[docs] Added "Goals and Motivations" page #19

docs/source/general/basics.rst

@@ -263,3 +263,9 @@ You might have noticed that the ``templates`` argument is a list; that's because
 it's possible to pass multiple templates that will be added one on top of the
 other to build the resulting *configuration dictionary*, allowing to reduce or
 even eliminate repetitions.
+
+Project goals
+-------------
+
+If you are interested in this topic you can read more about the
+:doc:`Goals and Motivations <./goals>` of this project.

docs/source/general/goals.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+Motivations and Goals
+=====================
+
+In this page we explain the goals of this project and the motivations
+that led us on this path.
+
+Motivations
+-----------
+
+Federico Capoano (`@nemesisdesign <https://twitter.com/nemesisdesign>`_) has written
+in detail the motivations that brought us here in a blog post:
+`netjsonconfig: convert NetJSON to OpenWRT UCI
+<http://nemesisdesign.net/blog/coding/netjsonconfig-convert-netjson-to-openwrt-uci/>`_.
+
+Goals
+-----
+
+The main goal of this library is to replace the configuration generation feature
+that is shipped in `OpenWISP Manager <https://github.com/openwisp/OpenWISP-Manager>`_.
+
+We have learned a lot from *OpenWISP Manager*, one of the most important lessons we learnt
+is that the configuration generation feature must be a library decoupled from web framework
+specific code (eg Rails, Django), this brings many advantages:
+
+ * the project can evolve indipendently from the rest of the OpenWISP modules
+ * easier to use and integrate in other projects
+ * more people can use it and contribute
+ * easier maintainance
+ * easier to document
+
+Another important goal is to build a tool which is **flexible** and **powerful**.
+We do not want to limit our system to OpenWISP Firmware only, we want to be able
+to control vanilla OpenWRT devices or other OpenWRT based devices too.
+
+We did this by starting out with the :doc:`OpenWrt backend <../backends/openwrt>` first,
+only afterwards we built the :doc:`OpenWisp backend <../backends/openwisp>` on top of it.
+
+To summarize, our goals are:
+
+ * build a reusable library to generate router configurations from
+   `NetJSON <http://netjson.org>`_ objects
+ * support the widely used router specific unix/linux distributions
+ * provide good and extensive documentation
+ * keep it simple stupid
+ * avoid complexity unless extremely necessary
+ * provide ways to add custom configuration options easily
+ * provide ways to extend the library
+ * :doc:`encourage contributions <./contributing>`

docs/source/index.rst

@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@ Contents:
    /general/commandline_utility
    /general/running_tests
    /general/contributing
+   /general/goals
 
 
 Indices and tables