[Ids-devel] IDS Status

[Ashley M. K. <as...@pc...>]

    ...or lack thereof.

    Hello folks, and a (belated) Merry Christmas to you all.  As many of 
you noticed, I've been off the face of the planet for several months. 
 With after finding out I needed surgery on my wrists/hands and all, it 
became a serious matter for me not to stay around keyboards for very 
long periods of time.  Well, I'm back.  Not full force, and certainly 
not to start fending off everything thrown at me.  So, a few things are 
in order here:

    - IDS 0.8x Development has been put on hold since several months ago 
(in fact, it's been frozen on my end).  I managed to help a few souls 
out individually with the search problem (I forgot a \  (back slash) 
somewhere in the code), but that was the extend of what I did.
    - IDS 2.x has also been put on hold and I'll be very surprised if I 
can even pick up where I last left off.
    - A HUGE Thank You to everyone who managed to help others in my absence.
    - An even bigger Thank You goes out to Piet Barber for creating RPMs 
for Red Hat 8.0, although I would like to see that back ported to Red 
Hat 7.3 as well since that platform is still widely used.

    A couple of things are on my plate right now, but I'd like to gather 
up some volunteers:

    - Source Forge CVS - read below though  [1]
    - Multi Platform porting (we can use SF's compile farm for that)
    - A redesign of the IDS web page, adding Piet's RPMs to the list of 
files.  (Piet, if you send me your files, I can upload them to SF, or if 
you'd like to volunteer, I will give you access to our site.)
    - Forward thinking / brainstorming of the current code
    - Forward thinking / brainstorming for the 2.x code (which was to be 
built for mod_perl - however I'm leaving this open for debate)
    - A total rewrite is in order for v2.x anyway, so whether we use 
mod_perl, or something else, this is the time to speak up.
    - Multi user (this is a finicky situation)  [2]
    - Modular coding: my idea here is to allow others to be able to 
create additional modules for IDS (file formats, online services hooks - 
such as ShutterFly)
    - Someone once sent me an email a long time ago, asking we we don't 
create our own ordering system, for online delivery of copyrighted 
materials.  This would imply creating something with an online account 
transaction merchant (a credit card service).  So we could create 
different modules to work with that, say one for PayPal, one for 
Authorize.NET, VeriSign, etc., etc.  I don't want this to be part of the 
mainstream program, but more of an addition.
    - An online card system (eCards)
    - There are so many ideas that I've received...I want to brainstorm.

    Then there was today's question regarding ShutterFly - as far as I 
know, no one is getting a kickback.  But that's also mainly because it 
was never considered to be a real option.  I mean, how many of you 
really use ShutterFly?

    [1]  Regarding the CVS.  Seeing that I have the last release here, 
and don't have many of the improvements/additions that many of you have 
added over the course of the past months, I want to update my sources 
first before uploading to CVS.  So, send in your patches please.

    [2] Over the course of time I've heard several people have something 
to say about multi-user capability.  For the most part, people like to 
keep IDS the way it is, single user.  Retain it's "personal" touch. 
 Then there are others who would love to be able to roll it out as a 
multi-user application.  Again, this part breaks down into two sides: 
those who wish to roll it out for an ISP environment (multiple users, 
single logins for each site), and those who wish to have multiple logins 
on one single instance of the application.  The latter leaves the door 
open for one person to have multiple members log in to their site and 
upload/change stuff, where the first one allows for several users to 
have their own album site, all running off of one installation. 
 Frankly, I want to see both capabilities rolled in, with a choice 
during installation.  But, that's me.

    Okay, I've said enough for right now.  Volunteers, please stand up 
and be heard.

-- 
W | I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.
  +--------------------------------------------------------------------
  Ashley M. Kirchner <mailto:as...@pc...>   .   303.442.6410 x130
  IT Director / SysAdmin / WebSmith             .     800.441.3873 x130
  Photo Craft Laboratories, Inc.            .     3550 Arapahoe Ave. #6
  http://www.pcraft.com ..... .  .    .       Boulder, CO 80303, U.S.A.