Loblaw

Loblaw is the codename for a group of software projects under development by the Software Freedom Conservancy and Software Freedom Law Center.

The overall goal of Loblaw is to provide integrated software services for the management and operation of a non-profit organization and a small legal services organization. Various components will be written in order of their need. Of course, many existing free software programs and systems will be integrated.

Components of Loblaw

The general plan for Loblaw is to reuse as many Free Software system and components regularly in use in the community. Never, ever reinvent the wheel.

Therefore, much of what we'll be doing is glue that connects various components to make them work together well. In a few cases, we'll be writing our own systems too. Some early goals are:

• Workflow system for the reimbursement of volunteer expenses
  • Should integrate with LedgerSMB if possible.
• A reusable infrastructure time management and entry system that can be easily integrated to other tools (such as ticketing systems)
  • Specifically, that tool should be integrated with the Trac and RT ticketing systems.
• Basic NPO donor and membership management
  • Should integrate with CiviCRM as much as possible
• Work collaboration using SVN and Trac, tuned via plugins to meet the needs of non-software development
• Various small applications
  • PdfDiff, A semi-generic pdf diffing and merging utility

We've applied for the Google Summer of Code 2008, and GoogleSocProjects has some component proposals listed there.

Development Resources

The DevelopmentMethodologies used for Loblaw are not completely unique, but are a bit new. Basically, since so much work is done as glue between various existing components already available, we keep a running example system that you can download and try out and make sure that unit tests exist for absolutely everything.

IRC Channel

• #loblaw on irc.freenode.net

Mailing List

• loblaw-dev, a mailman list

SVN Repository

• Browse
• Anonymous checkout: http://code.softwarefreedom.org/svn/loblaw
• Authorized (commit access) checkout via svn+ssh

Mercurial Repository (for loblaw-test)

• Browse
• Anonymous checkout: http://code.softwarefreedom.org/hg/
• Authorized (commit access) checkout via svn+ssh

Qemu Test Images

• loblaw.img.bz2
• loblaw-source.img.bz2 (Only needed if you want source for packages that Loblaw does not change nor patch.)
• LoblawTestQemu

Story of the Name

The name Loblaw comes from the name of a character, Bob Loblaw on the television show Arrested Development.

Naming this system originated from the idea that we had at SFLC that a lawyer's workflow can be modeled via a blog. On the television show, they have a running gag about Bob Loblaw's Law Blog, which is a phrase the characters constantly stumble over. The name seemed catchy enough to be used for the entire technological infrastructure we're developing at SFLC and Conservancy.