[HN Gopher] LibreFoodPantry - a community building FOSS for food...
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LibreFoodPantry - a community building FOSS for food pantries
Author : jka
Score : 40 points
Date : 2021-05-28 16:51 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (librefoodpantry.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (librefoodpantry.org)
| pipeweed wrote:
| Never mind what the software does from a user perspective, what
| definition does this project use for 'pantry'? Wikipedia agrees
| with my understanding of the term and tells me it's a room for
| storing food etc. And this definition is used in the United
| States too, so it appears not to be some Americanism. But
| LibreFood pantries have guests?
| yosito wrote:
| A pet peeve about projects like this is that the entire website
| talks about the software project, from a developer's perspective,
| and it's basically impossible to find out what the software does
| from a user's perspective.
|
| Ok, so you make software for food pantries. What does that
| software do for me, as a food pantry, and why should I use it?
| How do I get started with it? How do I use it? How do my
| employees or volunteers use it?
|
| This website answers none of those questions. As a food pantry, I
| can't make any sense of this website.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| You're probably about to be massively downvoted.
|
| A lot of people around here have difficulty with the idea of
| communicating what they're doing, and marketing of any level.
| tclancy wrote:
| Yes! I am a developer and someone working with our local food
| pantry and even so I can barely make heads or tails of it and
| it seems to forget the point of the effort early on in the best
| docs I could find (https://librefoodpantry.org/docs/shop-setup)
| because it wanders off into how to set up an issue board, etc
| right away.
|
| I would humbly suggest the best next thing to work on would be
| someone with (copy)writing experience and ideally they would
| talk to end users about how the software has helped them. Too
| often we get consumed with the idea of software for software's
| sake.
| nxc18 wrote:
| This is a common problem, and I saw it during a brief stint
| considering involvement in Code For America; too much emphasis
| on technology and code, not enough emphasis on the
| outcome/objective.
|
| Most of these nonprofits would be better served by low-code
| commercial solutions. That might sound bad, because you have to
| pay, but you also have to pay to host FOSS software, so not so
| much of a difference. The pantry probably needs email, so they
| probably have access to O365 or Gmail already. For more complex
| things, AirTable/SharePoint Lists is often going to be enough,
| if sub-optimal.
|
| Glancing at the code, this appears to be mostly about apps for
| ordering and processing orders:
| https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions
|
| This can usually be achieved pretty well (80% of the need for
| 20% of the effort) with a Google Form + Sheets + light
| automation.
|
| Ultimately these are information management problems, so it is
| best to approach from an IT perspective rather than a CS/SE
| perspective.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The solution, imho, is to run the software for the food
| pantries. You're creating a non profit platform for the
| entities you've decided to serve. YouTube tutorials, one
| click onboarding, the UX and customer experience is where all
| the hard work is at.
|
| If you've succeeded, food pantries are beating down your door
| to use the software and you can objectively demonstrate how
| it's improved the delivery of services to food bank
| customers. Your service is also top of mind when someone
| considers spinning up a food bank or organization with a
| similar use case.
|
| "Uber or Deliveroo for food pantries" as the SV pitch deck
| would be written.
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| You're right, it's almost a satire site. I learn about the code
| of conduct, licensing and team structure, but have no idea what
| they actually do
|
| I eventually found a repo that had an authentication project,
| and presumably I would have found code in one of the other
| folders, but my curiosity was spent.
| OJFord wrote:
| The only thing I learnt is that 'pantry' means something
| different in America.. what we call a 'food bank' (AIUI,
| difference from 'soup kitchen' being handing out ingredients
| rather than hot meals) by the sounds of it?
|
| In the UK a pantry is a small room/large cupboard used for
| cool but not refrigerated storage; so I thought this was
| going to be a sort of 'asset management system' somehow
| specifically good for shelf-stable foodstuffs.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Yes, perhaps that explains why:
|
| > As of yet, no software has been deployed for a client.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It looks like at present, there's codebases here:
| https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions for three
| separate food pantries.
|
| Presumably, the goal of this project is to build a common
| platform that eventually replaces the individual one-off
| solutions that exist today for these three pantries, and are
| useful for more food pantries in the future.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| This isn't a pet peeve, this is a frequent issue with FOSS
| software. Free in theory, useless in practice, because they
| focus too much on technology and not enough on the user of the
| system.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I would go so far as to say this issue is not limited to FOSS
| software, but the tech world in general. There is a gaping
| chasm between the pie-in-the-sky sci-fi dreams being promised
| for the world of tomorrow by the techbros of today and the
| way work actually gets done in 99% of the world. Throwing
| computers at the problem won't help anything.
|
| No offense meant to people who are working on solutions to
| the world's problems, but the optics here are those of a
| problem that doesn't necessarily benefit from the added
| technical overhead of the solution. If I'm understanding the
| linked website correctly it's not a single software package
| but an organization for groups developing their own software
| independently for specific food pantries. Maybe there's some
| kind of intention to collaborate on these projects or combine
| work toward general-purpose pantry management software, but
| it's not clear from the site.
| iseanstevens wrote:
| (Not to pick on this project but) I think if potential volunteer
| developers first immersed themselves in the issue by volunteering
| directly for 10-20 hours at a local food bank, they would have a
| much easier time starting at a working solution (giving people
| food) and then fleshing out the existing/better solution using
| tech going forward. Another aspect could be donating some money
| and then following that money through the food bank system to
| understand how it works. That way the direct efforts would help
| and also make implementing a better solution much more efficient.
| einpoklum wrote:
| It seems the project has adopted a repressive code of conduct,
| allowing for arbitrarily and retroactively defining people's
| behavior as unacceptable, and consequently sanctioning them all
| the way up to expulsion. There seem to be no due process rights
| and such procedures can be conducted secretly based on anonymous
| denunciations.
|
| https://librefoodpantry.org/docs/code-of-conduct/
|
| Now, don't get me wrong - I have no idea whether that actually
| happens or not, since I've only just noticed the project. But
| such a repressive official policy is a bad sign. I doubt it
| deserves the _Libre_ prefix in its project name.
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(page generated 2021-05-28 23:01 UTC)