Open Source software development for witnesses?

[Brandon]

A brother and I were chatting about how many brothers and sisters today have learned basic programming skills, and ten times as many witnesses use software daily (for example, this very moment you are using Invision Community software which is powering JWTalk.net, which is serving up this content to you to read!)

 

Given these two trends, which appear to be only accelerating rather than going away any time soon, we've been wondering if any other witnesses either on this forum or whom any forum members might know from other online communities, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) or in real life, who may want to collaborate in large numbers to develop software that can assist or even solve common challenges that witnesses might be confronted with, especially in their use of technology today.

 

For example, when I was regular pioneering I tested multiple service apps, and even collaborated with the developers (brothers) who had published these apps, in order to adapt them to the specific needs of pioneers (who juggle large numbers of RV's, studies, and things such as hour counting both in the ministry and in other special forms of service).

 

As is often the case, the needs of the users sometimes fall out of line a bit with what the coders think users need (or design interfaces with a specific purpose in mind, when the users tend to use their software tool in a way not originally foreseen, but immensely desirably).

 

I have searched around a bit and have found a few 'JW apps' which appear to already have adopted the open source model, according to this search on OpenHub.net.  I may also reach out to the developers of apps I have used in the past to gauge any interest (programmers tend to be less... shall we say social, and are not necessarily the type of person to be browsing a large social media / forum site such as this one.  So please consider sharing this thread with witnesses who may be interested in this idea who are outside of the forum, especially!)

 

If any of our forum members here know of any witnesses who are interested in this idea of open-source collaboration but are not inclined to join our forum, please PM me!  I will be happy to provide my email or other contact information for you to forward to these ones in order to get the ball rolling.

 

-- Brandon

 

P.S. feel free to copy the text of this post and email or send it out to any brothers or sisters you want to. Even with half the human population now online, the internet is still a pretty fractured place with regards communication, but we're trying to get the word out to as many witnesses as we can with these ideas!

[Ahuvah]

I suspect the brothers are already ahead of the game ... in fact we know they are, but not how much they are. Good thoughts though. Interesting post.

[Brandon]

On 3/9/2018 at 6:45 PM, Stormswift said:

the brothers are already ahead of the game

I'm not really sure what that means?

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Have you had much response?

I'd like to test beta software...

Older
{still waiting for the 'Wiser'}

[Brandon]

On 5/14/2018 at 7:30 PM, TonyWenz said:

Have you had much response?

I'd like to test beta software...

Older
{still waiting for the 'Wiser'}
 

 

I'm been gauging interest among witnesses with these skills and there may be an opportunity to test something we're working on. DM me.