Re: flexfax: Hylafax future

[Davide Bolcioni <davide.bolcioni@aster.it>]

Just my two cents worth, first quoting Robert Colquhoun <rjc@trump.net.au>:
>
>For me the big things that could be done:
>1) Get call batching going - i had a look at doing this but the source code
>gave me a headache and i gave up
Haven't really tried it, but any bug fixing would be good. Not my province
in the near future, however, since the code *has* a distinct personality.
Wish I had a month to study it like when I was at the university.

>2) A good windows client - i like hfaxd but i was thinking a proper network
>printer driver, to write the code you also need to be subscribed to MSDN
>for the Microsoft DDK, i will ask my boss( this  costs A$1000 p.a.)
I would welcome clarifications about this, especially legal issues. If you
own a legimitate Visual C++ 4.0 Student License (includes VC++ about 1.52,
so you have a 16-bit compiler and includes) and you find some sample
printer driver code off the Internet, is it within your rights to:
(a) tweak the sample code (giving full credits to the original author);
(b) compile it into a .drv driver (you do not really need the DDK if you do
some #include tweaking);
(c) distribute the .drv and some installation instructions (no clue as to
how the .drv gets installed);
(d) place it under GPL.

>3)A port to NT - Recently cygnus have released some librarys to make NT
>machine look like a unix machine, i imagine this would greatly speed up a
>port of the code
Do they also prevent NT from crashing on its own now and then with a Blue
Screen of Death ?

>PS i imagine No 2) and 3) would greatly increase the number of people using
>hylafax
As far as our site goes, the reasons we use hylafax are, more or less in
order: (1) both Mac and PC clients are supported; (2) source is available;
(3) runs on Linux; (4) very configurable.

>PPS i imagine No 3) is going to cause a few flames

Next in my list (I would really like to dive into the code someday) would be:
- address stuff in Sam's TODO list as of 4.0pl1, you get known bugs ironed
out before adding features;
- abstract modem support into a library so that code can be shared with
other good programs such as mgetty (hairy stuff on multiple platforms, but
this is what dreams are made of) and support for silly Winmodems can be
added once for all;
- let hylafax and mgetty know and understand each other much better;
- look up how Hyla fax could move towards Internet faxing (beyond TCP/IP to
remote server, I mean
server to server, I do not think Internet faxing goes in the clients).

Do not expect anything of the above out of me anytime soon, I am studying
the Windows 95 printer driver stuff in my spare time and it is nightmarish.
I found no NT sample code, so that is not even
considered yet. I believe Windows 95 drivers, even using UNIDRV.DLL, do not
work as binaries under NT.

Davide Bolcioni

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