BookSprint

WSFii 2005 Book Sprint Proposal

21st July 2005

Tomas Krag [MAILTO] t@wire.less.dk Julian Priest [MAILTO] julian@informal.org.uk

Introduction

The WSFii Book Sprint is a project to rapidly develop a book on wireless community networking in the developing world. The goal is to collect available knowledge about wireless community networking from domain experts and practitioners in the developed and developing world into an accessible professionally edited book format that can be distributed under an open content license. The Book Sprint is scheduled to take part during the World Summit of Free information Infrastructures Prepcon 1. WSFii is an intensive week of workshops between 26th September and 2nd October to be held in London which gathers a range of international freenetworkers and other free information infrastructure pragmatists.

Need

A concise, but comprehensive freely distributable and localisable book that documents all of the steps needed to build a wireless community network tailored for the special situations that arise in the developing world is needed as a key training resource. Unlike the developed world, wireless networks are usually built to provide the primary and often the first telecommunications infrastructure of any kind in an area. This means that the potential audience will almost certainly not have access to the Internet in advance of the installation, and may not have access to any ICT's such as computers or even phones. In these situation, a physical book is of primary importance as a portable reference and publicity tool. While there exist a large number of texts on community networking, most of these are copyrighted and not available for distribution freely. Similarly there There also exist a large number of texts tailored for the developed world, but these do not address issues such as access to power, regulatory hurdles, and localisation that can make or break a developing world project.

Methodology

Content

The Book Sprint uses the sprint methodology often used in software development in a book writing context. A group of domain experts, including authors of other main stream wireless texts, practitioners and implementers of wireless and community networks are gathered for 5 days of intensive content creation. The sprint focuses on content gathering and creation, with authors working in teams to develop texts with input from potential users who are also present. The close physical proximity of the authors allows for much denser interaction than could be achieved in a purely on line environment and helps to build a team that can persist after the event.

Output

The output from the sprint is collated in a collaborative on line repository based on a wiki, and can be structured into sections and edited simultaneously. The work is continuously available in a 'finished' state which may be rendered as a printable document. This may use a system currently in development by the Wireless London team called POD wiki (or print on demand wiki). This system will be continuously available during and after the book development process and will allow authors and users to continuously update, revise and amend the text as feedback is generated or technology changes. The book will be distributed electronically as a print ready PDF which will always mirror the final approved release of the title. Approved releases can be made and in this way the book output methodology mirrors that of an open source software distribution. The book can then be printed locally for distribution as needed. The content generated at the sprint will be edited rigorously by professional editors after the sprint and a set of templates for the book professionally designed. The aim is to produce a publication of similar quality to the industry standard O'reilly books. The book will be released under an open content license such as the Creative Commons License -By Attribution, Share Alike license. This allows anyone to distribute and print the book. The license will probably not prohibit commercial use of the text so that people can make money from printing and selling the text thus aiding its distribution. We aim to get clearance for this from copyright holders of any contributed works.

Multiple language support will be provided to aid translation and localisation for the text. The book will have a modular structure, allowing printers to only include sections that are relevant for the particular situation.

In Summary the approach provides:

Project Outline

July 2005

August 2005

September 2005

* Preparation of framework * Software setup and installation of on line system

26th September - 1st October

* Book Sprint at WSFii

2nd October

* Public launch at WSFii public event

October -November 2005

* Design and layout of templates * Editing * Distribution and publicity

December 2005 onwards

* Regular release cycle

Table of Contents

The current BookSprintToC, as of 10/1/05

CategoryBookSprint

last edited 2005-10-01 09:37:16 by RobFlickenger