h1. Welcome

Welcome to the Open Design Engine (ODE) project Wiki.  This wiki contains documentation covering development, installation, and use (on your own server or at http://opendesignengine.net) of the Open Design Engine software.  If you are interested in starting a hosted project, click "here":http://opendesignengine.net/projects/new.  ODE started as a proposed joint project between "Mach 30":http://www.mach30.org and "CSTART":http://cstart.org.  We hope it will grow to serve a wider audience and be used to host "Open Source Hardware":http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/oshw-definition-v1-0/ (and "Software":http://opensource.org/) projects of all kinds.

h1. Guiding Values

The following values are intended to shape the development of ODE. Ideally decisions will represent a balancing of multiple values. Note, these values were derived by reflecting on the views (or positions) presented during the early discussions about ODE at "Mach 30":http://www.mach30.org and "CSTART":http://cstart.org. See the "Mach 30 consensus process":http://www.mach30.org/pub/about-us/public-records/bylaws/appendix-a-mach-30-consensus-policy for more info on values and positions. Note, these values are listed in no particular order, the numbering is simply for easy reference. 

# *We need something that works better than what we have now* - CSTART has the wiki+forums+polls+version control system?, Mach 30 has its forums+phone bridge
# *Getting something sooner would be better than later* - there is a sense that current projects will gain momentum from having the right tool for engineering management, which would be a "very good thing"
# *It would be better if we can share the work and the rewards of developing this system* - this includes both between CSTART and Mach 30 and with the larger open design/hardware community
# *Release early, release often* - this has been the mantra of other successful open source projects, and is in support of having something "sooner rather than later"
# *The defining feature(s) include the ability to manage engineering decisions* - we need to focus on those features that hardware projects need that platforms for open source software development do not provide
# *The language used for the software must be one that is familiar to developers in our communities* - you can't write in a language you don't know
# *The choice of programming language (and other elements of the software stack) impacts the ability of users to self-host, and all other things being equal, the barrier to self-hosting should be as low as possible* - this value strongly supports choosing tools that are widely available if at all possible (such as the LAMP stack)
# *Proposed but not discussed - Site security and information assurance should be a high priority* - organizations in the US will need their hosted versions of the tool to be secure enough to meet ITAR and other export control restrictions 

See the [[Sidebar|links]] on the right hand side for more details on project development, installation, and use.