the goals of the hackfest.

Maemo has some developers working on Tracker and they like the idea.
It has been discussed briefly in the gnome-movile-devel list and at
least Behdad and Vincent agree (in fact this was their idea, I was
proposing a Tracker hackfest but the Desktop Search idea is cooler).
We are looking for more opinions and support for a consensus.

The time runs fast and September is around the corner.  Feedback welcome NOW!

-- 
Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com