The SysCP Future

[Borg]

So I have been floating around SysCP for well over a year now and I'm curious what is going to be going on with it this year as per its development? I haven't received any news letter or anything regarding what will be going on with it and there has also been no forum threads posted to discuss what will be taking place this year. I've tried getting a responce on IRC, but I can't get one. I haven't gotten a newletter update on things neither. Why?

I'm sitting on this template here I started last year waiting to finish it, but what on earth is going on with SysCP people? This is the whole reason I haven't bothered to complete the template for SysCP. I want to contribute something, but seriously it's been a long time since we've had any news at all on SysCP development period. I don't understand what is so difficult about simple communication. I understand people have lives and get busy, but this is just not very excuseable nor acceptable from my perspective. You can't very well help partake in project development or contribute when you have no darn clue what is going on or taking place in the future. I don't really think I'm asking for much here other than a little more communication people. It takes 5 minutes to leave a private message. It takes 10-20 minutes to write an email respectively. There are 365 days in a year. Get the picture?

[Flo]

Hi Borg,

thanks for your post.
It seems like you're expecting something to hear when there's actually not so much to tell.
I've been working on a concept of so called formfields, which are in fact my approach to get around the dead end of growing php-files. I'm storing form definitions in separate files, which only hold arrays, which define that form. A batch of processing methods then builds the form and handles their input. The transition is in a very early stage right now, but could be seen in my branch.

When I entered the world of open source software development, I thought it was meant to be fun, to collaborate and work together. Sadly my experiences with the open source community were mostly disillusioning in the end. What you call "not very excuseable nor acceptable" behaviour in communication is my reaction on all the negative feedback I got for my work and ideas last year.

I admit that my interests have shifted to other areas - but as mentioned, I absolutely stand behind SysCP. The project will continue, and I want you to remember the early days of SysCP:
I never promised anything, I presented results when they were done. I don't like the constraint of having to do what I planned, cause plans can change so quickly.

Flo

By the way: Why bother writing about how little time it takes to write some private message or email, when noone cares to use this to contact me?

[Borg]

Ok well it's good to know SysCP is still being thought of. It is just difficult to try to help out considering the level of communication is so little. Thanks for replying though. At least I know something about what is going on now and now understand the template I spent hours on is not going to fly. What a waste.

[Flo]

This is no waste of time, this is all work in progress. We all participate in open source software, cause it's fun, and you're doing it for your own pleasure. Noone can force you to work for free, and that's what I wanted to stress in my posting. Whenever I'm in the mood and I've got some time, I work on SysCP.

[Borg]

Well, I wish I could see this in the same light as yourself Flo. The point I am trying to stress is there is not enough communication to even know what is definite and what is not. I did enjoy working on the template and it was to create a template I could use and everyone else more so and to also give SysCP a nice look since it looks so drab and depressing with the default templating. That was the whole point of me doing it to start with. I also planned to do several others because again, it is something that I can do to contribute.

Now, as for SysCP being a work in progress I do understand that it is incomplete and in progress, but what I don't understand is the vast lack of communication about what will be taking place so people can make plans and projects based around the upcoming new development. Also, if it is a work in progress, why on earth isn't it called a beta? If it has possible bugs (which SysCP does) or is incomplete, that spells beta, but every release hasn't been labeled as such when everyone knows there are problems within it that have existed for some time! As things are now, how can we develop anything when we know nothing that is going on or to be definite?

I mean Flo, lets be realistic here. In a whole year I got one message about what was going to happen with SysCP and one on the forum and not one anywhere on the bugtracker to acknowlege bugs that have been reported. There is no set stonework for SysCP so how can I enjoy building skins when I have no clue what is going to happen when the next version comes out? Why would I get half or 3/4 of the way through making them and all of a sudden SysCP changes in some manner that destroys the entire skin useability? All that time is wasted on making something that no longer work for whatever reason it may be that SysCP may have/be changed.

Nobody is forcing me to do anything, I know that and I have no problem contributing what I can freely. That is not the problem. My problem is the total lack of communication with what is going on. It takes the fun out of contributing when you have to pull teeth and hair to get people to talk about what is going to happen with a project and that is what I call inactive development or a dead project. Even other developers who have worked on SysCP admit that the project is dead so something must obviously be seriously wrong with the whole development process.

Also, when you say 'Whenever I'm in the mood and I've got some time, I work on SysCP.' do you have any idea how unmotivational that sounds to someone who wants to contribute? To me what you said says, "When I'm bored I work on it if I feel like it." Flo seriously, if you don't have time to work on this project very much, let it go or pass it on to be worked on because quite frankly this is getting everyone nowhere quickly on a 'fart in a wind storm'

communication level. Too when you say, 'Why bother writing about how little time it takes to write some private message or email, when noone cares to use this to contact me?' I don't think it is that difficult to take time to respond on your forum or bugtracker if you can respond to a private message. That is just plain silly Flo and being in university really doesn't excuse not discussing ideas in more length so people can help take the development burden from you, keep current and allow for more future planning. Lack of communication and planning makes projects stale and not fun.

I really wanted to use SysCP, in fact I gave it one hell of a chance twice now and in ten years Flo, nothing has significantly changed because a lot of things are still broken that were broken a very long time ago. I mean ten years in the making you would think a lot more people would be communicating about SysCP, but things are the opposite. I apologize if I've offended you or anyone by saying all of this, but it is how I feel about the project and I would not say something if I didn't see a problem and there are many problems surrounding not only SysCP design, but the project management is flawed.

At any rate I've moved on and won't be developing skins for SysCP. Maybe I'll check back in another ten years and see how things are going.

[monotek]

@ Borg

The old Syscp Devs created a fork of Syscp 1.4.2.1 with many fixes from the old syscp bugtracker.

The project is called Froxlor and is located under http://www.froxlor.org/

There is allready a first release. Froxlor 0.9: http://forum.froxlor.org/index.php?/topic/3-release-froxlor-09/