Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software/Archive 1

Scope
The scope seems a little limited. Software is more than just a few programs. We can have algorithms, programming languages, operating systems. Can we use a WikiProject template to get this off the ground? - Ta bu shi da yu 07:42, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Naming conventions?
It's normally the role of WikiProjects to define naming conventions, I recently posed a question at Talk:Mac OS X, which has yet to be resolved. It has to do with the creation of valuable disambiguation names for technologies that use common terms. Can anyone else involved with WikiProject Software weigh in on that? If we could set some precedent for WikiProject policy with this too, that would be great. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 04:04, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive
Sysop and Multimedia have been nominated to be improved by This week's improvement drive. Vote for these articles to support them.--Fenice 09:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Past, present, future ...
One difficulty that I've seen crop up on a number of software-related articles (most notably Internet Explorer) has to do with how Wikipedia should cover the histories of pieces of software -- or particularly the features and bugs of various releases over the course of a program's history.

Typically, people who are closely associated with a piece of software -- the developer, enthusiasts, or professionals whose career depends on the software -- are keen to have articles reflect the latest version of that software. Usually, the latest version has the most features and the fewest known bugs, so this makes for a more positive portrayal. And naturally, it's worthwhile to have a particular focus on the latest version, since that is the one which people are most likely to find in the marketplace.

However, the past releases of a piece of software are also of great importance to an encyclopedic treatment. There are many things that need to be said about software history which don't apply to the current release. For instance, the current version of Sendmail isn't vulnerable to the Internet Worm, but the version at that point in time was, and clearly the Worm is an important element of the "story of Sendmail".

Old releases are even more important when (as with Internet Explorer) there are still large installed bases of the old release. Whenever an article tries to depict what a piece of software is like "in the present", it needs to take into account not only the very latest release being pushed by the manufacturer, but also all the old versions that are still in use even though the manufacturer wishes they weren't.

This can create substantial tension between editors who are advocates of a product, and editors who aren't, or who are advocates of a competing product. It's happened, for instance, that an editor with a negative view of Microsoft modifies the "Internet Explorer" article to present more of IE's past security problems ... and then an editor with a positive view of Microsoft disapproves, considering the edit to be biased (or "POV") because it brings up "ancient history".

There's also an issue -- particularly with regards to open source software -- about depicting the "release version" (or "stable") vs. a "development version" (or "beta"). There are a lot of open-source products, and some proprietary products, where the development version is widespread well before the release. (MySQL, Debian, and Windows AntiSpyware come to mind.)

Again, there can be tension between advocates and others. Advocates wish to include description of features in the latest development release. Others may see this as *jumping in front* or even as vaporware hype, since there's frequently no guarantee of when those features will go into the stable or released version. (Consider the number of features that were in development versions of Windows Longhorn that didn't make it into Windows Vista.)

In one sense, a "beta" is an acknowledged incomplete product, one that's still being constructed, and so it should only be reported on in the same sense that we'd report on a building that isn't built yet. But in another sense, particular betas (like Windows AntiSpyware) can be greatly influential in their fields and useful to users. Betas are software that certainly exists in the present (people use them) but which exist with an eye towards the future (they aren't "released" yet, whatever that means).

So I'm curious to know what other editors think of this. What kind of guidelines (if any) should we have in writing about the "past, present, and future" of software products? --FOo 20:51, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Languages
I added a parameter few months ago to the Infobox Software in order to show in which language(s) a software is available. But unfortunately, I think for the moment it is not very used (maybe only those I added on some articles like Firefox for example). So please help to add this very important information (you know sometimes the more frustating is not really the fact that a specific software is only available in English but the fact it is practically never officially said it is only available in English). 16@r 18:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources for software and software comparison articles?
With regard to Wikipedia's reliable sources policy, what are the most reliable and appropriate sources (if any), for referencing the features, capabilities, resource "requirements", and performance of pieces of software?

A product or project's own website is, I believe, slightly more reliable as a source for basic information on features than a magazine review, even though it is obviously non-neutral. Magazine reviews may be out of date, and they typically do not list all the features of a product, leaving that to the product's own website.

As for more nebulous and controversial information like resource requirements (Microsoft has been accused many times of understating the RAM requirements for its operating systems) or worse still, performance (see for example Comparison of virtual machines where there are some highly tendentious, unsourced performance claims), I think these are just too subjective and potentially complicated as criteria and should be deleted, unless some reliable source can be found (which usually it won't be).

Opinions?—greenrd 12:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Open source Software
This project has such a big potential. I can contribute to many open source pages on Wikipedia Antonw1 23:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC) 23:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Two points. First, there is a WikiProject Free Software which you might want to join. Second, remember, in theory, all Wikipedia articles should be about notable topics (this is not really the case in terms of software, but it should be). So please do not add, for example, your own little utility project which you have just released 5 minutes ago!—greenrd 08:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Infoxbox
Why not use List_of_infoboxes/Technology ? M2Ys4U 03:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the infobox here seems to contain a whole lot of markup for formatting, etc. Perhaps a more stripped down box that would allow participants to focus on categorizing the softwareCander0000 18:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Opinions needed for smaller software companies
There is a very slow edit war going on at Segger Microcontroller Systems. The article was deleted once, but reappeared within a month. An anonymous editor removed the   and    tags. Discussion has been very slow, so additional opinions about the notability of this article would be welcome. —EncMstr 16:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)