Omnimaga

General Discussion => Technology and Development => Computer Projects and Ideas => Topic started by: pimathbrainiac on March 30, 2014, 06:22:30 pm

Title: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: pimathbrainiac on March 30, 2014, 06:22:30 pm
I just had the best idea ever, and I need some help to get it off the ground.

The idea is called "Open Book Ware." To put it in short: Github for authors. It will work like Github in that a project will start, people will contribute with branches, the project starter(s) will merge branches, etc.

Ideally, the best complete books/stories will go off to publishing and the money from those books will go to charity/charities of the author's/authors' choosing (This would be way off in the future).

That said: I need help. If some of you would like to help with the website front-end, server/database back-end, etc., that would be very helpful. In addition, I'm going to try to make a git-like client for Open Book Ware.

So whaddaya say? Willing to give me help? PM me or email me at
Spoiler For Spoiler:

Let's do this! :D
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Juju on March 30, 2014, 09:25:17 pm
That might actually be a good idea.
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: pimathbrainiac on March 30, 2014, 09:35:44 pm
Do you think you can help with any of the programming/web design?

This is also a call for help post, you know :D
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Juju on March 30, 2014, 10:06:02 pm
Probably. I'll see what I can do.
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Streetwalrus on March 31, 2014, 01:49:13 am
Can't really help reliably bit it sounds like a good idea. ;)
You shouldn't put your email in clear mike that though (spam ::)).
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Sorunome on March 31, 2014, 07:52:43 am
Sounds like a sweat idea! Too bad I can't help as i'm too busy currently >.<
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Streetwalrus on March 31, 2014, 12:19:44 pm
Oh by the way. Git is very versatile and I think it's not worth reinventing the wheel. A dedicated website separate from github would be a good idea though since that is for code while books are totally different.
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Sorunome on March 31, 2014, 12:21:04 pm
You could use github for anything, though :P
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: Streetwalrus on March 31, 2014, 02:09:23 pm
True but Github is very programming oriented. Also Pimath's ideas require that a new site be made since it's probably not in Github's goals. ;)
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: pimathbrainiac on March 31, 2014, 03:50:20 pm
Can't really help reliably bit it sounds like a good idea. ;)
You shouldn't put your email in clear mike that though (spam ::)).

You can still contribute :P
Edited to be put in a spoiler code thingymabob.

Sounds like a sweat idea! Too bad I can't help as i'm too busy currently >.<

Darn it, I was hoping you'd help me with the website and with the sql/server stuffs! :P

Oh by the way. Git is very versatile and I think it's not worth reinventing the wheel. A dedicated website separate from github would be a good idea though since that is for code while books are totally different.

Fair enough, but git is also very programmer-oriented and most authors are not as such. I want this to appeal and be easy to use for everyone :D
I wish to make both a dedicated web and computer interfaces. I'll need some help with GUI frontend stuff for the computer interface (yes, in Java).

You could use github for anything, though :P

This:

True but Github is very programming oriented. Also Pimath's ideas require that a new site be made since it's probably not in Github's goals. ;)

Very true. Thanks for the help and feedback so far!
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: blue_bear_94 on April 03, 2014, 11:12:41 pm
Why not use GitHub?
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: pimathbrainiac on April 03, 2014, 11:20:31 pm
Because GitHub is programmer-oriented. This is about reaching to a broader audience. Also reasons previously mentioned in the topic.
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: ruler501 on April 04, 2014, 01:01:17 am
I'd say you should still use git as the backend and just write some nice front end interfaces for it.
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: blue_bear_94 on April 04, 2014, 02:34:59 am
There's a Github GUI for Windows and OSX.
Title: Re: Open Book Ware: Collaborative Books - Open-Source Style!
Post by: ruler501 on April 04, 2014, 10:27:14 am
There's a Github GUI for Windows and OSX.
There is also a nice git GUI. That's what I would start with. That focuses more on code though and I'm not sure how well it would do with writing. Honestly I think we'd need someone who has done a good amount of collaborative writing to come tell us what would be wanted from a program like that.