7 Led
2019
7 Led
'19
15:16
Ahoj!
Let me add two cents since I've been maintaining FRED for more than 10 years in
production.
"OSS" in case of FRED means two things IMHO:
A) unlimited access to sources. This is real bottom saver.
I remember issues which were traced and either fixed or bypassed just by having access to
the source
code. (Please remember that the source is the ultimate documentation of the system.)
Despite not being active Python and C++ developer, I was able nail the issue to the very
line. And
even point the line to CZ.NIC along with reproduction scenario. (Which, I think, made
CZ.NIC kind of
happy ;-) )
B) possibility to fork or adapt changes (Did .EE go the most own way?)
However, I'd be very careful with "okay, let's do that". Because while
forking happens only once,
maintaining happens all the time after.
Another aspect, often not seen by small registries at the beginning of their life or
conversion to
FRED is that by speaking FRED's EPP dialect you're supported by a number of
registrars right away.
From my experience, if you meet some registrars at
ICANN/IANA meetings and say "we speak Czech",
they happy, because
"yay, we speak Czech too" (pun intended).
Now, "open source" not necessarily means "free" (=no cost), because
there's nothing like free lunch
or software. There are actual human beings contributing to FRED, maintaining it, fixing,
etc. And
FRED IMHO is way to big to be "two guys after hours small lib" piece of
software. Also, to check
it's performance, you need some users and traffic...
Could this have been more general-audience-oriented? Sure.
I think in many aspects FRED could be less "Czech": could have better separation
from "banking"
(external module maybe?), "docs" (snail mail), could support artifacts for
OS/disto X. There's some
legacy, of course. I don't know who actually pays for FRED on daily basis. (I
don't think this needs
any clarification though.)
Having that said, I find the current model pretty okay. Since February 2008 it works okay,
I don't
remember a single time receiving no help or rude answer.
OTOH never tried to expect something "outrageous" (at least I hope so).
Yes, I remember downloading source tarballs. And building own DEBs. And creating own
systemd config.
(I forgotten about action_xml ;-) )
If you have something working for you, a bug report, patches, experience, please share
with CZ.NIC
(speaking on my own). You get FRED on the Plate, maybe don't ask for side dishes for
your extra taste.
Happy FReDding!
Piotr
On 07/01/2019 14:35, Jaromir Talir wrote:
Hi Jóhann,
the term "open source" hides so many flavors that it would be hard to
make categories where each project fit into. You have mentioned two
extremes - community driven project with equal contribution of parties
on workload together with decision making and on the other hand company
that publishes source code and doesn't care about anything.
The first one is probably dream case which will hardly happen and
mostly depends on capabilities of other parties but we are definitely
not the other extreme. So I'd say we are something in the middle. Since
CZ.NIC is the main contributor, it also decides on development
priorities. This may change when some strong contributor comes in. But
we have implemented requests from other FRED users several times and
even accepted patches.
Hopefully this will answer some of your questions.
Regards,
Jaromir
On Fri, 2019-01-04 at 13:50 +0000, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote:
On 1/4/19 9:27 AM, Jaromir Talir wrote:
_______________________________________________
fred-users mailing list
fred-users(a)lists.nic.cz
https://lists.nic.cz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fred-users
Hi Jóhann,
it's great to hear that ISNIC is evaluating FRED. Feel free to
report
any obstacles, we will do our best to make it right tool for you :)
I'm in no doubt you would but this and reference to ( internal
tracker?
) issues in commit's on github begs the question how much ( if any )
registry ( or the 3r's ) community product fred is and perhaps every
open sourced project coming from the cz.nic development department?
To further explain what I'm getting at is that the general
association
is made when hearing or reading the term ‘open source’ is that the
software project is collaboratively developed and shared freely with
whoever wants to see it (some licenses prohibit commercial use or
abstraction, but in general anybody who wants to can look at the
code
and modify it for their private non-commercial use).
It's an world where anyone can join the developer community and
submit
code and patches and other resources, and contribute to the roadmap
of
that project. Sometimes the new joiner may not have commit access
until
their credentials are proven, but the project is generally community
based and community driven.
In the case of Fred that community would most likely be made up of
the
registry, registrar and registrant, the target audience of such
application or application stack )
The there is the "unenlightened" association in which projects
commonly
generated by universities,institutions, corporate and other entities
in
which they freely share their source code, but they provide no
community
mechanisms for contributing to it or helping guide its direction.
Sure individuals can email in a patch or suggestion, make pull
request
in git(hub) and hope that it gets applied but there is no guarantee
this
will happen.
The only way to get their voice(s) heard is to either know the right
people within the developer team, or to establish a formal
collaboration
between universities,institutions, corporate and other entities so
that
they can co-develop the project together.
Basically the open sourcing of the project is done in the strictest
literal sense of the word, in that the source code is open for anyone
to
see but no more no less which more then often than not leads to fork
offs..
Of the above, which one does Fred fall under?
<snip>
.....
</snip>