[wpkg-users] [Bug 79] Major WPKG enhancements, remote logging, doc, internal restructuring

Wed Nov 7 12:26:28 CET 2007

http://bugzilla.wpkg.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79

--- Comment #18 from Tomasz Chmielewski <mangoo at wpkg.org>  2007-11-07 12:26:21 ---
> OK, so there is no WPKG team. But who is responsible for the releases then? For
> checking in the code to subversion? I guess not just everybody can check in to
> subversion ;-)
> Is it you?

Ooh, it's a long story. We can begin with this link to see the state of WPKG a
couple of years ago:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040508143623/http://wpkg.sourceforge.net/

WPKG project was started by Jerry Haltom. Although he's not the greatest of all
web designers, as you can see by visiting the link above ;) - his idea was
pretty unique at this time.

The only other open source project which was supposed to deploy packages was
adamoto - it looked far more professional than WPKG at that time.
Adamoto had pretty big dependencies (Java, Perl, Tomcat etc.), was badly
documented, and I didn't manage to get it running anyway. Their forum was
pretty dead and it was hard to get an answer.

So, WPKG was the only one left. It was not documented at all (well, almost),
had no mailing list or forum, seemed a bit abandoned, but on the other hand,
was very lightweight and had no dependencies.
I wrote Jerry and he made me a project admin.

I set up a new website (wpkg.org instead of the one based on
sourceforge.net/projects/wpkg), mailing lists etc. Still, not much changed -
many perceived WPKG hard to install, hard to use, not well documented, without
enough functionality etc.

Working full time and without almost any Windows programming experience -
still, I think I would rather want to write wpkg.js in bash or python rather
than JScript ;) - I decided I would place google ads on the website, and from
what's earned, I'll hire a programmer to improve WPKG. I hired a guy who
implemented the "most wanted functionality" in wpkg.js at that time. He was
paid in about 1% by google ads, and 99% from my own pocket. Psst, don't tell my
wife ;)

In the meantime, development of a web interface was started, which was a
disaster when compared to the interface developed by Michael J. Kidd. You can
still find an old web interface here:
http://wpkg.org/files/wpkg-http-23052005.tar.gz

I think bigger and smaller wpkg.js patches started to pour in once the website
was changed to a wiki - more people could comment/correct/add content easily.
"Silent installers" category was certainly a good idea. However, it took me
(read: wasted) some time to put a halt to spambots which used to devastate the
content almost daily (the solution was simple - ConfirmEdit plugin to
MediaWiki).

Another big step was WPKG Client (previously called WPKG Installer) - also
funded from my pocket.

Oh, and there was the WPKG logo, contributed by Eric Le Henaff - a tiny thing,
but help distinguish graphically a bit.

Which brings us to the "WPKG team" again. Of course everyone who contributed to
WPKG project (http://wpkg.org/Contributors) can feel a part of the team. There
are no candies as a reward (but @wpkg.org email accounts are free - email me
privately if somebody wants one).

Some contributors sent patches and I never/rarely heard from them again. Partly
it can be my fault, as I didn't pick up the changes fast enough.
Some are still active (Falko, Frank, Rainer with his big rewrite, few I forgot
to mention).

So, I'd say I am responsible for releases. The only exception was 0.9.11-test1
released by Michael J. Kidd.

Subversion should be used, but is not - this should change.

I'd also like to move the mailing lists to http://lists.wpkg.org soon - I'm not
really satisfied with hosting on sourceforge.net. I had some users complaining
they were kicked off the list / their mail is no longer accepted; I've
personally seen sourceforge.net mailing list do not function at all (server
error/timeout etc.).
Perhaps there is a need for a wpkg-devel list, too, as I feel wpkg-users is
bombarded with "technical" emails from bugzilla lately.

Oh, was it related to bug 79 at all? ;)

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