Re: flexfax: Whose looking after Hylafax?

[darren@hylafax.org]

In message <36F1A81B.6AF1B3C0@cisco.com>, Damian A Ivereigh writes:
>Would the Hylafax maintainer please stand up!

That would be, officially, Matthias.

>Having seen the same question (egcs problem), posted onto the mailing
>list over and over again, when is this going into the release? What
>about all the other patches too (e.g. the tag-line patch)?


I agree with you 100%. And I share your frustration. That's why I registered 
HylaFAX.ORG some time ago now. Fortunately several long-time HylaFAX gurus 
came on-board early, and together we have been able to produce a web site, ftp 
repository and archives which, I feel, are a truly worthwhile service to the 
community.


>We have been on the same official revision (4.0pl2) for at least the
>last 9 months. The www.hylafax.org site has been setup (which is great
>- but where are your names? - I know Robert Colquhoun is one of them),
>but it still just gives a list of patches to apply. Still no new
>release.

There are presently three volunteers making HylaFAX.ORG possible. It runs on 
(mostly) my hardware and internet feed, so I tend to coordinate more than 
anything else . . . as such I'd like to state now that we welcome volunteers 
to the project who feel they might like to create a role for themselves ;-) My 
goal, if it can be accomplished, it to move to an open development model as 
painlessly as possible.

You must appreciate that we sincerely want to do what will be for the overall 
and lasting good of the HylaFAX community. As such, we are treading very 
carefully where it comes to the maintenance of the HylaFAX codebase. Matthias 
Apitz was selected by Sam Leffler to maintain the code, and we owe Matthias a 
great deal of thanks for the distribution you are all using. Ideally we would 
like Matthias to endorse and join, perhaps even lead the code-related side of 
our efforts. But, and I believe (but I am not certain) that I speak for the 
other HylaFAX.ORG volunteers, I feel that we need to move from an exclusive 
closed development model to a MUCH! more open one.

I'm afraid that your post, Damian, has pre-empted the discussions we wanted to 
have with Matthias about "the future". Further exacerbating the situation, 
Matthias is traveling and unable to share with us his thoughts on the matter. 
I think we need to hear from him before anything "official" should/can happen.


>David Woolley must spend half his waking life answering questions on
>the mailing list - he does a sterling effort, but wastes much time
>with the same questions again and again. No new release to permanently
>squash the problems.


We're hoping the archives will alleviate much of this. Kudos to Phil W. for 
some sterling work to bring these to you. Alas, we did not wish to push the 
patches too heavily on the www site because of their "unofficial" nature, and 
also because we have been hoping to obsolete them all with a new release, 
preferably from Matthias, to whom we had intended to submit our work on a new 
patchlevel (Robert is heavily involved in this area).


>Darren Nickerson did a great job putting together the RPM for Hylafax
>- but what does he do? Take the original source and apply all the
>juicy patches to it.


Thanks, that would be me ;-) Yes, the RPM was the early stages in my 
frustration at the lack of a new patchlevel. At least the linux side of things 
would be up to snuff I thought. Alas, that was not enough . . . the rest of 
the community still lagged behind, and so hylafax.org was born. Progress comes 
slowly my friend, we all have other jobs/responsibilities.


>I notice there is flexfax-announce mailing list. It advertises itself
>as "low volume". No kidding, I don't remember anything coming off it -
>except maybe the announcement of the new web site.

Agreed.

>Look guys is this stuff Open Source/Free Software or what? What
>happened to the release early and release often model (aka Bazaar
>model)?


Not traditionally the way HylaFAX has been done, alas.


>My understanding is that Sam Leffler, who originally wrote most of the
>code, no longer had the time or the inclination to continue. It seems
>he nominated Mathias, be he doesn't have the time to do it either - or
>at that is how it appears. This is fine, however he must designate a
>new maintainer. 


Sam no longer works at SGI, and does not intend to participate in HylaFAX 
development in the future. I do not know how Matthias feels about this whole 
thing, he's been a hard man to elicit a response from.


>I see a lot of good, talented & motivated people running around this
>list. I think it is time we moved forward. If not, I think it is time
>we did the unthinkable and forked the code.

We've been working very hard to prevent a code fork. I understand your 
frustration, honestly, but let's be careful to respect the work of people like 
Matthias, and attempt an inclusive approach, wherever possible. It's a dilemma 
we're attempting to work through. A bit more time will help.

>So guys I think it is time for Hylafax 4.1! Take all those patches -
>shove them in there and just shove it up on the Hylafax web site. If
>not, I'm going to put it up on mine. It will create lots of confusion
>and hassle, but if its the only way to start this project moving
>again, it'll be worth it.

This already exists. We'll make it available for testing. Again, you've really 
forced the issue here, perhaps for the greater good, but we're still a bit 
flat-footed on the codebase-maintenance issues.

>Its a testament to the quality of the code, that it is still being
>used despite that lack of maintenance. There is obviosly lots of
>demand for it. Most code left like this would have died long ago.

It's a superb product. I'm committed to it with TPC.INT, the other hat I sometimes wear. And I'm highly motivated to see that it continues to grow. For several months now, unknown to most for the reasons hinted at above, we have been patching up the distribution using a CVS repository . . . it's about time what we confessed, came clean, and opened this up to a lot more people.

I'm busy with personal matters over the weekend, but on Sunday or Monday I'll re-enable the anonymous CVS repository (installed and tested some time ago now), and post instructions on how to access it to check out the current kit. Robert may have more to say on this matter, and has advised me that he will prepare a WWW page with all the details once I sort them out.

I'd like to apologise to you all for the pace at which we've been moving on code-related stuff. I hope you will understand that it is because we are takings thing very seriously indeed, not the converse.

-Darren

PS - darren@hylafax.org = darren@info.tpc.int = tpcadmin@info.tpc.int - SORRY!