I have gone through a few electronic flashcards softwares (ProVoc on MacOSX, Mnemosyne on Linux,...).
I encourage your open-source initiative but :
In my view, the strategic point is not so much the software anymore but the flashcard DATABASE. See flashcardexchange.com with their huge database. That's what makes people come! I started studying Chinese with some popular textbook, and they do have the corresponding flashcards.
Unfortunately they are not free (neither as beer, nor as man) : people can freely uplaod and expand their database, but have to pay if they want to download. Which is not really nice...
On the other hand, I see most flashcards softwares (including GNU ones like jMemorize, Granule, Mnemosyne or OpenCards) having just a few examples of flashcard lists on their sites.
Here is the idea I really would like to see in action :
One unique GNU FDL site to allow free flashcards exchange between users. This site would focus primarily on the flashcard DATABASE and not on any particular software. It would have export options to the format of main open-source flashcard softwares, but also simple text files. More and more people use their cell phone or PDA to exercise with flashcards (with plenty of different softwares on the market) so this initiative should allow as wide use of the flashcards as possible.
I don't know if this is the best place to share this idea, I post it on related open-source projects. Maybe you could have some collaboration for this
Have a nice day.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hi,
I have gone through a few electronic flashcards softwares (ProVoc on MacOSX, Mnemosyne on Linux,...).
I encourage your open-source initiative but :
In my view, the strategic point is not so much the software anymore but the flashcard DATABASE. See flashcardexchange.com with their huge database. That's what makes people come! I started studying Chinese with some popular textbook, and they do have the corresponding flashcards.
Unfortunately they are not free (neither as beer, nor as man) : people can freely uplaod and expand their database, but have to pay if they want to download. Which is not really nice...
On the other hand, I see most flashcards softwares (including GNU ones like jMemorize, Granule, Mnemosyne or OpenCards) having just a few examples of flashcard lists on their sites.
Here is the idea I really would like to see in action :
One unique GNU FDL site to allow free flashcards exchange between users. This site would focus primarily on the flashcard DATABASE and not on any particular software. It would have export options to the format of main open-source flashcard softwares, but also simple text files. More and more people use their cell phone or PDA to exercise with flashcards (with plenty of different softwares on the market) so this initiative should allow as wide use of the flashcards as possible.
I don't know if this is the best place to share this idea, I post it on related open-source projects. Maybe you could have some collaboration for this
Have a nice day.