Re: [hylafax-users] New Community site

[Lee Howard <faxguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Terry D. Boldt wrote:

> He says that he is not the only one working his site, but has studiously 
> avoided naming other names (they are just "anonymous"). I cannot think of any 
> reasonable excuse for not doing so since there is nothing illegal in what Lee 
> has done. Maybe there are ethical or moral reasons for the "anonymous" 
> developers not wanting to be named??

Some of them may be subscribed to this list, and as of yet they've 
chosen to not chime-in (or are simply not reading the list).  Most of 
them, however, are not subscribed (but, yes, are still considered 
"contributors" in my book, and probably by most people's definitions).

I'm simply not at liberty to disclose that kind of information.  
Consider, maybe, that I may be under a non-disclosure agreement.  
Consider, maybe, that I simply wish to protect the identity of my 
friends and clientelle... especially from the kind of slander that has 
been directed at me in the last few days.

Consider, if you will, the case of a competitor to iFAX.  How frequently 
do you think that an iFAX competitor will invest time and money in 
developing fixes and features for HylaFAX, or other kinds of 
contributions, and then return them to the community?  It won't happen 
very frequently - if ever.  It would be like them contributing to the 
fund that pays for iFAX's signage.  These kinds of businesses will want 
to remain anonymous.  Consider a vendor or a manufacturer that does not 
want to attract attention to its underlying technology.  It shouldn't be 
all that surprising, either.  iFAX knows of this situation well:

 http://www.ifax.com/content/view/26/66/

Please understand that the following were the issues that I was trying 
to address by doing what I did:

1) I feel like the on-line information and documentation at hylafax.org 
has become outdated and stale, and recently contributing to it as I have 
done in the past has been impeded by the hylafax.org registrar, 
necessitating a move away from hylafax.org

2) some kind of code release needs to happen much, much more frequently 
for code exposure and in order to assist the user community in getting 
fixes and features easily in a more timely manner, this kind of release 
probably would need to not undergo the same "release process" in order 
for the frequency to be as needed

3) I feel like the commercialization of the hylafax.org site is 
inappropriate, and actually is obstructive to the progress of the user 
community in general

So the approach that I took was one that I mistakenly thought would be 
less-intrusive, less-mean to the community at large: to set up a "type 
of a mirror", showcasing an updated (but familiar) website (which is 
licensed and included with the HylaFAX code), and presenting 
publicly-released code (CVS snapshots) in a format that would be more 
easily consumed by people.  This appears to have not gone over very well 
with some people in that they feel it looks "evil" as if I were trying 
to deceive people into believing that they were getting HylaFAX while 
they really weren't getting HylaFAX.  My understanding of the concerns 
were these:

4) some people don't like that the website looks "ripped off"

5) some people don't like me making the CVS snapshots as a "sub-release" 
because that's not how the hylafax.org development team democratically 
intended them (in other words, the README in CVS is to be ignored 
between-releases)

6) some people are sick and tired of seeing political discussion between 
Darren and me

I couldn't agree more with #6.  I don't have a problem recreating the 
website to satisfy #4.  And, I really didn't think that people would 
want to see something closer to a "type of fork" (which is the 
implication behind #5), but I still don't have a problem with satisfying 
#5 by trying to maintain some kind of "advanced HylaFAX" code base 
separate from what currently the democratic choice at hylafax.org is 
claimed to be.  I didn't think that it's what people would have really 
wanted, but that seems to be what people are saying.

Let me give you three examples of what is apparently acceptable to 
public opinion which opinion has indeed surprised me:

 http://www.version-2.com/mailbox_efax.asp
 http://www.datasphir.com/messaging_soft.htm
 http://www.ifax.com/content/view/14/51/

In all three of these cases HylaFAX is rebranded and resold.  In all 
three cases content belonging to the HylaFAX project is "ripped off" and 
used for solicitation purposes to sell their product.  In the last case, 
the rebranding even includes the word "HylaFAX" in the product name 
although it is not HylaFAX (licensing is different, etc).  (By 
comparison, the Sourceforge HylaFAX site *does* provide genuine HylaFAX, 
and this apparently is not pallatable by some.)

As I felt like these three things were not as friendly as I would have 
liked, I wanted to do something "more friendly" by using the "like a 
mirror" approach - but not taxing the resources of hylafax.org for 
support in that I foresaw that Darren would take issue with what I was 
doing.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm going to re-do some 
things (I expect with the help of others) which I believe will address 
my concerns and the three complaints that I've received about my first 
approach.  More details should be forthcoming next week or so.

So I'm asking that, for the time being, could we please just drop this 
topic until I can regroup?

Thanks,

Lee.


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