TetraBB.com Home of Tetra-WebBBS and TetraBB PRO

not only comment you post John, but below try to explain what I'm thinking how we *may* go ahead.

: assuming the license thing gets worked out to everyones
: satisfaction.

From what Darryl and Tarty said I thing this might be sorted out. Let's think about it.

V 5.12 is Darryl's code. He is the only author and would have to release it (including the rights to use the WebBBS tilte) under a free license such as GPL and/or Artistic license.
This must be a first step.

Then Tarty may offer his fully modded version on the same basis to give those still running WebBBS a short term update.
Let's call it 5.5.
This should be released under the same terms, but copyrighted to Darryl and Tarty.

At this point *we* as a group could catch up either on versin 5.12 or 5.5 to do further development, which will probably end up GPL coz we may need modules which are GPL only.

Thus we could start on an existing version and turn it over to version 7.x step by step. See below for details

:

:

:

• Who here (I can't imagine help coming from anywhere else)
  : is willing to grab pieces of code assigned out by a team
  : leader and clean them up?

  I must admit I don't like the wording *team leader*, which is my personal problem though. I'm thinking more about a collaborative approach (see below).
  And I'm thinking about a *maintainer* than a *team leader*

  :

• Who here is willing to volunteer to be a team leader?

  Not me, see above. Plus no time for it, not necessary for collaborative approach.

  Instead I'll describe what I thing a maintainer may do below and I suggest John to do this job.

  :

• If Darryl is not willing to comment or flowchart (how
  : long it been since you heard that term?) the present code
  : who would be willing to do so?

  not me. Reason is, I don't want to touch the existing code very much but turn scripts over to a new version.

  But:
  why not ask Darryl to hand over a copy of this developmental version, which probably is commentet. He always stated he stripped his comments before releases.
  A commented version should do the job.

  :

• Who is willing to learn or already has the skill-set to
  : move WebBBS into the mySql realm?

  Well, I played with WebBBS and MySQL two years ago but never finished due to a lack of time opposed to a lot of work for one person alone.
  I've done some Perl/MySQL stuff (Asset Management System) and a little bit of PostgreSQL stuff.

  But before doing any DB design we'll have to discuss what general features are needed (such as cascading user management syste or session management.

  :

: These are the kind things that will need to be fingered out.

Yes, I fully agree on this.

Now, the following is part two. I hope I'm able to explain my thoughts. Sometimes I tend to lack details

• why developing WebBBS?
  Obviously there are only very few people left and we don't know if anyone will ever use a new version whenever it's ready for use.
  Thus any development we'll do must satisfy ourselves. We're doing for us and for fun. Remember John's remark on hackers and motorcyclists.
  *Fun* and *our own project* is the main thing IMHO.
  [/*]
  
• what do I mean by *collaborative approach*?
  Instead of having a team leader driving the project, let's think of *us* agreeing on two things:
  - the general approach how to proceed
  - some general ToDo list describing major topics such as *templated system*

  Than let everybody pick an items from the ToDo list and let them proceed with it.
  Thus everybody may get involved by doing stuff he/she is able to do and having fun with his/her progress.
  [/*]

• How to turn things over?
  Instead of cleaning up the existing scripts I'd like to suggest the following:

  First let's do the template thing. This would give others the option to work on design and client side scripting without touching the perl code. It will significantly reduce the existing code. Leave the remaining code as it is, no further work here.

  Then turn things over by rewriting the scripts, adding *new-version* scripts (clean and well sorted) but keeping the old ones in place as long as we need code form them.
  Step by step we may turn over things.
  Upside I see in this proceedure is that we may keep a more or less stable developmental version which would be fine for those following the development.
  Downside I see is that we'll have tons of scripts for a short while. But look at mwforum, the number of scripts is uncountable
  [/*]

• what's a maintainer?
  Well, if we devide things into parts, which is Perl code in scripts, HTML and JS code in templates, CSS in css-files. We'll open a door for several people with different skills:
  Perl-coding, JS(DHTML)-coding, designing.
  All this is development.

  We'll need some sort of infrastucture we all are able to access via net.
  Server (M$ and *nix) with Perl, modules, Webserver, MySQL and stuff.
  Data must be saved regularly.
  Downloads (regularly builds) need to be packed (automatically) and provided for interested people.
  Someone must check if promised *ToDo's* are done by the folks . And a lot of more stuff.
  I think this might be the maintainer, which I suggest John to select. He's probably the one knowing most about servers and stuff thelike and he knows how to keep things running in time.

  We'll need more infrastructure.
  - Developer board for testing
  - repository
  - a website
  - some sort of board where support actually takes place
  - some people willing to test on various platforms using various settings.

  [/*]
  

I'm pretty sure I've forgotten a lot of things.
That's why we should thing of a way to fix all these things somehow. - Editable for all of us though.

Well that's all for the moment. I'd like to request everybody interested to respond here and say what they are willing to do wether mentioned above or not.
Then let's create a ToDo list.

hope you're not all driven away by this post

cu
Rainer