Encoresoup:FAQ

From Encoresoup - The Ultimate Guide to Free/Open Source Software

Contents 1 What is Encoresoup? 2 Why not just improve the pages on Wikipedia, instead of starting a new site? 3 So can any FOSS project be included on Encoresoup? 4 Why don't you have <article> on Encoresoup? 5 Why is <article> on Encoresoup? - that's not Free/Open Source! 6 I've found a FOSS project on Wikipedia that's not on Encoresoup. Can I import it?

[edit] What is Encoresoup?

• Encoresoup is intended to be a comprehensive guide to Free and Opensource software (FOSS). Currently there are several sites that offer short (one or two paragraph) descriptions of software and links to their websites, but practically none that offer comprehensive descriptions, allowing you to more easily determine whether the software fulfills your needs.
• In fact the only resource that currently covers a subset of FOSS projects in sufficient depth is Wikipedia. These articles form the starting point for Encoresoup, from which we plan (with your help) to build "The Ultimate Guide to Free/Opensource Software"

[edit] Why not just improve the pages on Wikipedia, instead of starting a new site?

Wikipedia is a great site, but it's goals don't entirely match ours. For one thing, to appear on Wikipedia a software project must be 'notable' (i.e. someone unconnected with the software must have written an article about it in a reputable publication). This is most probably one of the reasons why Wikipedia only covers a subset of existing FOSS projects.

In addition, on Wikipedia, articles must not amount to a manual for a piece of software as this is seen as beyond the scope of Wikipedia. This means articles can describe what the software does but should not explain how to use it. Here at Encoresoup we want to encourage people to add exactly this kind of information.

We also plan to include an array of additional features, useful to users and developers of Free/Open Source software, starting with a few small and easy ones and moving on to more significant features later on. Needless to say all of this would be completely outside the scope of Wikipedia.

That said, in the case of any content added to Encoresoup that is suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia, you are encouraged to consider reproducing that content there. If you didn't author the content yourself though, make sure you adhere to the GFDL requirement to attribute the authors - the easiest way to do this is to put a reference in the "edit summary" to the Encoresoup article (something along the lines of Incorporate changes from encoresoup.net/<article>), so readers can pick up the trail of contributors in the article history.

[edit] So can any FOSS project be included on Encoresoup?

• Well most can, yes. The one criteria is that projects must have released at least an initial version in source code form, or be under active development. The reason for this is to exclude from Encoresoup the many hundreds (possibly thousands) of "Vapourware" projects that pop-up in various places (for example, large project hosting sites) that consist of only a description and no actual substance.

[edit] Why don't you have <article> on Encoresoup?

Well, there are a couple of reasons :

• It might not be about Free/Open Source Software! If it isn't it's outside our scope.

For example articles about general computing subjects and articles about "free-as-in-beer" software (that's software that's merely given away without cost, which isn't the same as Free/Open Source Software) should not be included.

• It wasn't on Wikipedia at the time we last looked, or wasn't/isn't categorised as Free Software.

The requires some explanation. When the project was created it was initially seeded with Wikipedia articles. The selection criteria was "all articles in Category 'Free Software' or one of it's sub-categories".

This created a good starting point of around 1400 articles, but there are many more articles on Wikipedia that fall under our remit that haven't been picked up by this method. Unfortunately there is no easy automatic way of identifying the rest - they need to be identified manually.

[edit] Why is <article> on Encoresoup? - that's not Free/Open Source!

Unfortunately not everyone understands the difference between "free-as-in-speech" and "free-as-in-beer" software. Sometimes articles are created that fall outside our remit. Unfortunately when this happens, regardless of how much effort has gone into them, they must be deleted.

This includes articles included in automated import described in the previous question - some contributors on Wikipedia have been known to use the "Free Software" categories incorrectly, with the result that a small number of the articles imported do not describe Free/Open Source software. These also get deleted when they are identified.

[edit] I've found a FOSS project on Wikipedia that's not on Encoresoup. Can I import it?

Yes, please do! There's a bit more to it, than just copying the text across though. Please see Importing from Wikipedia

Alternatively there is a script available at GitHub (git://github.com/eclecticdave/wpexport.git). This will automate most of the process of exporting a page from Wikipedia and modifying it for Encoresoup. It will create files suitable for importing using the pywikipedia 'pagefromfile' script. Be warned - this script is currently of Alpha quality.