[isf-wifidog] Re: Roadmap?

Michael Lenczner mlenczner at gmail.com
Mer 18 Mai 13:27:16 EDT 2005


It's a shame that Benoit is not yet back from his trip.  He's been a
lead developper, mostly involved in the auth server, and he groks the
high-level stuff really well.

It would be a shame for IleSansFil if people forked the project right
now, but it sounds like it would be a shame for the rest of the groups
if each one started working on their own as well.  Even if ISF can't
come up with a good long-term roadmap, then the rest of you from other
groups should suggest your own roadmaps so that you could work in
collaboration with the other people interested in using wifidog.  I'm
particularly thinking of people like Matthew Asham talking to Jo and
Saul. I know that Matthew and his group has been thinking of how they
want to use Wifidog for quite some time now.

Frankly, going back to the first sentance, I think Benoit would be a
great person to organize the features/requests of different groups and
could do a great job of seeing where exactly we diverge.  He is a very
good project manager.  If people could wait making any decisionsto
fork the project until he get's back from france that would be cool. 
If not - no hard feelings.  We should have been ready for this.

the rest of the wifidog developpers - what are your opinions on all this?

On 5/18/05, Mina Naguib <webmaster at topfx.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello
> 
> Mina from the IleSansFil camp here.
> 
> I've just had a discussion about your thoughts with Philippe, another 
> IleSansFil hacker.
> 
> As horrible as this sounds, we have no roadmap.  Even worse, I don't 
> think we can have a roadmap.
> 
> The bulk of WiFiDog (client and auth) has been developed.  We've got a 
> small to-do list (throttling/etc), but for the most part, the hacking 
> is done.
> 
> What we're doing now is building the community instead of building the 
> software.  This does entail changing the auth server quite a bit, but 
> it's reflective of the community needs as they arise (profile, now 
> instant messenger, now flickr, now.... etc.).
> 
> We *could* sit down and make a roadmap of the features that are coming, 
> however 1. It will not be complete 2. It will be highly 
> community-centric and 3. It may be highly irrelevant for other groups
> 
> Please keep in mind that IleSansFil has always been about the community 
> and that's where our auth server/portal is headed (starting to show 
> around the waistline too ;)  If a wireless group is heading in a 
> similar direction, bulls-eye. If not, well, that's where we're at right 
> now:)
> 
> The following are my personal opinions and Philippe's.  They are not 
> reflective of the other hackers or IleSansFil as a whole:
> 
> 1. We should re-write the client <--> auth protocol to be cleaner and 
> more extensible.  This entails some modifications to both the client 
> and server.
> 2. We should continue releasing the client, as well as a very clear 
> protocol documentation
> 3. Along with the above, we should release a very light 
> proof-of-concept auth server that demonstrates the use of the protocol 
> from the server perspective (maybe in a couple of different 
> languages/CGI frameworks if we're nice).  We should release it with a 
> pluggable modules architecture and maybe a couple of simple modules.
> 4. We will continue releasing our existing auth server with all it's 
> community-oriented stuff, in case a group has similar goals.  Hopefully 
> we could modularize it a bit to make it lighter.
> 
> If a group has similar goals they'll work with #4, otherwise they'll 
> use #3 as a platform for building the auth server so they can "have it 
> their way".
> 
> Frankly I don't see the need for "the one, the only" definitive auth 
> server to be used with the wifidog client.  As groups develop their 
> needs, features could be shared to other groups as needed (similar to 
> what the *BSD camps do).  The client is dumb and the protocol is 
> simple.  The cleverness is all in the server.
> 
> I'd like to hear comments on the above, especially from IleSansFil 
> volunteers, but also from other users of WiFiDog.
> 
> 
>


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