Feature roadmap

  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.

Overview

This page lists all well defined feature requests for XO. Some of these feature will make forthcoming releases and some will not.

The features will be flagged for a release and listed on the corresponding release page as they get prioritized, scoped and filled in. This page is meant to be abstracted from releases and it should therefore include a superset of priorities for any given release.

This page goes hand-in-hand with the Feature requests page, as follows:

1. Feature requests

Features, requirements and requests by country. This page contains verbatim requests from technical leads or translated and reviewed rewrites of initial feedback. Only items specifically requested by a qualified technical lead, administrator, teacher or student in the country should go in this section. See also: Deployments

2. Feature roadmap

Feature suggestions by technical strategy. Each item on this page should include reference to the;Requester: (e.g. country or engineer or URLs to relevant discussions and sites). It should also include a reference to which element of the strategy it fits in to (if available).

The next release is 9.1.0 planned for posting in March, 2009. Weekly meetings for 9.1.0 planning are held on Wed. at 2PM US ET on IRC - freednode.net #olpc-meeting channel

Suggestions for providing input

1. Please sign in to the wiki when updating this page and its subpages so we know who made the edits.
2. Raw, unfiltered feedback from countries and deployments should go on the Feature requests page.
3. Feel free to add to this page following the guidelines described above. You can add a subsection to #General comments below, or add to this page's discussion page.
4. To comment on a particular feature, click the feature's title to go to its subpage, then comment on its discussion page.
5. Before editing the subpage for a particular feature, , discuss your edits with the original poster /owner beforehand.
6. You must use the template correctly when requesting features or enhancements, otherwise your feature won't show up. Follow #Adding to the roadmap carefully
7. Use <trac> when referencing tickets/bugs.
8. Additional suggestions for providing input are welcome.
9. Create a new section (At the == header 2 == level) for your country or request if none present are adequate.
10. Make sure all ideas have a very solid basis for being valuable to customers. Including links to blogs, reports or other data that proves users really need your feature will make a big difference.

Roadmap

This section lists major features to be added to XO software over time.

All features

Click on the arrows in any heading to re-sort by that heading. {{#ask: Short name::+

 |?Is part of=Area
 |?=Feature
 |?Requested by=Requested by
 |?Helps deployability#yes,-=Helps deploy
 |?Target for 9.1#yes,no
 |?Contact person=Owner(s)
 |?Priority
 |sort=Is part of
 |mainlabel=-
 |limit=200
 |default=Nothing found in Category:Software features with Property:Short name?!

}}

Other queries

Feature roadmap/Page of all features that target 9.1.0 embeds all the pages with Target for 9.1 set to "yes".

See Features-test for other queries, you can add your own to it or copy them to other pages.

Adding to the roadmap

When adding a new feature please follow these guidelines.

1. Make sure the feature doesn't already exist
2. Read the Usage section of Template:Feature tracking for help filling out the template on the new page
3. Pick a "Feature subcategory" from Category:Software features
4. Find the requester(s)' wiki pages and the feature owner's User: wiki page
5. Change Good feature name to your new subpage title, following the OLPC:Style guide for page names
6. Ready? Click the button below to create a new wiki subpage with the right title convention that's prefilled from Template:Feature tracking/Preload, edit it to suit, then save. After a delay (due to wiki query and page caching), your new subpage will appear in lists of features.

<inputbox> type=create preload=Template:Feature tracking/Preload buttonlabel=Create a new Feature roadmap subpage. default=Feature roadmap/Good feature name width=40 bgcolor=#f0f0ff </inputbox>

A description of each field is listed here:

Name

A brief, one-line summary of the feature, used as the title on the page

Requesters

Deployments, engineers, or both who support the request

Requirements

User level requirement definition; Links to detailed wiki pages, mailing list threads, or other resources are welcome

Specification

Design and technical implementation ideas; Links to detailed wiki pages, mailing list threads, or other resources are welcome

Owners

Names of developers and/or champions of the request who will ensure that progress is made

Priority

1-5 (1 = Critical, 2 = High, 3 = Medium, 4 = Low, 5 = not needed)

Helps deployability

yes or no Better deployability is the goal of 9.1.0. Set to "yes" if the feature helps that goal, regardless of its "target 9.1.0" status.

Target for 9.1

yes or no "yes" means that an OLPC engineer is (or will be) assigned to work on this for 9.1.0 release.

See also: general suggestions for providing input.

Adding a category

Only do this with careful forethought and a confirmation on the wiki gang list http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/wiki-gang/>

1. Mention the new category name in the template:

 |Feature subcategory=Easter eggs

2. Be sure to create the subcategory: edit the category's page (Category:Easter eggs) and add [[Category:Software features]] to it.

If you forget #2, some queries will omit the page and people may have a hard time finding your new feature subcategory.

Documentation on semantic templates

Enables a dynamic Feature roadmap — see Semantic MediaWiki#For software features.

When you fill in Template:Feature tracking on one of the feature roadmap sub-pages, the template both displays the feature's information in a basic table (using {{Definition table}}) and makes semantic annotations for many of the template fields — assigning values to properties such as Property:Requested by. That allows this page and others (such as Features-test) to query for and display these properties.