In the next couple of days I am planning on uploading the source code for a new project I've been working on for several months. I'm calling this project Open Check In, and what Open Check In does is focus on streamlining the process of checking in children for churches on Sunday during service.
Open Check In is an application built using Django which means that all of those really useful Python plugins are available for use. There are plenty I have used, such as OpenCV, which allows me to use a created QR code that is placed within a user's profile and read during the final check-out sequence. The QR code can be scanned from a phone by a USB web cam which can be initiated by the press of a button on a designated check out screen. In the initial release, Open Check In is going to be licensed using the GPLv3 licence as I want the kinds of restrictions on my source code afforded by a more robust license. In an ideal scenario or discussion I find that I agree quite wholly with Linus Torvalds' opinion as to "I give you source code, you give me your changes and we are even" as can be seen in this video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU However, this space for churches is almost entirely commercialized and I want to have the time and space in order to build a community of users who potentially fall between the cracks of what those offerings can provide, without having to worry that my code is being used in a way that others are profiting off of or potential situations of misuse that I just simply want to avoid. I think the users of Open Check In will fall into two primary categories: 1) Churches who simply cannot afford the recurring cost of a month-to-month subscription 2) Churches who may have offline considerations. To some extent, the vision I have for Open Check In crosses over into the category of an intranet application that is completely disconnected from the wider internet. Do you want a computer in your back room that broadcasts over your on-prem wifi or wired network to one or a few terminals, maybe you have some slick all-in-one touch screens that were donated by a church member, and all of this can be done easily? This is one such example. Just because your church cannot afford a subscription, that doesn't mean you should be forced into doing it manually. Having seen internal corporate intranet sites, I have been thinking of the kinds of things that might be found on a church intranet if a church or all churches had such intranets. Maybe church intranets are a thing and I am just totally oblivious. I do think it's very useful though. I'm thinking that the kinds of things you would see on such an intranet would be the ability to check in children on Sundays, the ability for members to ask for a Prayer from the Pastor, the ability to schedule or track missionaries, canned messages from the Pastor in a quasi-blog type format that may be present on the screen in the main lobby, and many other things could be potential features that you would expect out of a church intranet. These are the things(and perhaps others) that are candidates for future enhancements into Open Check In. Among others goals, Open Check In is not just about the self-contained cost reductions that can be afforded to churches everywhere by embracing this open source technology. Open Check In is also about finding the most abundant and cost effective off-the-shelf components and breaking any such reliance upon proprietary software or hardware solutions so that a church can leave behind paper-based or spreadsheet based or other manual-heavy approaches without the need to be locked in to any one provider. The reality is that a church is a non-profit venture, and I think that there ought to be more non-profit options on the same level. I don't know what all churches need, but I am hoping you will tell me. And so it is said yes, Open Check In has the potential to be deployed and used in the cloud. I have not built it with that functionality in mind so I would recommend for now sticking with the intranet based approach. Wider deployment is a use case that I will one day explore. A couple of notes about the GPLv3 that I would like to throw out because they are in my thoughts. I am relying on quite a lot of other components and plugins that are out of my control, and even large portions of "my code" are quite structured in ways that are beyond my control. Using Django means that in many ways, I have to write my code "the Django way". Which I am perfectly happy with btw, all I want to do is write a really cool piece of software with amazing features and make sure as many churches as possible are using it. But I have in mind that if for any reason I need to re-consider licensing out of respect for this or that plugin or Django, Python or whomever other projects out there are due their respect I will be happy to accommodate. Linus mentions in the video above the "I did something really cool, please use it" BSD license and I might very well explore that later on. Really cool software, that's all I want. Really cool software that's open source and compatible with Linux or any other operating system that achieves one or both of the goals of driving down costs for churches everywhere or streamlining in house functionality. The big corporations are using open source to strictly reign in costs or they are maintaining cost levels while getting many more features. Why can't a church do the same? In the coming months I will produce some really-cool and useful how-to videos exploring how to install Open Check In from scratch on bare computers, multi-seat terminals, touch screen kiosks using Porteus, and several other unique and cool ideas. I also have a Surface tablet that I will explore for potential deployments. Just a bit of a warning, they will probably be structured as tech demos or boring how-tos, so the excitement will be in the final finished product. I really think this will be a fun and useful project and I hope many of you will join me as we expand and grow.
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