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In relation to the original point... I think cooperation on a project like this is great. It sounds like you have a group of people already helping with nGhost. The difficulty is convincing people who already have significant code already developed (SW2, etc) to stop developing what they are working on, and focus on a new project that probably doesn't do exactly what they want, or exactly how they would like it to work.
In my case, my front end app is dominated by custom software used to control several vehicle functions via Phidgets. For example... the tire pressure is adjusted by the computer... the shock dampening is adjusted, the rear steering angle is adjusted, various vehicle temps are monitored, wheel slip is monitored... etc etc. I also have Mplayer for video/audio.. and a gps receiver that shows elevation/heading/speed.
Trying to get all that functionality into someone else's app would probably be an equal amount of work as me writing it myself.
Alot of people are making suggestions about that distro or how the frontend should be written (which is good).. but I think some goals should be laid out.
First... It should be compatible with different hardware platforms.
Second... it should be easily expanded
Third... it should be easily maintained/updated.
Now I'll throw in my 2 cents about a direction this might take. The frontend should be distro agnostic. At the end of the day, all I should need is a dependancy list.... because in 2 years from now there is going to be a new video card... new chipset... new network card.. etc. And if the custom distro thats developed specifically for the front end doesn't work... you will loose users.
I also think it should run on X.. because there are so many other graphical apps that run on X which could be integrated with the frontend.. and why bother writing a graphics library when so many already exist?
2 years from now.. when someone wants to add something to the app.. and they have been writing graphical apps for linux already... they are probably going to be able to do that faster if its written in GTK or QT.
I think people are primarily using windows in their carpc because 1) There are some good frontends.. and 2) It works with their hardware.
Sorry... long winded this morning.
-Chris
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