LDSTech is dead?

[mevans]

I think another problem is that many active church members with the skills are already so busy serving in their callings (on top of work and raising a family) that finding extra time to contribute may be quite difficult. In the day when the church was rolling out all kinds of technology tools (most of which have now been discontinued), I saw there were some projects to which I might be able to contribute, but I had no time. What I did find was that I could help test some of the tools and provide helpful feedback, as I understand what kind of information a developer needs to fix a problem, such as a reproducible scenario, but that's about all I could find time to do. Right now for me to make any contributions, I'd probably need to be retired or independently wealthy.

I remember a few years back, I thought it could be an interesting option if the church had "technical missions" where full-time missionaries with some pre-mission coding, QA, tech writing, etc. skills could serve a hybrid technical/proselyting mission. For example, they could spend 6 hours during the less productive daytime, Monday through Friday, working at the Riverton office building and then go to their areas in the afternoon / evening for proselyting duties. People could come out of this program with valuable work skills from an internship as well as the spiritual benefit of a regular mission. They might also have a better understanding of the connection that can exist between the spiritual and technical. I wouldn't start such a program with a lot of participants, but the church needs more technical people than the budget permits and this could be a way to help. It would also depend on how many church employees could be mentors, and it seems there aren't too many to begin with, so that might be a problem. But if that got the Notes/Journal feature fixed and kept much-missed tools like Lesson Schedules and Newsletter going (and getting improved), or helped keep Gospel Library for Windows going, it would be a really good thing. You could likely put interns on such projects.

Oh well, it's a thought, but, I'm not the church's CTO/CIO, and it's time to go to my day job

[sbradshaw]

The Church did have LDSTech service missions for a while. I served a 6-month LDSTech mission, 3 or 4 years ago. My name tag had "LDSTech Mission" as a subtitle.

[stevenhaddox]

I'm incredibly late to this thread, but I also am sad to have seen LDSTech fade away over the years. One of my favorite moments of serving the church was the opportunity to take my skills as a Ruby on Rails developer to update the Washington DC's temple visitor's website for their Christmas lights invitation application. Shortly after that I was asked if I'd like to volunteer as an LDSTech missionary, but unfortunately I wasn't eligible at that time. I looked forward to the day when I could, but I believe it had already died off prior to that. It feels like we've taken a massive step backwards in utilizing all of these incredible technological advancements we've made. I believe firmly in the capabilities and contributions of OSS, but it requires there be a steward to own each project that is endorsed for official support, IMHO. That way you can avoid a project that has some success from simply dying off if someone's life gets too busy, they stop believing, etc. All that said, I look forward to seeing what the church can bring about in the future along similar paths of allowing our members to give back with the talents the Lord has blessed us with. I'm confident the spirit of LDSTech won't be benched forever - someday we'll be able to help again when the Lord says the time is right.

[kristaanncook]

It's definitely diminished. I agree with you.

I've been on and following this forum since 2007. I think it lost a lot when full-time Church tech employees no longer helped moderate it. I'd like to see that return.

It's definitely still needed and valuable.

[alniles07]

Hi everyone, I’m new here. I just finished high school and I’m currently serving a full-time proselyting mission. The topic of open-source software for the Church has always interested me, and I’ve wondered why it hasn’t been explored more especially in recent years.

I’ve worked with computers most of my life. I started programming in 4th grade, and over the last six years I’ve contributed to various projects and started a few of my own. I’d love to help with Church-related projects in my spare time. Since beginning my mission, I’ve been sending in feature requests for the PMG app. (Which has been fun to see them take my suggestions) From what I understand, the Church doesn’t have a central product or "vision" manager overseeing all of its technology efforts. It seems like each team is assigned deadlines, finishes one project, and moves quickly to the next. That kind of structure can create a bit of chaos and lead to burnout.

Open source isn’t inherently insecure; in the long run it can actually make software more secure. If it’s implemented correctly, it can be a powerful tool. One idea I’ve had is a Church-run Git server where contributions require a Church account. There are a lot of young people today who are learning advanced tech skills early, and many would be excited to help.

