DeviceMapProposal

Abstract

Apache DeviceMap is a data repository containing device information, images and other relevant information for all sorts of mobile devices, e.g. smartphones and tablets.

While the focus is initially on that data, APIs will also be created to use and manage it.

Proposal

Apache DeviceMap allows users to access a wide array of technical specifications, images and other artifacts related to mobile devices. Typical mobile devices include smartphones and tablets, such as:

Android devices from multiple vendors
Apple’s iPhone and iPad family of devices
BlackBerry devices
Windows Phone devices from multiple vendors
Symbian devices
Devices with a small marketshare running Bada, Tizen, WebOS etc.

The list of Apache DeviceMap devices remains open to other device types, as the mobile sector is a highly dynamic marketplace and new device forms may surface which may not too well fit into a smartphone / tablet matrix, e.g. ChromeOS Devices.

Repository Data

The exact structure of the repository data will be defined as the project progresses.

At the moment we envision storing user agent strings and/or regular expressions, properties similar to CSS Media Queries, images of the actual devices, other attributes similar to what’s in UAPROF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAProf) for example, per-country market share data, etc.

Modern mobile applications often do not need very detailed device data, so we will concentrate, at least initially, on basic device features as used in html5 websites.

The W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative specs (http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/DDWG/) will also be evaluated for use in DeviceMap.

Background

The initial motivation for Apache DeviceMap is to provide an open repository of mobile device data, available to the general public according to the Apache License.

Rationale

We propose an open and community driven repository containing mobile device data, thereby allowing for analysis of device capabilities and feature sets. This is beneficial on several fronts, be it for software developers, stakeholders/decision makers or analysts.

Initial Goals

Define what form of data is valuable/required to setup a good working repository
Define what image sets are valuable/required
Define a data retention policy, meaning when should data be purged
Collect existing data and setup simple procedures for users to contribute and validate such data.

Current Status

Proposal has been discussed on the Incubator general list, podling has been accepted by the Incubator PMC vote.

Community

This project will form a new community, driven by the initial committers listed below. We hope and feel that Apache DeviceMap will draw interest and its community will broaden.

Known Risks

For device images and other data, we’ll need to define acceptance criteria and traceability rules similar to what Apache uses for code, to avoid any legal issues.

Gathering data of any sort is a potential sensitive area and may require good public communication or even public relation activities.

Initial Source

The OpenDDR.org team will donate their existing source code to the DeviceMap podling.

Initial Committers

Philip Jespersen - philip.jespersen (at) terria (dot) com
Bertrand Delacretaz - bdelacretaz (at) apache (dot) org
Christian Stocker - chregu (at) liip.ch
Scott Wilson - scottbw (at) apache (dot) org
Sylvain Wallez - sylvain (at) apache (dot) org
Andrew Savory - asavory (at) apache (dot) org
Nils Dehl - nils.dehl (at) dkd (dot) de
Brian LeRoux - brian (at) apache (dot) org
Stefano Andreani - s.andreani (at) opentecheng (dot) com
Alessandro Bellucci - a.bellucci (at) opentecheng (dot) com
Werner Keil - werner (at) openddr (dot) org
Tim Fernando - info (at) timfernando (dot) com

Required Resources

Mailing lists

devicemap-dev @ incubator.apache.org
devicemap-commits @ incubator.apache.org
devicemap-private @ incubator.apache.org

Subversion Directory

http://svn.apache.org/repos/incubator/devicemap

Issue Tracking

DMAP project in JIRA.

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