PAF on Linux (or alternatives)

[cshields]

It is The Church's intent to create an Open Source project for a desktop genealogy record manager that is compatible with the New FamilySearch. We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world.

Wow.. I am excited that the Church is embracing the OSS model for this! I was just explaining to a family member the difficulty of switching to Mac when they do so much geneology, but mentioned other OSS projects that might work (or the hope that a future PAF would port back to Mac once again). Doing it open source is even better. I imagine contributions from members who dive into the code could prove very beneficial.

I'll keep my eye on the forums and help out where I can..

Cheers!

[clarkkent93-p40]

Sure there is. See http://www.macgenealogy.org/

Thanks for the URL but I noticed there hasn't been much activity over at this site. I'm seriously thinking of switching from Windows to Mac and need good intel on genealogy programs for the Mac.

Again, thanks for your help.

Bernard

[rmrichesjr]

Thanks for the URL but I noticed there hasn't been much activity over at this site. I'm seriously thinking of switching from Windows to Mac and need good intel on genealogy programs for the Mac.

Again, thanks for your help.

Bernard

There's a chance PAF would (or some time soon will) work using Wine. The FAQ entry for Wine on the so-called MacIntel machines is at

http://www.winehq.org/site/docs/wine-fa ... N-MACINTEL

, and the Wine AppDB page for PAF under Wine is at

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=1706

I use Linux myself, and I'm not acquainted with how well Wine might currently work on Intel-based Macintosh machines. The best way to get it so it will work is to try it and file bug reports if/when it fails.

[tomj]

It's my belief that Paf Should be made Web-based, Companies such as Apple and Microsoft are always making changes to their OS's. I'm not sure, but does PAF work on the new windows vista? The best way I think to build it is on a web platform based on the standards that the W3C adopt. This way Mac users, Windows Users and Linux Users all have an equal oportunity to do there Geneology. This would also make the Family History classes work better on sundays.

Making it web-based makes a lot of sense because you can get multiple family members working on the pedigree at the same time. Collaboration will improve the accuracy and if someone goes cold, others in the family can pick up the slack.

Perhaps a Sync tool/export tool could be used for a Java client.

The web based collaborative/Web 2.0 approach seems in my opinion to be the most innovative.

I recently tried a web-based Geneology service called Geni http://www.geni.com It is very visual and easy to use, the best feature is that as you build your family tree, etc. you can invite the living Relatives via e-mail to participate as well. My brother started filling in stuff yesterday, and he had information that I didn't have. Not only is it easy to use, free, and useful, but it actually is fun.

I think the church should take a close look at this one. It looks like it's built on Ruby on Rails or AJAX.

Enough of my Ramblings PUT ANOTHER VOTE FOR WEB-BASED.

[rmrichesjr]

It is The Church's intent to create an Open Source project for a desktop genealogy record manager that is compatible with the New FamilySearch. We are now looking for a Lead Engineer on this project. If we do are work right, this should easily be portable to the Linux world.

Gordon Clarke
FamilySearch DevNet Manager

Is this Lead Engineer position a posted job opening? (Last I checked, none of the posted openings appeared obviously relevant.) If it's not a posted opening, where might someone find out about requirements and/or submit an application?

[dlongmore]

My experience with GENi is similar to that which has been mentioned. It is a very intutive and fun interface. Everyone I have invited has been very enthused about it. I am amazed at how fast my family tree has grown. The other site I find to be of equal value is WeRelate.org only for differing reasons. Where GENi is strong WeRelate is equally strong only in a different way. WeRelate is based on MediaWiki and has been customized for family history. It allows you to easily enter documentary and other details about each person. It is also good for entering research related articles and so forth. Now all we need is a way to organize and the store lds ordinance data as relates to a person. I am guessing that is what this Newfamilysearch is all about.

[mkmurray]

Is this Lead Engineer position a posted job opening? (Last I checked, none of the posted openings appeared obviously relevant.) If it's not a posted opening, where might someone find out about requirements and/or submit an application?

This is where I first heard about the posting: Some guy's personal blog

It is dated back to early December. I don't see the posting on the Church current job listings. Perhaps it has been filled?

[rmrichesjr]

Thanks for spotting that, but actually, the article quoting the job posting was dated December of 2005, over a year ago.

[apsmith]

I've used PhpGedView as a Linux/Mac GEDCOM editor - it turns your Gedcom files into a website that you can browse and update very easily, and share with others too. The downside is you need to be able to create a php-based website, so there's a technical hurdle. It's pretty nice - though I switched back to PAF recently because of the stuff PAF Insight can do.

[thedqs]

As a suggestion to those with Mac (Intel) or Linux you can use Apache and the PHP plugin for your web server. The instructions are very easy (especially for this crowd) to follow, I think.