[Dspam-devel] Leaving dspam project

[Tom H. <to...@wh...>]

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Hello DSPAM community,

After a few years of being active in the DSPAM community, I've decided
to leave the project. Unlike others who silently stopped responding to
mails and other inquiries, I'm documenting my reasons in the hopes
that it might be of help/interest to others.

When I actively joined the DSPAM project, it was in need of some new
blood that helped out on development and other tasks, after most of
the original participants of the community takeover from Sensory
Networks somehow silently abandoned the project for reasons unknown
(to me).

After being active for a few years, I think I've seen most of the
problems in the DSPAM project, and tried to address a few without
result. The main issues I learned are listed below.

1. No active development
- ------------------------
There is no one working on the DSPAM code. There are numerous bug
reports and feature requests that could be addressed, and some parts
in DSPAM have been ripe for refactoring or rewriting for a long time,
but nobody is putting any effort into it. There is currently only one
developer 'active' within the project, but you rarely see activity
from this person.
The most code changes in the last 2(?) years are from patches
contributed through debian bugreports (thank you, debian maintainer).
The fact that no one within the project is actively working on the
code, creates a sort of chicken-or-egg problem: without existing
activity, no major outside contributions can be expected, since no one
is interested in becoming the new sole responsible developer in the
project.

2. No value seen in making DSPAM more transparent
- -------------------------------------------------
On several occasions I've raised my voice on making DSPAM more usable
to new users, for instance by making error messages more informative,
or adding logging of normal operation (i.e. non-errors) so people get
a better hang of the product. Changes like this don't 'improve' DSPAM
filtering, but the they do make the software easier to use, and its
operation more transparent to new and experienced users.
Finding issues in software is easier when you actually understand what
it's trying to do, which in turn could result in more active users,
more useful bug reports, possible more contributed patches and in the
end maybe even more developers.
Right now DSPAM acts like a sort of black box for anyone not familiar
with the source code, and that discourages investigation of odd
behavior, which could be any of: configuration errors, bugs or missing
(but expected) features.

3. No drive on changing the status quo
- --------------------------------------
The situation that DSPAM is in right now, a sort of dormant or zombie
(not dead but far from alive) status, is not good. It doesn't attract
new users, it doesn't attract new developers, actually it only only
supports existing, experienced users. Nobody in the community, both in
the project maintainers as in the users community, seems to be
interested in changing that.
Based on my observations, that seems that people seem to think that
DSPAM is either feature-complete and bug-free, or they just lack the
motivation/energy/time/whatever to contribute anything.

Because I care about DSPAM, in the years I've active within the
project all of these issues have bothered me multiple times. I've
tried to address stuff that I could address, or tried to raise
awareness for other things. I didn't get much done though.
- From this I can only conclude that DSPAM is a sort of dead project.
Just like I wouldn't like to get myself (or my company, for instance)
depending on a piece of software in this state, I think that nobody
should get the impression that DSPAM is supported by an active
community, when that support actually never goes beyond answering easy
questions on the users mailing list.

Therefore I'm resigning as DSPAM release manager, and will remove
myself as project admin from the sourceforge project. I hope others
will take up responsibility for the work I leave behind (and
unattended tasks listed above, or any tasks I didn't point out), so
maybe DPAM will become an active project in the future.

Kind regards,
	Tom Hendrikx


PS: I tried to address some of the issues listed above (logging of
regular operation, transparent code (including documentation), easier
ways of contribution) outside of the DSPAM code base itself, which
finally resulted in dspam-milter[1]. I'll continue to develop and
support that software, probably until I'll stop using DSPAM myself. If
I would ever abandon the project, proper notice (just like this one)
will be given.

[1] https://github.com/whyscream/dspam-milter
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