Specifications
A short key
[[wiki pages]] and their style guidelines are largely community-driven. {notes in curlies} indicate important items whose definitions may change. * bulleted items are "in progress". intro paragraphs to a more detailed article are included inline for illustration
Specs in brief
Each item below needs its own page and detailed discussion. A good bit of development and planning has been done without specifications, and in pursuit of a narrow if admirable set of goals without detailed or spanning use cases.
Content, linking, publishing
Link once, find everywhere : It should be possible to link out to further information without knowing how far away the information is on the network. URLs have to do with location; even URIs have overtones of being a specific resource and not a specific concept. If I want to link out to more information about monkeys, I should be able to denote that without specifying the exact resource I want to use -- the reader will have only a limited set of resources available.
As an example: I might include the link info:monkeys and wish to specify that I want the "info" namespace to look first for a local dictionary service; then for content bundles named "info", "dictionary", "wiki", "wikipedia"; then for a "monkeys" page on a local school server, a regional server, or a set of websites (each with their own mapping of a keyword to a URL). These mappings could be provided in a global database, a most-used subset of which is on every XO; with optional overrides and changes in priority contained within a content bundle. Finally, there should be options for what to do when multiple namespaces exist -- the link to 'monkeys' might indicate on hover how many options there are beyond the obvious; a global preference might cause following a multiple-result hyperlinks to display a list of search results rather than immediately taking you to the top ranked result.
Contribution process : Guidelines and explicit forms for contributing files, bundles, or collections to be automatically-bundled to the [[global library]] and to one's local network; the former through interfaces on the Internet, the latter through the local library interface.
- one global process; national addenda*
New language requests : Guidelines for making a new language request -- wiki, pootle, core library, mailing list, keyboard, IRC channel.
Knowledge flow : How ideas and knowledge and information should flow through an XO community and network. See Memebrand.
Community
Local group creation: A process for identifying and announcing an [[OLPC user group]], including definition on a project page, identifying members, applying for an email account and sending mail to the grassroots list.
- includes guidelines for interacting with local government, media, event organizers, NGOs, LUGs, and the like.
Official community hubs: Guidelines for becoming an officially-recognized OLPC community hub, with public details about projects and members, eligible for local receipt and distribution of community XOs. This ties into local aggregation of laptop distribution.
Laptop distribution: Guidelines for submitting a project, use case, or other request for short or long-term use of community XOs to develop, test, promote, research, educate or inspire on or with the laptops; guided by a list of XO request guidelines that encourages community debate, prioritization, and sharing of new projects. A process for regular selection of projects and groups to receive laptops.