Development To Do List

This page attempts to lay out all the things we need to implement in MusicBrainz. The features described in this page may or may not be covered in FutureWork -- often times the items that are listed here have been hashed out and designed and are ready for someone to pick up the code and hack the feature into reality. The FutureWork page describes features which still need cohesive thought to become a full fledged design.

If you would like to volunteer for doing some work, contact us via the help wanted page.

MusicBrainz Server To Do Items

Each of the tasks below requires the skills outlined in MusicBrainzServerSetup and may require additional skills outlined below. If you are considering setting up your own MusicBrainz server, please make sure to read the MusicBrainzServerSetup document! The MusicBrainz server is written in Perl using Apache and Mason and runs on Linux. The underlying database is PostgreSQL.

MusicBrainz Noise Moderator Reports

Recently we've discovered the MusicBrainz community includes a few people who are randomly voting on moderations (see 1, 2), without actually considering the content of the moderations. To counteract the work of malicious voters, we need to create some reports that have been proposed in here.

Skills: MusicBrainzServerSetup, SQL and Perl experience

Mirror Server Maintainer

We're currently in the process of creating a network of mirror servers that mirror the core MusicBrainz data and allow MusicBrainz to take on a lot more non-moderating users. (non-moderating users are users who are primarliy tagging their music and are not necessarily geared towards fixing up the database) Each of these mirror machines needs to have someone looking over it making sure it continues to work as expected and fix minor system administration problems as they come along. Also, when the MusicBrainz main server gets updated, the mirror servers will need to have their software updated as well, and the server maintainer needs to keep up with software updates in order to keep the mirror servers in sync with the main server.

Skills: MusicBrainzServerSetup and basic system administration skills

Automatic mirror resolver

Now that MusicBrainz is working on a new mirror network to expand its capacity, we will need to find a way for clients to automatically look up their nearest mirror server. This feature has not been fully designed yet, but it sounds like Geo::IP would be a good starting point.

Skills: MusicBrainzServerSetup, SQL and Perl experience

Editor rating system

The MusicBrainz community has identified the need for an EditorRating system that gives MusicBrainz editors (moderators) credit for their work by assigning each editor a rating. This is similar to how EBay does user ratings. Take a look at the EditorRating page for a discussion on what needs to be done. (I have more detailed notes that give a basic design picture for how to implement this feature -- Ruaok)

Skills: MusicBrainzServerSetup, SQL and Perl experience

Automatic donation tracking system

MusicBrainz receives a number of donations each week and the accounting for these donations is taking more time each week. We need to implement a system that works with PayPal to verify incoming donation and then save them into a database. Donors should automatically receive a thank you note and a tax-deductible donation receipt and be given credit on the web site for their donations.

Skills: MusicBrainzServerSetup, SQL and Perl experience

MusicBrainz Third-party Application Support

We need people to add MusicBrainz support to third party applications like CDex and XMMS. If there are other applications that you think should have MusicBrainz support, please go ahead and hack away -- if MusicBrainz is going to take over the world, we will need to have all kinds of applications using the MusicBrainz service.

Skills needed: Depends on the third party application

CategoryDevelopment