Magellan/Roadmap

Roadmap

About This Document

This document outlines the roadmap for the Magellan project. This roadmap is a rough guide to the phases of development that are in consideration for this project. Each phase contains references to key features that are scheduled for delivery in that phase. This document also contains a list of key features that are under consideration or in planning for Magellan and in which phase they will be delivered (if any).

Why No Delivery Dates?

Magellan is an open project that is promoted by Novell. It is "open" because it will require the creation of new software components, most, if not all, of which will be open source components. It is also "open" because it will consist of the assembly and leverage of other open source projects, like Eclipse and Novell Forge, which projects have deliverables and priorities outside of the influence of Magellan. Since we don't know how many external developers will be contributing, we don't yet know the extent of the additional components that will comprise the solution, and don't know the their schedules of the other projects that comprise the solution, we aren't ready yet to make any statements as to when phases will be delivered.

Magellan Roadmap

Note: This roadmap is meant as a guide only and is subject to change at any time.

High-Level Features

DevCenter

Configuration Management

Simplify the process for a developer of setting up Eclipse to do application development. Provide tools within Eclipse that make it easier for a developer to select feature sets that support their development needs (rather than having to select plugins individually) and also to manage the installation and updating of these plugins. Support multiuser environments as well as workstation environments, and RPM installations as well as from-the-web downloads.

Search

Provides search capabilities from within the IDE to developer resources that have been provisioned for this tool. Open source code, sample applications, sample code, API and SDK documentation, tutorials, etc. Provide indexing and categorization as appropriate.

Notification Window

Provide a window where the developer can be notified of events that may be important - source code commits, build success/failure, questions or answers on forums, etc. Integrate with other features as appropriate. Developer can make adjustments as to notifications that they care about.

Environment Controller

Integrate with DevCenter and other resources to control an application development environment. Assist with download, installation, and configuration of developer packages and libraries.

Persistent Configuration

Create an IDE configuration store that would remember preferences, installed plugins and their locations, etc. Allows someone to easily convert a new IDE installation into the exact same configuration that they had before.

Open Application Development Tools

Managed Application Environments

Create resources to help developers construct a basic clean environment intended for the execution of their application. This allows for testing in a basic environment to minimize the number of factors that could cause execution problems. Provide tools that help create these environments in a virtualized space that includes a specific OS (one that may be different than the one running on the current platform) plus specific add-on components (i.e. LAMP) that creates a basic environment that facilitates testing and validation.

Build Manager

Provide connections to build servers that will produce targeted builds, for different architectures and for different operating systems (different distributions of Linux plus potentially other operating systems).

Distribution Manager

Tie into public distribution mechanisms (YOU and/or Red Carpet/ZLM) or file upload/download locations to distribute updates of software to appropriate contingents. Simplify the process of making packages availble in these distribution mechanisms.

Bug Manager

Integrate with an online issue tracking service to allow developers to properly track and work on bugs and other assigned issues from within the IDE.

Project Manager

Integrate with an online project management application to allow developers to properly track and work on features and tasks from within the IDE.

Collaboration Manager

Integrate with wiki, mailing lists, and forums to allow developers to easily post questions, find answers, and update wiki documentation. Will likely be tightly coupled with DevCenter.

Virtual Pair Programming

Implement a mechanism to allow more than one developer to work on the same file in a pair-programming fasion when they are in different locations. The idea is that one would invite the other to pair program; one would see a read-only view of what the other developer is working on; the editing developer could turn control over to the other at any time; the two interact through messages; etc.

Integrated Open Source Tools

Provide better integration with open source tools for varying types of application development (tbd). Simplify the use of these tools for developers that are not familiar with them. For example: automate the creation of the files in a GNU Autotools project and automatically maintain the makefile and run the toolchain; provide a wizard to help a developer create the appropriate RPM spec file for a project.

Porting Tools

Provide specialized tools to assist with porting applications to Linux - code scanners, library conversion tools, etc.