After my mission, I’d love to work for the Church, but I do worry about burnout. A shift toward open-source collaboration would alot take time, but I think it could be really beneficial.

For example, when I was in 11th grade last year, I built a fully functional basic Gospel Library app for WearOS in about three weeks. I’ve noticed that Android tends to receive less attention from the Church, especially compared to the recent improvements on iOS. When I saw my cousin using an Apple Watch with an official Book of Mormon app, I looked for a WearOS version, and when I couldn’t find one, I decided to build one myself.

Anyway, this is my first post. I’m not trying to sound accusatory at all. I just want to help, and I think there are many others who feel the same. If you’d like to check out my WearOS app, I have screenshots and the project is on my GitHub:
https://github.com/allancoding/Gospel-Library-Watch

[rmrichesjr]

Hi everyone, I’m new here. I just finished high school and I’m currently serving a full-time proselyting mission. The topic of open-source software for the Church has always interested me, and I’ve wondered why it hasn’t been explored more especially in recent years.

...

Anyway, this is my first post. I’m not trying to sound accusatory at all. I just want to help, and I think there are many others who feel the same. If you’d like to check out my WearOS app, I have screenshots and the project is on my GitHub:
https://github.com/allancoding/Gospel-Library-Watch

For the record, the Code of Conduct prohibits "Links to Web sites in an effort to promote or generate traffic to Web sites or businesses." However, for projects that are entirely non-commercial, we generally allow one announcement post.

[sbradshaw]

If you’d like to check out my WearOS app, I have screenshots and the project is on my GitHub:
https://github.com/allancoding/Gospel-Library-Watch

Nice work on your WearOS app! I think there's a lot of good that members can do to support the Church and share the gospel outside of official Church projects, but I agree that it would be nice if more of the Church's official projects were open to volunteers. The team that develops the Windows version of Gospel Library is still volunteer-based and is led by a senior missionary, if you have any interest in helping with that, but that's the only one I'm aware of.

[mdigi]

Embarrassingly, it wasn't until I joined this forum that I discovered the Church's apps weren't being developed in an ad-hoc, open-source manner by interested members.

Gratefully, the app quality has improved over the years... but it would be nice to submit features faster.

For me, I'm kind of at a weird place with Windows. I've developed for that platform most of professional career, but I'm really not on board with MSFT's new vision and I find myself basically using Linux exclusively for everything outside of work. I won't be surprised if I end up shifting my development career back into Linux exclusively in the near future.

[alniles07]

mdigi wrote:
> MSFT's new vision and I find myself basically using Linux exclusively for
> everything outside of work. I won't be surprised if I end up shifting my
> development career back into Linux exclusively in the near future.

Yeah, the quality has definitely improved over the years. I really wish they documented some of the APIs, like the Quote of the Day and Scripture of the Day. I ended up reverse engineering the Android app just to figure out how to pull those quotes.

I’d love to develop a Linux version of Gospel Library someday. I’ve been using Arch Linux for the last two years and running Windows in a VM when I need it. I just like the way Linux gives people more control over how things run.

Also, I noticed this forum is running on good old PHP. It would be great to see it updated to a more modern forum platform there are plenty of solid open-source ones out there.

When I get back from my mission, I might have to start up some church open-source projects myself.

[BrianEdwards]

..... I ended up reverse engineering the Android app just to figure out how to pull those quotes.....

Since this has come up again, I'd point anyone following this thread to a previous discussion on the same general topic area. Although the entire conversation contains helpful info, perhaps starting with this post
reverse engineering Church apps
in the "API for Directory Web App" thread, and then reading the many subsequent posts, will help provide additional context and perspective on Church data, API's, and member access. I don't know enough about all these things to be able to offer my own opinion about reverse engineering vs open-source member projects, I leave that to others who can speak with some level of coherence on those topics. Although I expect that some of the information posted in that thread may be out-of-date, I also expect that the same general Church policy remains in place.