Jobs/Volunteer

Jobs
Currently we have no jobs available, but if you are really interested in working with us, please send a cover letter and your resume to: contact at campware dot org)

Volunteers: Good Karma Guaranteed (and Maybe Money Too)
(To signal your interest as a volunteer, write to contact at campware dot org)

Would you like to become a free-software hero and at the same time promote freedom of the press and human rights? Maybe even get paid for doing so? Become part of the Campware developer roster.

If you are an open source advocate or developer willing to help independent news media survive and prosper worldwide, look no further: Campware’s aim is to produce the best software tools for news media battling government oppression and media-conglomerate dominance. This is arguably one of the most important causes around because many opinions, views, and assumptions are created by the media. Only by having a diverse set of views can we have hope to have an open society.

As Campware software-development projects are largely funded through project grants, we can’t afford to keep large development teams on long-term contracts. We also can’t afford to pay for the period spent getting acquainted with our applications (though our handful of core developers will gladly provide a helping hand). At times, however, urgent and exciting projects come our way, bringing in a sudden flood of funding. At these times we need to bring in people quickly to implement new features, and if we know who you are and know you do good work, we will ask you if you’d like to be hired for the project.

HOWTO Earn Good Karma Points:

  1. Choose an area that interests you:
    1. Software Development – if you like to code in PHP, C++, or Python.
    2. Testing – we can never have too many people poking at our applications and trying to use them to their fullest potential, or trying to break them.
    3. Translation – if you know a language other than English, you can help translate the applications
    4. Documentation – help improve the manuals with screenshots, tips and tricks, and HOWTO recipes
    5. Support – if you become good at using the applications, you can help other users on the mailing lists (most of the time you dont need to be a developer to help people with this sort of thing)
    6. Graphic design & Usability – if you are an artist or graphic designer, even an amateur one, we desperately need your help! We need icons and graphics for both the applications and our web site. We also need help to improve the interfaces and improve the workflow, as well as make things easier to use.
  2. Get involved
    1. Get acquainted with the application(s) you are interested in (and if you are a developer, the code as well)
    2. Ask one of our core developers (contact at campware dot org) to assign you one of the outstanding Campsite or Campcaster tasks. Or suggest contributing something of your own.
    3. Participate with the team in accomplishing your goal. Over time we will see the good work you are doing and everyone will get to know each other.
    4. After we’ve seen your success and good work, we will ask you to help us and pay you whenever a project comes up that needs some extra hands.

For Volunteer Developers
Campware has three projects that volunteers can participate in: Campsite, a web publishing system for news organizations; Campcaster, radio management software that provides both live studio capabilities as well as remote automation; and Cream, a customer relationship management system for media organizations.

Mentors
When you join our team as a volunteer developer, you will get a mentor to help you out. For more details write to contact at campware dot org.

Campsite – Beginning Projects
The following is a list of projects you could take on to get your feet wet with the Campsite code base. These are designed so you will have quick success and create something useful for Campsite users. Almost all Campsite projects use PHP and MySQL. Any additional tech is listed in the project description.
  • A new menu on the main menu: “Most recently viewed”, so that it is easy to get back to an article you were just working on (this could later be expanded to include ANYTHING the user was just working on, not just articles).  https://www.campware.org/campsite/ticket/1110)
  • We have the ability to attach files to an article – but it would be really nice to show the user the progress of the file upload, how much has already been uploaded and estimate the remaining time. This is really useful if you have a big file to upload. (https://www.campware.org/campsite/ticket/1811)
  • Add ability to reset your password from the login screen in the event you forget your password. (https://www.campware.org/campsite/ticket/2240)
  • Campsite lets you create your own “content types” (in Campsite lingo these are called “Article Types”), for example you can define an Article Type named “editorial” with the fields “author”, “picture”, “intro”, “body”. Right now you can have 4 different kinds of fields: single-line text field, multi-line text field with WYSIWYG, date field, and a field where you can select a topic. Someone has requested that we add another field type: “multi-line text field *without* WYSIWYG”.(https://www.campware.org/campsite/ticket/2212)
  • Another one related to the previous one is the ability to limit an Article Type text field to a certain number of characters. (https://www.campware.org/projects/campsite/ticket/2228)
  • Yet another one related to that is the ability to create an “article type field” with a list of enumerated values that will show up as adrop-down menu when you are editing the article. (https://www.campware.org/projects/campsite/ticket/1523)
  • Ability to show the main menu as a text-only menu for those devices (such as mobile devices) that dont support javascript very well. (https://www.campware.org/projects/campsite/ticket/1365)
  • You can categorize articles using Topics. Topics are arranged as a hierarchy (each topic can have subtopics). However, there is currently no way to move a topic in the tree. Once you create a topic it is fixed in place. Someone has requested that we add the ability to move a topic. (https://www.campware.org/projects/campsite/ticket/1900)
Campsite – Advanced Projects
  • Create an XML-RPC interface to allow import/export of articles, subscribers, images, and comments. This task involves working with the PHP XML API.
  • Trackback pings: Add support for trackback pings to articles. For example, when a blogger writes about an article, the article could display a section at the end saying “Who’s blogging this?”.
  • Integrated support for RSS feed publishing – automatic generation of RSS feeds, ability to mark whether an article should be included in the feed, etc.
  • “N-stage” workflow: we would like to move beyond the current article workflow of “New->Submitted->Published” and allow it to be customized and flexible.
  • Integrate Campsite and Campcaster in order to make it easy for radio stations to publish to a web site, as well as to allow listeners increased interactivity with the broadcast. Features such as easy-to-use podcast support, RSS subscription on search terms, and integration between Campsite’s article database and Campcaster’s storage server are included in this area.
  • Add support for R-t-L(right-to-left) languages in the administration interface.
  • Allow the administration interface to be used with small devices & browsers without javascript support.
  • Ability to import articles from Open Office. This task involves working with XML.
  • Ability to import articles from an email.
  • Improved Localization: one-click translation file submission, localization support for everything in Campsite – including external packages like Xinha, refactor code to use standard PEAR classes if possible, use standard file types such as .po or xliff
  • New image features: support for image thumbnails on the frontend so that it is easy for the template designer to make it so that the user can click on a thumbnail and see the large version; and the ability to upload the thumbnail for an image.
  • Better support for static (non-news) pages.

If you like what you’ve read above, you can apply by writing to
contact at campware dot org.