[Paparazzi-devel] Offer from a thankful new user

[Nathan Aherne]

Hi All,

I am not sure who to offer this to.

As a newbie to Paparazzi I have experienced many issues with using Paparazzi. I 
am not new to Linux and I am not new to coding but I am new to the Paparazzi 
code. The biggest issues I have had with using Paparazzi (which are the same as 
almost every newbie) are documentation and understanding of the Paparazzi 
autopilot. Even adding a Getting Started Section where new people can get 
started would be great. The other things that would have helped me are better 
documentation of the underlying code so I can understand for instance what 
NavSetGroundReferenceHere() does (and all other user callable routines) and 
examples of XML code for flight plans etc. Something that would have helped me 
more was a forum instead of a mailing list to search, because a forum makes 
more logical sense when reading it. Having a forum also allows other newbies to 
help each other.

To summarise - The biggest barriers to newbies is the huge learning curve 
required to get a working Paparazzi system.

I run a technology company in Australia and I would like to offer our hosting 
and skills to get a website setup, forums and a real wiki, for example 
Dekiwiki. If the devs want to take up my offer, please contact me on this email 
address and we can work out the details. Maybe this is not what you want, if 
you have any other ideas on how I can say thanks and help you attract new 
users, I am all ears.

Please don't take the above as criticism of anything. I am offering because if 
you had not offered Paparazzi as a free product, then I would have spent a 
fortune on a Micropilot and been sorely disappointed, so you saved me from 
spending a fortune and being disappointed, but not from being frustrated. I 
believe Paparazzi is the best Autopilot available, but the barriers to entry 
are so high that people are getting scared away from using it and its such a 
terrible travesty when that happens.

Kindest regards,
 
Nathan Aherne
Reddog Technology
Web: www.reddog.com.au
Email: address@hidden
Mob: 0402 555 080