[Bacula-devel] Bacula Status Report

[Kern S. <ke...@si...>]

Hello,

First, I would like to thank all of you who have both on and off the
Bacula lists sent me very kind emails thanking me and encouraging me
in the Bareos affair. 

The main purposes of this email are:

1. Bareos

2. Bacula

3. The Bacula Conference


1. Bareos:

The main purpose of this email is not to discuss Bareos, but rather to tell
you where we are with the Bacula project, and assure you that everything is
going quite well.  I have written a number of blogs about the Bareos
fork with
two or three more to come in the next few weeks at:

http://blog.bacula.org

So if that subject interests you, that is the place to go for information.

2. Bacula:

I know that some of you are worried about the Bacula project and where
it is going. I want to assure that everything is OK, and that we have
quite a number of exciting new features and many other benefits for
the community coming up. They have been long planned (well before Bareos)
and are just now coming to fruition.

Shortly after the last Bacula release in February 2013 (Bacula version
5.2.13), I learned about the Bareos fork.  Out of precaution, I froze the
Bacula community version.  With all that you may have heard, you may
wonder if
I have something against forks.  Though I consider most forks unnecessary
and a duplication of effort, I am not at all against forks, and in fact
since
2010 (or even earlier) there are several forks of Bacula, all of which have
their place.  This is not the case with Bareos, because I believe that
removing author accreditations and taking and distributing proprietary
software
without approval is not acceptable, and even more so in the open
source world.  In addition, beginning a fork with an aggressive and abusive
smear campaign against Bacula, Bacula Systems, and myself, only serves
to damage the image of a lot of dedicated people.

On the very positive side of Bacula, the Bareos issues are now clearly
on the
table, so there is no reason to continue with the Bacula code freeze.  Of
course during the freeze, work on Bacula continued so that everything that
would have been in any interim release plus more will be in the next version
which is scheduled for late March of April of this year.

As has historically been the case, in addition to a few recent community
contributions, there will be some significant contributions from Bacula
Systems to the next Bacula version.  Since the Bareos propaganda has
been, to
say the least, extremely misleading concerning past Bacula Systems
contributions to the community, please see the following link for the "true"
list of contributions to the Bacula project which is easy for anyone to
validate:

http://blog.bacula.org/review-of-major-contributions-to-bacula-since-2008/

The list of flowback contributions to the community from Bacula Systems for
the next version (March-April) now has twenty three new features, plus a new
product, and that number is growing almost daily so will be even bigger
by the
time the release is made.  I plan to make the official announcement of these
features at the Bacula Conference in Berlin on 21 March 2014.

We also already have a list of four additional major Bacula Enterprise
features that will flow back in to a subsequent Bacula community version
to be
released toward the end of the year.

3. The Bacula Conference

As I mentioned above, the first International Bacula Users and Partners
Conference (http://www.baculaconference.org/) will be held in Berlin on
the 21st of March 2014.  If you have not registered for this Conference,
please do so as seats are filling quickly.  Entrance is free.  You can
register
at the following link:

http://www.baculaconference.org/register/

During the Conference, I will present Bacula roadmap and make some
important announcements for our community. If you want to meet me, other
developers and contributors to Bacula as well as hear about Bacula Systems,
this is the place to go.

I am excited about the meeting and will be delighted to meet you in Berlin,
Germany on the 21st of March and have the opportunity to have a chat
with each
and everyone.  Also, there will be a dinner on the 20th the eve of the
conference, offered by Bacula Systems, so don't forget to reserve your seat
when you register for the Conference day.

Looking forward to seeing you in Berlin,


Kern Sibbald