flexfax: Sponsored Maintenance (Was tsi problem)

["I. Forbes" <iforbes@zsd.co.za>]

Hello All

I don't have a problem with the current maintainers of hylafax, or 
www.hylafax.org.  However I think there is scope for some more 
intensive maintenance and development of a very good piece of 
software.  

For example, there is/was an issue with an incompatibility of hylafax 
with the latest libtiff libraries.  This has resulted in Hylafax from 
being dropped from the latest release of Debian.  Users with 
Redhat and SUSE distributions have also reported related 
problems.  I have not yet seen anything to indicate that this matter 
has been resolved.

I was wondering if there is a suitably qualified person out there who 
would be prepared to put time into Hylafax on a sponsored basis.  
Perhaps via some mechanism like "Source Xchange" 
http://www.sourcexchange.com/ (although there may be other 
alternatives).

I am sure there are a number of current users (including myself), 
and many potential future users, who would be prepared to pay 
something towards sorting out some of the outstanding items on 
the "buglist" and the "wishlist".  There is no doubt in my mind that 
Hylafax could become a real "Killer Application" if it were just a little 
easier to maintain and use.

Regards

Ian

On 12 Feb 00, at 11:20, David Woolley wrote:

> > ago and again was totally ignored. Seems that there is no people in this
> > list interested in fixing bugs and futher development. "hylafax-devel"
> 
> I think you will find that there is a general trend in free software
> towards the majority of users being only consumers of fixes.  A few
> will diagnose and fix problems that impact them, and even fewer will
> do this altruistically.  Given the relatively small number of serious
> users of Hylafax, and the fact that many have been using it for a
> long time without problems, the number of altruistic fixers is 
> probably ~< 1!
> 
> Support is one of the most expensive items for commercial software
> providers.
> 
> Looks like you may have to volunteer as the person to consolidate fixes,
> although that will still leave a problem with people who want things but
> can't provide them themselves.
> 


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Ian Forbes ZSD
http://www.zsd.co.za
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